"Keep Score": By Restaurant Expert Witness - Howard Cannon
Whether we are talking about pee-wee league soccer or the sales and profits of any restaurant business, the worst performances come from the teams that don't keep score.
It's as simple as this: If you don't keep score, your performance and growth and the performance and growth of your team will suffer, whether it is a game of basketball, a spelling test, a sales contest, or your restaurant struggling to control costs and increasing profits.
The reality is that in our competitive society people like to be challenged, and they like the process of striving for and competing for the best results. Not everybody gets it. Some people just don't understand the value of keeping score.
I remember the idea of "not keeping score" was being toyed with when I was a kid. However, by the time I had kids of my own, scorekeeping was completely factored out of youth sports. That was the pee-wee league's sports philosophy in Vancouver, Washington. One of my kids was on a soccer team. I was watching a game and yelling out the score, "It's 3-2! Come on, you can win this." I was cheering-on my child's team, acknowledging what they had already accomplished and trying to spur them on to do more. The people around me didn't like it. My wife shot me a dirty look.
What I was seeing was this gaggle of kids running in all different directions and not putting a whole lot of effort into what they were doing. There was no focus. I knew that if the team had direction, if they had known what the score was, then they would have known that they needed to fine tune their performance. They would have realized how crucial it was to get the soccer ball to the goal. The talent level was there, but the performance wasn't. Why? Because the talent was uninspired, left without a compass; they weren't allowed to know what the score was.
If you want to see performance increase in any endeavor, keep score. The concept of keeping score applies to business, as well. In fact, you can't run a business at peak without keeping score. When I walk into a restaurant as a consultant, I want to be able to walk back into the kitchen and see the business's "scoreboard". I want to see a board that's got food costs, a board that's got labor costs, a board that's got customer complaints, a board that has sales, and a board with profits. That scoreboard should be visible to everybody who works in that establishment. A lot of owners haven't liked that idea. They have bucked it, because keeping score makes them uncomfortable. I've heard, "Well, I don't want my employees to know how well we're doing" and the opposite, "I don't want the staff to see how poorly we're doing."
Your employees won't be able to deliver their best performance if they don't know the score. You hired these people. Trust that they're smart. Trust that they can help get your restaurant performing at the level you want. If they don't know the score—like those little kids on the soccer field, your employees won't know what to pay attention to, and they won't know how to help. They won't improve food costs if they don't know the score. They won't improve check average if they don't know the score. They won't increase the number of desserts they sell, if they don't know the score. Complaints won't be addressed, and mistakes will be repeated if nobody is minding the score. When employees see the scoreboard and know the challenges that need to be tackled, they will raise their level of performance.
Keep score for your team in whatever category you can think of -- wherever you want to see an improved outcome. You will enhance productivity, efficiency, and results. The talent on your staff wants direction; they want to test themselves against the numbers on your boards. They'll figure out what it takes on their part to raise the score. For a lot of employees, the race, the process of striving to be the best, the execution of the job -- these things are as rewarding as seeing the score go up, but the employees have to know what they're up against. You can't send them off to do their jobs without direction. They've got to know the score.
As a manager, the scoreboard lets you constantly reassess and reevaluate to keep your team and the whole business on a path of perpetual improvement. Keeping score serves the interests of anyone in any organization. My suggestion is that, regardless of your title, (maybe you just started a job at entry level or you're a manager with considerable seniority), you should have five or six items or categories that are being scored; score productivity, sales, costs, profits, or turnover . . . wherever you want to see improvement. Also, you should consistently keep track of the results generated in the given category every reporting period--day, week, month, or quarter depending on the tracking cycle. It is up to you to do this for yourself. Much like keeping a golf score, it is left up to you and your own integrity to score it how you see fit. If you cheat, you are only hurting yourself.
The categories you choose should be important to the employee, the boss, and the success of the organization. They can be changed; priorities shift from time to time. These categories and the corresponding goals should be printed on a laminated 3" X 5" card, or put in your handheld device. The point is that you carry the scorecard on your person and look at it on a regular basis. This will give you the constant reinforcement of what is important and what should be focused on, as well as, the desired end result.
Can you imagine going to a major league baseball game like the Braves and Cubs and the rules are "no keeping score?" The announcer belts out, "We've played nine innings. Have a nice day." Nobody would watch. Keeping score makes all the difference.
Keeping score does not have to be difficult and time-consuming to be effective, and it can really help focus an individual employee, a manager, or the entire team on what is important. It is bound to help improve results, and can actually be kind of fun.
It's as simple as this: If you don't keep score, your performance and growth and the performance and growth of your team will suffer, whether it is a game of basketball, a spelling test, a sales contest, or your restaurant struggling to control costs and increasing profits.
The reality is that in our competitive society people like to be challenged, and they like the process of striving for and competing for the best results. Not everybody gets it. Some people just don't understand the value of keeping score.
I remember the idea of "not keeping score" was being toyed with when I was a kid. However, by the time I had kids of my own, scorekeeping was completely factored out of youth sports. That was the pee-wee league's sports philosophy in Vancouver, Washington. One of my kids was on a soccer team. I was watching a game and yelling out the score, "It's 3-2! Come on, you can win this." I was cheering-on my child's team, acknowledging what they had already accomplished and trying to spur them on to do more. The people around me didn't like it. My wife shot me a dirty look.
What I was seeing was this gaggle of kids running in all different directions and not putting a whole lot of effort into what they were doing. There was no focus. I knew that if the team had direction, if they had known what the score was, then they would have known that they needed to fine tune their performance. They would have realized how crucial it was to get the soccer ball to the goal. The talent level was there, but the performance wasn't. Why? Because the talent was uninspired, left without a compass; they weren't allowed to know what the score was.
If you want to see performance increase in any endeavor, keep score. The concept of keeping score applies to business, as well. In fact, you can't run a business at peak without keeping score. When I walk into a restaurant as a consultant, I want to be able to walk back into the kitchen and see the business's "scoreboard". I want to see a board that's got food costs, a board that's got labor costs, a board that's got customer complaints, a board that has sales, and a board with profits. That scoreboard should be visible to everybody who works in that establishment. A lot of owners haven't liked that idea. They have bucked it, because keeping score makes them uncomfortable. I've heard, "Well, I don't want my employees to know how well we're doing" and the opposite, "I don't want the staff to see how poorly we're doing."
Your employees won't be able to deliver their best performance if they don't know the score. You hired these people. Trust that they're smart. Trust that they can help get your restaurant performing at the level you want. If they don't know the score—like those little kids on the soccer field, your employees won't know what to pay attention to, and they won't know how to help. They won't improve food costs if they don't know the score. They won't improve check average if they don't know the score. They won't increase the number of desserts they sell, if they don't know the score. Complaints won't be addressed, and mistakes will be repeated if nobody is minding the score. When employees see the scoreboard and know the challenges that need to be tackled, they will raise their level of performance.
Keep score for your team in whatever category you can think of -- wherever you want to see an improved outcome. You will enhance productivity, efficiency, and results. The talent on your staff wants direction; they want to test themselves against the numbers on your boards. They'll figure out what it takes on their part to raise the score. For a lot of employees, the race, the process of striving to be the best, the execution of the job -- these things are as rewarding as seeing the score go up, but the employees have to know what they're up against. You can't send them off to do their jobs without direction. They've got to know the score.
As a manager, the scoreboard lets you constantly reassess and reevaluate to keep your team and the whole business on a path of perpetual improvement. Keeping score serves the interests of anyone in any organization. My suggestion is that, regardless of your title, (maybe you just started a job at entry level or you're a manager with considerable seniority), you should have five or six items or categories that are being scored; score productivity, sales, costs, profits, or turnover . . . wherever you want to see improvement. Also, you should consistently keep track of the results generated in the given category every reporting period--day, week, month, or quarter depending on the tracking cycle. It is up to you to do this for yourself. Much like keeping a golf score, it is left up to you and your own integrity to score it how you see fit. If you cheat, you are only hurting yourself.
The categories you choose should be important to the employee, the boss, and the success of the organization. They can be changed; priorities shift from time to time. These categories and the corresponding goals should be printed on a laminated 3" X 5" card, or put in your handheld device. The point is that you carry the scorecard on your person and look at it on a regular basis. This will give you the constant reinforcement of what is important and what should be focused on, as well as, the desired end result.
Can you imagine going to a major league baseball game like the Braves and Cubs and the rules are "no keeping score?" The announcer belts out, "We've played nine innings. Have a nice day." Nobody would watch. Keeping score makes all the difference.
Keeping score does not have to be difficult and time-consuming to be effective, and it can really help focus an individual employee, a manager, or the entire team on what is important. It is bound to help improve results, and can actually be kind of fun.
