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Fast insights on crisis management, leadership development and restaurant/retail partnerships

Attendees at the Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit in Dallas got down to business with fast insights in three key business management areas.

Biju Thomas explains the benefits of restaurants partnering with retailers. Photo credit: Matt Tilbury.

April 5, 2017 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times

Is your company prepared for a crisis? Is leadership receiving proper guidance? Have you thought of partnering with retailers to expand your brand?

Restaurant decision-makers got valuable insights into all three of these areas during the opening general session at the Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit in Dallas last week. It featured three industry experts — Ellen Hartman, CEO of Hartman Public Relations, Bobby Shaw, a veteran of the restaurant industry and Biju Thomas, founder of Biju's Little Curry Shop — who each gave a 15-minute TedTalk-like presentation. 

Ellen Hartman notes the need to respond fast to a crisis.

The power of the earnest apology

No one can predict a crisis, but restaurateurs can be prepared for one. Ellen Hartman, CEO of Hartman Public Relations, tapped her experience working with Olive Garden, Popeyes, Church's, Arby's, Coca-Cola and the National Restaurant Association in offering an action plan for what to do when a food poisoning, franchisee lawsuits or cyber-security attacks occur.

The best approach to a crisis is to be honest and sincere, Hartman said. Tell shareholders you are on top of the situation and be ready to apologize via social media or in media interviews. The fastest way to defuse a crisis is to apologize, she said.

"The quicker you make it, the faster it goes away," Hartman said.

She recalled helping a restaurant respond to a Hepatitis A outbreak, saying the speed with which you respond to a crisis is essential.

"Don't not speak because of legal concerns," she said. "That's a sure way to lose in the court of public opinion. Never say the words, ‘no comment.' It makes you look guilty."

Instead of refusing to comment, Hartman advised restaurateurs to tell the media that although the company is currently "not at liberty" to speak under the current conditions, it will do so as soon as allowed. Chipotle was slow to respond to its food poisoning incidents last year, particularly on Facebook and Twitter, Hartman said. However, the brand did respond to more quickly to individual requests for comment.

Leadership gets the job done

Having the right action plan to manage a crisis requires good leadership, a topic addressed during the next presentation by Bobby Shaw, a veteran executive of several brands, including Chipotle and McDonald's. The Kansas City native has devoted much of his career to leadership development. In fact, Shaw said during his time with those two aforementioned brands, he quickly learned the importance of formal leadership development programs in restaurant operations.

Nonetheless, numerous studies have shown that a third of all employees simply do not trust their employers, while two-thirds of employees say their CEOs focus too much on short-term performance.

"We might not be providing the right type of leadership to our teams," Shaw said, adding that leaders need to create an experience of working with their employees rather than dictating to them.

"We need to be a guide and not an expert. I love being able to learn from other people. When you're always the smartest person in the room, it doesn't get others to contribute what they know."

In addition to providing leadership to employees, leaders also need development for themselves. As he asked the audience, "Who's developing you?" 

He said it is critical that leaders have someone who will tell them not just what they want to hear, but what they need to hear. He offered the following six steps to better leadership:

• Have a mentor.
• Have open space in your work schedule.
• Read books and listen to instructional audio tapes.
• Write everything down.
• Invest in yourself by going to conferences and taking a colleague with you.
• Be a mentor to someone else.

"Every time you teach something you learn something," Shaw said.

Why partner with retailers?

Biju Thomas, founder and president of Biju's Little Curry Shop, used his leadership skills to expand his brand by partnering with retailers. Thomas' restaurant serves made-from-scratch food inspired by his youth in Kerala, South India.

Biju's Little Curry Shop is a fast casual concept that explores southern Indian cuisine in an easy-to-grasp and guest-friendly format. Thomas identified with his listeners in sharing that he became a restaurateur out of his passion for food and wanting to bring people together to enjoy food. Then, when he became a cyclist, he says he learned to appreciate good food more and learned food's importance to his physical performance.

"The food that we eat matters," he said. "The customers have to feel good not only when they eat, but when they get home."

Restaurateurs and food retailers both have access to more flavors and foods than ever in their pursuit of providing good food, he said. That is why Thomas said it just makes sense for both parties to partner with each other. For instance, in launching his restaurant, he said he partnered with a Whole Foods Market in Boulder, Colorado by placing a restaurant in the store.

One of the challenges he faced was communicating the qualities and desirability of more obscure foods with customers. Nonetheless, he said it is essential that the customer understand the nature of a food item in a few seconds.

Thomas addresses the communication challenge in his own business by focusing on a limited number of SKUs and spices, which he said he explains in the simplest possible terms. He also comes up with recipes that the least skilled employee can make, he said.

The hour-long session at the Dallas event packed a lot of information into a fast-moving hour.

If you're interested in learning about topics like those covered in Dallas, please register here for the Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit in London, July 18-20, or join us April 9-11, 2018, in Louisville for the 2018 Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit. Register here.

About Elliot Maras

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Elliot Maras is the editor of Kiosk Marketplace and Vending Times. He brings three decades covering unattended retail and commercial foodservice.