Training Articles

As a trainer in the restaurant industry, I am expected to be an expert on a wide variety of topics and skillsets. On any given day, I could spend time working with our managers and employees on leadership principles, communication skills, recruiting, hiring, service, portioning, inventory control, cash control, delegation of tasks, and on and on.

At the Miami Conference, I shared my passion for ending childhood hunger as part of my CHART Talks session. Given the fact that 40% of all food goes to waste and 20% of US kids live in poverty, we as a 13 million dollar industry should 'own' hunger. Employees want to work at businesses where they can feel good.

“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.” – Peter Drucker This power statement by Peter Drucker, considered the father of modern management, is not only true for individuals, but also true for organizations such as CHART. CHART is excited to partner with TDn2K, to conduct the 2014 Trends in Hospitality Training and Development study.

Does your hotel or restaurant provide diversity training? Why not? Perhaps you did at one time, but the dropped it during the recession as a cost-saving measure. Perhaps you feel it might be necessary someday, but only after Congress passes a new immigration law. Or perhaps you haven’t even considered it because you don’t think you have a diversity problem in your workplace or don’t see how this type of training could possibly help.

The beginning of a new year is often when hotel managers, fresh off the holiday hamster wheel, take the time to hunker down and create exciting new programs to teach our teams. For most of us, at some point in the development process, we open our presentation software of choice and begin to assemble dozens of slides with articulate bullet points and a motivational quote thrown in for good measure. There is no question that hotel managers and trainers know their way around PowerPoint, but in this new world and in a new year, maybe it’s time to take a new approach.

What chain restaurants execute daily is just this side of miraculous when you think about it. It’s an enormously complex feat to sell cheeseburgers, pizzas, tacos, burritos, chicken dishes or fish sandwiches with a uniform shape, weight, flavor, temperature, ingredient consistency and safety to tens of millions of different diners with clear-cut expectations, every single day.

At our recent T3 Conference in Colorado Springs, I became the first CHART member to complete all twelve of our training competency workshops. I was very happy and proud of achieving this professional objective, and I was also very appreciative of the immense amount of time, care, and effort that went into developing the program and creating the incredible content delivered in those sessions.

At the Miami Conference, I shared (in less than 9 minutes), the important role that the General Manager plays in the success of your organizations. It's critical thus that he/she is given the proper tools and that training is addressed. In our research, we identified specific under-developed competencies which are key in ensuring that the General Manager has the skills needed to be a successful leader.

I am humbled and honored to be chosen as one of the 40 Under 40 Rising Stars in the Restaurant Industy by FSR Magazine. The entire list/article appears in their March 2014 issue and can be viewed at: www.fsrmagazine.com/chef-interview/40-under-40

I was talking to a coworker last week who said she wanted a cool accent like mine as everyone remembers the trainer with the accent. I was musing about this to my wife later that night who said, “They don’t remember you because of your accent, they remember you because you make them laugh”. I asked her to elaborate and she reminded me that the first time we met was in a meeting room with 45 people seated around a large table, but when it came time for my turn, I had the whole room laughing within about 30 seconds and that was the reason that she first decided to talk to me, because I was funny!

When you work with other people, it's guaranteed there will be times when you don't agree with something someone does or says. There will be times when you have the urge to address an individual and communicate your concerns. But for some reason, people avoid having these difficult conversations.

Recently, I invited FranklinCovey to The BROADMOOR to facilitate a workshop titled Leadership: Great Leaders, Great Teams, Great Results. During this workshop managers learned about four Imperatives of Great Leaders: