Building Culture in Tough Times
The effectiveness of Boris' 10 pm curfew on bars and restaurants is yet to be seen. Both scientists and Industry leaders have branded the ruling as an "ineffective" way to bring down the R rate. With the majority of infections happening in the home, it feels like an unjust blow to an industry that's just picking itself up from the canvass.
But more importantly, the new ruling has brought with it a decline in public confidence. Our role now is to do everything we can to restore faith with our customers so they keep returning. In order to do that we need to create an atmosphere within our businesses that make our guests feel relaxed and welcome.
Atmosphere comes from culture. Culture comes from the attitudes and behaviours of the business leaders. It drips down from the top and becomes absorbed into the very fabric of the business.
If the leaders are angry, stressed, worried and panicked the culture will become one of anger, stress, fear and panic. If the culture becomes toxic, the atmosphere becomes toxic. The guests start to feel that same stress, fear and panic...and ultimately go somewhere else.
We're not saying that these aren't stressful times. But running your business from a position of fear, from a position of anxiety isn't going to create a great guest experience. Or a great employee experience.
We need to replace fear with a sense of opportunity. Instead of thinking "How are f&%K are we going to get through this?" ask yourself "How can we explore the current situation to be the best business we can be?" "How can I as a leader explore this moment to be the best leader I can be?" This idea of exploring as opposed to fearing creates an opportunity for growth.
We don't mean just growth in a financial sense, we mean it in a holistic sense - when we're learning and adapting we're growing.
If people feel like they're growing, if businesses feel like they're growing the culture becomes infectious, it becomes joyous. A sense of ease and hope and joy seep into the atmosphere. It becomes absorbed by the guests and they return. And return. And their faith in our industry returns too.
