I watched my first episode of Gordon Ramsay’s ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ that I found very interesting, and I think you will to.
In this episode originally aired in 2006, Ramsay is charged with turning around the Sandgate Hotel’s contemporary restaurants which are destined to go under because the restaurant’s head chef, cooks, servers, managers, and hotel owners and not on the same page.
If you read my recent post, “How Hotel Owners And GMs Can Change The Top 10 Reasons Why Hotels Underperform” Part I and Part II, you have an inkling where I am going with this.
Ramsay, wearing his troubleshooter’s hat, makes his way from the front to the back of the house sampling menu items, observing servers in action, talking with the restaurant’s manager and eventually on to the kitchen where he questions the quality of food that was prepared by the head chef.
His assessment is not good (duh) so he parades the restaurant’s staff and the hotel’s owners to the beach in order to participate in an exercise that I call ‘Stones in the Bucket’.
Here’s how it works.
Everyone was given a plastic sand pail and each one of the staff were asked to drop a stone in the pail of who he/she thought was responsible for the problems facing the restaurants.
One by one stones were placed in an individual’s pail and in the end the majority of stones were distributed among the chef’s pail, the restaurant manager’s pail, and the owner’s pail signifying that there was a disconnect that started with ownership and trickled down through those who were ultimately responsible for delivering food and service to their guests.
If you had the opportunity to participate in this type of exercise, would the outcome be similar or would the stones end up in one person’s pail?
Tell me why.
Tom Costello is the CEO and Managing Director of iGroupAdvisors, a performance improvement consulting firm that specializes in the hospitality and travel verticals. Connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+, or contact him by email. Request a complimentary copy of his new book “Prepare for Liftoff.
I have never officially participated in such an activity but have certainly heard it being done symbolically when a troublesome group is in house! I work at a 4 Diamond Property in Maine and we often get high maintenance groups in house and when their requests get out of hand – the stones start getting passed. This is an interesting post.
I also would be curious to know where most of our employees would place the stones – my guess, on the DOS for booking a large “high maintenance” group. The DOS would place it on the Banquets Mgr. for not knowing how to handle it. I guess I would place it on no one…but just encourage them to understand we are in the hospitality industry…not the stone passing industry.
Thanks for sharing.
Great comment David. In the end it’s not about who has the stones in their bucket, it’s recognizing that there is a problem and then designing and implementing solutions that solve the problem so it is less likely to occur in the future.
Having been in the organizatonal development field for many years, we have similair activities for leadership development programs. HOWEVER, the goal has nothing to do with finger point and blaming, as this is typically what creates the dissention in the first place!! The goal is to create awareness that (typically) not one single person put the proverbial stone in their own bucket. Accountability, responsibility, leadership, purpose, alingment. Whatever it is that is missing is not something that is “told and preached,” it is something that is rolemodeled. When individuals learn to take responsibility and leadership first for themselves….then they are far more ready, willing and able to work together as a team. From the frotn line server to the owner, each person is accountable to their role in the success of the organization. What am I doing today that is contributing? What am I NOT doing?
Cora thanks for your comment.
It is critical that those who are at the helm of their company or organization have the skill set and a structured and ‘tested’ game plan that helps to guide their internal stakeholders. In my core business, hoteliers often fall short and under achieve because they fail to recognize the gap between a misguided strategy and operational reality.