Food & Beverage
Phil Greifeld
President and CEO, Huddle House Inc.
By Kristy J. O’Hara
Smart Business Atlanta | July 2007
"You have to make it a little painful for the people who aren’t performing." - Phil Greifeld, CEO, Huddle House
When Phil Greifeld took over as president and CEO of Huddle House Inc. in late 1999, he was both blessed with 35 successful
years of company data to guide him and challenged by people set in their ways. He wanted to focus more on people, which
employees and franchisees met with cynicism and, sometimes, lawsuits. But now, they have become more accommodating and
when he speaks with franchisees, they voluntarily explain how their plans affect employees and customers. While it took seven
years to get there, Greifeld’s repetitive message propelled the 431-location restaurant chain to $230 million in revenue last year
and proves that even the most established organizations can improve. Smart Business spoke with Greifeld about why he’d rather
fire people than tightly manage them and why repetition is vital to implementing change.
Set and measure goals. There are two types of
goals — new goals and improvement goals.
What I mean by new goals is needs of the
business — things you’re not doing. Then
there are improvement goals — how are we
going to get better in our processes?
In any business people say, ‘Our plan for
next year is to make X amount of dollars.’
Well, whoop-de-do. How are you going to do
it? What, specifically, is going to drive that
performance?
Specifically identify what’s going to drive it.
Don’t just say we’re going to make X amount
more dollars next year. If you’re not measuring, you’re not doing the company or your
shareholders a good service. Actually measure and track it. Otherwise, you’re not going
to understand your business well.
Explain changes. Nothing beats face-to-face,
candid dialogue. You have to explain the
change.
When you’re presenting change to someone, they’re thinking, ‘What’s in it for me?’
You better have that answer, and you better
be able to articulate why you’re making the
change and what’s in it for you. Maybe what’s
in it for them — it doesn’t have to be all monetary — is life’s going to be easier, these
processes are going to lead to more profits,
and if we have more profits, we can do
more things. It’s a key thing you can’t lose
sight of.
Any leader must make sure that the
changes they’re implementing are sound
business fundamentals. There’s always going
to be people who resist change, but if your
strategy is sound, the naysayer’s voice will be
drowned out by all the positive momentum
that the change brings.
Be repetitive. The change may take considerable time to implement, but a CEO’s job is
they must be firm in their convictions to lead
a positive change in the organization.
Make sure the message is clear and consistent and, above all, it has to be repetitive. That
doesn’t sound exciting or sexy, but you cannot announce a bold change statement or
vision statement and think it’s magically
going to take root in your organization.
If you continue to be repetitive and reinforce the message, then it becomes part of
your corporate DNA.
Get buy-in. Have cross-collaboration between
departments. If we’re going to implement a
new building design, there will be myself,
operations, construction, franchising, because if I’m a franchisor, I want my input in
terms of how I’m going to sell it — well, I
have to build it. You get collective buy-in, and
the key thing is to communicate it so everyone understands why we’re doing it.
There’s always going to be some people
that disagree. Sometimes you have to say,
‘This is how we’re proceeding,’ because as a
CEO, you’re armed with a lot more intelligence — no disrespect to anyone in the
organization — of the totality of everything
that’s happening.
Recognize the best. Demonstrate how other
people are being very successful. Sure, we
always want to lift the bottom people up, but
we focus on the top performers and give
them rewards and showcase these people.
We articulate how they got there and why
they’re successful.
You have to make it a little painful for the
people who aren’t performing. You put them
on a path saying, ‘This is where you need to
be, otherwise, things aren’t going to be proceeding according to plan.’
Give people tools to succeed. There can’t be any
barriers. With my direct reports, if there are
any barriers to doing your job, I want to know
about it, and we take down that roadblock
that same day.
Let’s be honest — work is hard enough as it
is. There’s always challenges we have to deal
with day in and day out. There should not be
challenges from Day One when you hire
somebody, so you have to look and say, ‘Am
I setting this person up for success?’
I’m not talking about computers, staplers
and supplies — all that stuff goes without
saying — but do they have the support of
their management, do they know what’s
expected of them, can they get access to the
right personnel to do their job and be successful? We have a home office. I always tell
these people, ‘In order for these stores ... to be
successful, we have to be incredibly responsive to them.’ There’s going to be a certain
amount of teamwork that’s needed to fulfill
the goals of the organization.
Stay connected. Often the CEO is the last to
know about things in the organization. It happens all the time — don’t tell him, don’t tell
him. You have to develop this unique ability
to assess people and assess, maybe with very
limited information, quickly what’s going on,
recognizing the fact that sometimes you’re
not going to get all the information you need.
It’s diligent follow-up as well. I’ve got plenty
of people. I’m fully confident that they’re doing the right job for the business.
I don’t have to follow up with them, even
though I do, and we measure results. If you
have to tightly manage someone, you have
the wrong person. Not to sound cold-hearted,
but rather candid, fire them. It’s not worth the
time and effort.
Be candid. It’s important for people to clearly
know what’s expected and what’s going well,
or what’s not going well. It’s the only way to
run a business.
I’m to the point where it’s almost blunt, but
I’d rather have it that way. You do people a
disservice if you’re not candid with them.
HOW TO REACH: Huddle House Inc., www.huddlehouse.com or
(770) 325-1300
