Running a restaurant requires a lot of technical and interpersonal skills,

But most of the restaurants come to a point where they face a wall,

They can no longer grow,

And the reason behind it is not due to financial or marketing reasons,

But too bad leadership skills,

In fact, growing your restaurant will depend on how your team is performing their service,

And their performance is based on how you are able to manage them,

So in this article, we will cover 6 restaurant management skills that you need to grow your restaurant,

And here is what we will cover:

1. Developing a real team
2. Setting compelling goals
3. Designing your tasks effectively
4. Implementing incentive programs
5. Consistently revisit the organizational system
6. Strong emotional intelligence

 

 

Develop A Real Team

 

The first thing we need to differentiate,

Is the misunderstanding between groups and teams,

Groups are individuals that use their skills to perform their tasks with no real common purpose,

A working group can be an accounting department for example,

On the other hand,

A team is a group of individuals that need to be using all of their skills together to perform a task that will be considered a common purpose,

In the case of a restaurant,

You want to develop a team and not a group,

But how?

Well according to Tuckman,

There is 5 stage in team development:

 

 

A. Forming

As the name mentions,

This stage is where the team is trying to learn about each other,

The common purpose is not clear,

And there aren’t many connections between the different members yet,

 

B. Storming

Storming comes next,

And in this stage, the overall output is lower than in the forming stage,

In this stage, the conflicts increase as everyone is trying to be an authority,

But this is the first stage In developing a real team

 

C. Norming

Norming will be the stage where the individuals start to become more confident,

They now have a clear understanding of the common purpose,

And they start to develop a certain kind of cohesion,

 

D. Performing

Performing is the stage where the team is actually showing high motivation and high performance,

They are all effectively working in a productive manner,

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each one of them,

And adjusting accordingly,

 

E. Adjourning

This is the last step and it comes when the task is completed,

We recognize the effort that the team has done and congratulate them.

 

 

Set Compelling Goals

 

Setting goals is the main task that comes with anything in life,

Yet,

Setting compelling goals is not something that every restaurateur does,

And the overall productivity and motivation actually hide behind this concept,

When setting directions for your team,

You need to consider two things at first glance:

• The means
• The ends

 

And you need to know that,

The most productive way of setting goals is not by specifying the means and the ends,

Because you will waste potential human resources,

But the best way is to specify the ends, but not the means,

Giving the employee so sense of autonomy,

This is the best way to produce higher output,

But yet,

When specifying the ends,

You need to make sure the goals that you are setting fulfill those three requirements:

• Challenging
• Clear
• Engaging

 

 

 

Design your tasks effectively

 

Another skill that you need to perfect as a restaurant manager is to design and allocate your tasks effectively,

And here is what you need to consider when allocating your tasks:

• Employees’ strengths and weaknesses
• Employees preferences
• Goals achievements

 

And by doing you will be able to break down big tasks into small chunks,

And assign them accordingly in a way that will increase your overall output,

You don’t want to give your employees tasks that do not want to do,

Or they don’t have the necessary skills to do it,

Instead, you should have a clear understanding of each one’s strengths and weaknesses,

And design the tasks accordingly,

 

 

Implement Incentive programs

 

Implementing a rewards system almost always increases motivation in your restaurant,

However,

It could also potentially Increase interpersonal conflict and decrease communication between individuals,

Why is that?

Well, there are two types of reward systems:

• Individualistic rewards system
• Team-based rewards

 

And if you put too much emphasis on individual rewards,

You could put a king of competition among your team each can sometimes be unhealthy,

The best way to implement rewards in your restaurant is by:

• Having a mix of individual and team-based rewards
• Having a mix of internal and external rewards

 

 

Consistently Revisit The Organisational Chart

 

The organizational system of your restaurant will determine the channels of communication,

And will increase the clarity of purpose,

It is a fundamental to restaurant management skills,

There are many types of organizational charts depending on your own system,

You can read this article where we cover different types,

Yet,

The skill that we are talking about there,

Is to consistently revisit this organizational chart in order to make sure that,

We are in line with the goals of the restaurant,

And that productivity is at its peak,

And order to do so you can:

• Analyze productivity
• Analyze performance
• Analyze moral
• Reallocate and adjust respectively

 

 

Strong Emotional Intelligence

 

Emotional intelligence is the one skill that you absolutely need to develop as a manager,

Growing your E.Q, unlike I.Q,

Is something that you can consistently work on to improve,

And by improving it,

You increase your likely hood of performing better in your restaurants,

Thus seeing your team performing better as well,

We divide Emotional Intelligence into 4 categories:

 

A. Interpersonal Skills

When we talk about interpersonal skills in emotional intelligence,

We are referring to the ability to recognize and understand,

How does your own emotion is affecting the way you interact with others,

Sometimes the problem behind our interpersonal skills,

Hides behind the fact that we don’t know how to interact with people in a certain way,

The main topic here is empathy,

You need to increase your empathy in regards to people,

If you want to see your interpersonal skills increase,

 

B. Relationship management

Relationship management is tied to interpersonal skills in someway,

It is basically how you are able to understand again,

how your own emotions and the emotions of others are interacting in a certain situation,

 

C. Self-perception

Self-perception is how you are able to understand every single emotion that you are feeling throughout the day,

How those emotions are affecting your behavior,

And in order to improve your self-perception,

You need to perform frequent self-reflection sessions,

Take time alone and reflect on yourself,

Understand what is going on in your life,

And how you get affected throughout the week,

Meditation is an excellent practice to improve self-perception

 

D. Self-Expression

This last realm refers to the emotional expression and the assertiveness of an individual,

How those emotions are being shown to the world,

And learning to take control over them is a huge advantage that you can build,

It is in some way the second stage to self-perception

After understanding why your feeling the way you feel,

You can then have more control over the way you express those feelings and emotions,

 

 

Summary

 

I hope you have enjoyed this guide about the 6 restaurant management skills that will help you grow,

There are obviously more skills out there that will help you in your journey,

Yet,

We found out that those 6 skills are a good foundation, to begin with,

What’s next?

After knowing how to manage your team and be an outstanding manager,

I recommend you jump on this article which covers how to build an organizational structure for your restaurant,

If you have any doubts or need anything help with your restaurant,

Feel free to drop us a couple of lines,

Stay safe and see you soon!