It's The People Stupid!

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Comment by Sybil Presley on June 16, 2010 at 9:46am

Please join my Be Kind To Food Servers Group!
I try to avoid abusing people but I am sure we all get on each other's nerves
sometimes. I created the Be Kind To Food Servers Month.
Congressman Steve Cohen is presenting the Bill to have this special month nationally recognized through Congress.

Comment by FohBoh on August 4, 2009 at 12:01am

Hi!
On behalf of everyone here at FohBoh, we want to thank all of you for taking part in this active, exciting community! Just wanted to drop you a line to let you know that It's The People Stupid! is a featured group today! If you haven’t already, take a moment to write up a new blog post, start a new discussion or invite more friends to join your exciting group. Once again, thanks for participating in the FohBoh community. We look forward to hearing more from you!
Best,
FohBoh Community Development

Comment by Chris Tripoli on March 13, 2009 at 3:51pm

Happy to join in....it is good to see a group dedicated to staff and their related issues. It's a people business after all. Look forward to networking with you.

Comment by Jay Larson on September 8, 2008 at 12:05pm

Hi Everyone!
Need an excuse to head to Vegas?
I work with ChartHouse Learning and we have a unique opportunity for everyone. We are the folks that created the FISH! Philosophy based on the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle and we are premiering FISH! The Musical in Las Vegas on September 25th. The show is free and positioned as entertainment with a message for businesses and organizations. Write back and let me know if you're interested and we'll get you set up with a seat or two. If you know anything about FISH! you know it will be FUN!
Take Care.
Jay Larson
612-805-2249

Comment by Paul Paz on August 16, 2008 at 11:33am

The Waiter Rule: how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character


Hello...

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to serve over a quarter-million dining guests. I have observed so many good and bad human interactions in the process.

Of note, I have watched staff lambasted in front of peers and guests by guests. Worst yet; crucified by co-workers, managers and/or owners with equal mean spirited while “on stage”.

I have also seen occasions where vendors of the restaurant have been dining guests and put on the worst behavior.

These awful public displays send a message to guests and staff alike: why would anyone work here or buy their products and services if they treat the service-sales staff with such cruel disrespect!

Below is an excerpt from a USA Today article including appropriate links for the complete article.

People will pay attention to what we say. However, they will remember forever what we do as that is what we truly mean.

Paul


CEOs say how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about characterBy Del Jones, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2006-04-14-ceos-waiter-rule_x.htm

Office Depot CEO Steve Odland remembers like it was yesterday working in an upscale French restaurant in Denver.

The purple sorbet in cut glass he was serving tumbled onto the expensive white gown of an obviously rich and important woman. "I watched in slow motion ruining her dress for the evening," Odland says. "I thought I would be shot on sight."

Thirty years have passed, but Odland can't get the stain out of his mind, nor the woman's kind reaction. She was startled, regained composure and, in a reassuring voice, told the teenage Odland, "It's OK. It wasn't your fault." When she left the restaurant, she also left the future Fortune 500 CEO with a life lesson: You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she treats the waiter.

Odland isn't the only CEO to have made this discovery. Rather, it seems to be one of those rare laws of the land that every CEO learns on the way up. It's hard to get a dozen CEOs to agree about anything, but all interviewed agree with the Waiter Rule.

They acknowledge that CEOs live in a Lake Wobegon world where every dinner or lunch partner is above average in their deference. How others treat the CEO says nothing, they say. But how others treat the waiter is like a magical window into the soul.

And beware of anyone who pulls out the power card to say something like, "I could buy this place and fire you," or "I know the owner and I could have you fired." Those who say such things have revealed more about their character than about their wealth and power.

Whoever came up with the waiter observation "is bang spot on," says BMW North America President Tom Purves, a native of Scotland, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, who lives in New York City with his Norwegian wife, Hilde, and works for a German company. That makes him qualified to speak on different cultures, and he says the waiter theory is true everywhere.

The CEO who came up with it, or at least first wrote it down, is Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson. He wrote a booklet of 33 short leadership observations called Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management. Raytheon has given away 250,000 of the books.

Among those 33 rules is only one that Swanson says never fails: "A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person."

Swanson says he first noticed this in the 1970s when he was eating with a man who became "absolutely obnoxious" to a waiter because the restaurant did not stock a particular wine.

"Watch out for people who have a situational value system, who can turn the charm on and off depending on the status of the person they are interacting with," Swanson writes. "Be especially wary of those who are rude to people perceived to be in subordinate roles."

The Waiter Rule also applies to the way people treat hotel maids, mailroom clerks, bellmen and security guards. Au Bon Pain co-founder Ron Shaich, now CEO of Panera Bread, says he was interviewing a candidate for general counsel in St. Louis. She was "sweet" to Shaich but turned "amazingly rude" to someone cleaning the tables, Shaich says. She didn't get the job.

Comment by Debra Straka on July 11, 2008 at 9:38am

Wow!! Some very great ideas here for placing value on your company's greatest assets. I have had the honor to be able to use many of these. Thank you for giving us all some new and fresh approaches for employee retention.