Schnell's kitchen (this was the actual nickname) was a gourmet grade 5 restaurant that operated in a large city and had a number of satellite establishments. It had a nationwide reputation as a provider of excellence and unsurpassed cookery.

There was however a darker side to this kitchen; the head chef amongst others was a tyrant and employee turnover had to be seen to be believed. The head chef said that he had to endure years of endless abuse working in some of the most prestigious kitchens worldwide then it was good enough for those that worked for him to take this abuse as part of their learning curve. He wasn't going to change regardless.

Every day employees would begin their work unsure if they would be yelled or sworn at, if there was going to be a regime of indiscriminate bullying and harassment or what was going to occur that day. People became morose and moody with the slightest tension spilling over to harsh words and unkind acts. Revenue and profits were down and costs were up.

This head chef (Schnell himself) mourned the fact that there were insufficient people to take on as apprentices, cooks and other chefs. To compound his concern front of house and bookings often overbooked functions and other covers without Schnell being informed. Management could not have cared less as they figured that with a 10% partnership stake in the restaurant this was this chef's problem.

Finding people to become apprentices were not the problem had a few fundamental changes were implemented. We have found that the main obstacle to chef apprenticeships is long hours, poor pay, lack of flexibility and verbal and physical abuse.

We became involved when everything started to very wrong.

Behind the scenes the chef was having a breakdown from lack of support, he was showing signs of mental illness, fatigue and overwork, his partner had recently told him if he didn't stop working 80 – 100 hours plus per week that their marriage was finished and management were completely unsupportive and simply didn't care. He sometimes never went home to his family but went out and drank.

We were approached to ask our opinion on what could be done, if anything.

We meet with the managing director and requested more information on what the business wanted to achieve.

We discovered;

• Invoices were paid on statement;
• Wastage of product and raw materials were above industry average;
• There were no accounting records;
• Insufficient documentation and record keeping;
• No employee contracts, job descriptions, policies and procedures, inductions; simply nothing;
• Employees were not being paid correctly and in some cases not in accordance with the law.
• No risk minimization and structured training;
• No employee meetings with management;
• No communication;
• Zero support for anyone;
• High incidences of workplace neglect and accidents;
  Pending lawsuits;
• No strategic or marketing plan or budgets, and;

The list went on and on and on. 

Clearly this establishment required drastic measures to preserve its market reputation and ensure it had a future.

Why Restaurants?
I have often asked myself why many restaurants have such a bad reputation when it comes to people management and there are many.

From my own observation and dealing with many such restaurants and the hospitality industry it has become obvious; kitchen staff are very creative and temperamental. They could be termed as half temper and half mental but this would be unfair.

Cooking attracts many people who have a flair for the creative and therein lays the true seeds of success and failure.

Put a bunch of any professionals together, musicians, chefs, trainers, artisans, accountants, lawyers and others and it all starts to make sense – seeds for success or failure.

In order to harness creativity management and employees needed to be trained to understand that they are gifted but that this did not give them an exclusive right to be difficult, dogmatic and bully other people.

Organisational Change
Organisational change is not overly complex; just that we humans like to complicate it and sometimes people take advantage of a lack of integrity to make money.

If you take a look in today's marketplace there are many packaged products, services and consultants holding themselves to have the answer to organisational change! However life is never that simple as a package or the planet would be a different place by now.

From experience in corporate life as a former CEO, as a business owner and now consulting to other businesses my experience tells me otherwise.

In my view few people have the acumen and experience to bring about sustained change that lasts without the solution costing you ridiculous amounts of time and money. There are some very good operators out in the world however there profile is sometimes clouded by the obfuscations of other practitioners.

I remember 15 years ago being involved in corporate life with a major change development project. After some time I became suspicious of what was being delivered and my consternation and concern deepened as I discovered that the change management business (very high profile worldwide) had admitted to another manager that they had ‘ripped' millions out of the company while covering themselves with a paper trail was that was 2 meters high.

From my experience this is not an isolated event and you are wise to make sure you do your work well. Forget high profile look for experience that lasts the probing well past the paper trail. It's your money.

Regarding another project I had no link too I became aware of cost over-runs exceeded $300 million with no accountability and the organisation had been warned this would happen. It still flounders along 3 years later with no end in sight.

Mind-sets
Essentially dealing with organisational change means that we are dealing with mindsets; beliefs and behaviours that have often been entrenched in your business for some time.

Your business may have already played a large part in this by reinforcing these behaviours and beliefs and suddenly you come along and find that employees do not readily embrace change and wonder why.

You are working with mindsets that take time to change. We all find change difficult therefore give your employees a break unless they are all totally devoid of changing.

Understanding these principals is the first step towards understanding the dimensions of change and being able to prepare a realistic plan for change.

Planning for Change
Planning for change is always a good time to see how your business can benefit and grow. If you select a mentor or consultant to assist you grill them thoroughly and carefully. A person with experience will not easily take offence if you probe as they understand it's your money on the line.

Here are some points that may assist you on your journey;

• Take the time to understand what is really going on in your business not just what you are told – do your homework well;
• Involve a range of employees from the ground floor up;
• Look for patterns of resistance, entrenched beliefs and behaviours;
• Interview employees;
• Fag what patterns of behaviours appear;
• Come up with a segmented plan to your issues;
• Share with your team;
• Look for and encourage honest feedback and valid criticism;

In Schnell's we took a similar approach however management did not want too much employee input.

Implementing the Changes
Implementing the changes that must be made requires time and patience. This was no exception at Schnell's Restaurant.

Monitor Change
You may need to make other changes that are discovered during the process. You seldom get it right the first time no matter what others assure you of.

Develop a Change Attitude
Most people acknowledge that change is here to stay. Plan for it. As Sergio Carlo Meresca says in his latest book ‘Focus or Fold' Discontinuous and constant change will be a normal feature of life.

Finally this is only a small part of the story that this business underwent to change. We have not provided all the details in this article rather merely to give the reader some ideas about change and management of change.
 
Further Information
Philip Lye is Director of Biz Momentum Pty Ltd. He works with small to medium businesses to help them cut through the maze of people matters. Clients get specific actionable strategies to protect their business interests. For more information on Philip, visit www.biz-momentum.com