Real-life mentoring lights way for future leaders

Nation's Restaurant News, July 28, 2003 by Ron Yudd

Those of us who have spent much of our working lives in the restaurant industry stand at the crossroads of a unique opportunity.

Never before has our industry received such media focus and attention. Food channels abound, educational opportunities are everywhere, and finally it's "totally cool" to work in a restaurant.

For those of us who have loved every minute of working in restaurants and hotels, we have a window of opportunity to take our industry to the next level. We can work genuinely to become the employer of choice, or we simply can decide to continue to be a stepping-stone to other careers. We have an opportunity to create and develop future leaders and at the same time ensure lasting profitability in our operations. It turns out that it's not about attracting young people to join us in this business - it's all about keeping them. It's all about the job we have to do once we've got them.

It is interesting to me that there are always several restaurants within communities that never seem to have recruiting or retention problems. They also seem to have been around forever and are a large part of the local scene. Those restaurants come in all shapes and sizes, from fine dining to quick-serve. If you study them and take a close look at how they are run, you'll notice one very special common denominator: There is a "real-life mentor" at the center of everything.

That person may be the owner, the manager, the chef, the floor captain or the salad person. Those people may be found at all levels of the operation. They may have different jobs and come from different backgrounds, but each in their own unique way is focused on helping others succeed. They mentor their employees and associates -- teaching them the fundamental skills of the job while providing guidance, advice and encouragement. They create an atmosphere where others can learn and grow. They make it fun to come to work, because they coach, they care and they celebrate the victories of those they lead. People want to stick around when they get that type of genuine care and concern. Others want to come and get the same.

Mentor Equation: Running an operation where people can learn and receive genuine guidance equals effective recruiting, retention and lasting profitability.

The key to retaining the best and brightest and attracting others is focusing on developing real-life mentors at all levels of an operation. Real-life mentors teach reality - they teach the things an associate will need to succeed in real life. They teach the fundamentals required by the particular job, they offer advice on learning new skills, they talk about career opportunities and they remind others about what it takes to be successful.

Real-life mentors are those who hold the flashlight so others can see the path. By creating and developing nurturing mentors within our operations, we create more effective supervisors, better managers and more potential leaders. People feel good about themselves when they see how their unique experiences and their knowledge of the job can help someone else who is coming up the ladder behind them.

Creating a real-life mentoring process in your operation and growing it throughout the industry starts with five basic steps.

Step 1: Seek out those in the operation who have the potential to become real-life mentors. Those are the people who enjoy sharing with others. They have mastered their particular job and bring other unique gifts and talents to the workplace. They are the people who always have thought it was "cool" to work in the industry. They enjoy what they do and see themselves as being part of a bigger picture -- the bigger picture being the service industry.

Step 2: Identify the core competencies for success in a particular job and then within the company and then within the industry. What does success really look like? Those are the fundamentals that the real-life mentors teach. First, it may be teaching the fundamentals of how to set up the salad bar or greet the guest tableside, but it develops into teaching the real-life competencies of how to present oneself, communicate, get along with others, explore new skills and develop a career path.

The core competencies have to be a mix of job-skill fundamentals coupled with the tools for individual growth and success. Real-life mentors teach the fundamentals first and then provide help with the issues of networking, joining professional organizations and career coaching.

Step 3: Identify the core values of your business and your core values as the leader of that operation. What is important to the overall success of the business? Is it cleanliness, service, product quality, being involved in the community, treating each other with respect, or promoting an operation where people are encouraged to think for themselves?

Build those values into both your regular training programs and what your real-life mentors talk about as they work with new employees.

Step 4: Invest real money into your mentors. Maybe they start off as tutors, then graduate to coaches and then become full-fledged mentors. But give them higher wages for their time and respect for what they give to others.