Create a mission
To get your company moving, you need to have the right mission in place. A good mission must have some sort of ‘call to action’ in it that drives employees to want to follow it. It needs to be specific but general at the same time, and it needs to be able to change the behavior of employees.
“A mission is critical,” Doody says. “You have to get it right; you have to figure out what it is. If the mission is simple and clear and the CEO is passionate about achieving the mission, the team will understand it.”
At first, BDI’s mission was to be the best restaurant in America. But with so many other successful restaurant chains out there, Doody wasn’t sure what that meant, and he also wasn’t sure the company would be able to achieve that. But he did know what being the best Italian restaurant meant in the eyes of the guests and developers, so he started moving the mission toward being the best Italian restaurant company in America — and trying to grow within that concept.
“Bravo and Brio doing eight to 12 restaurants a year is about right to be the best Italian restaurant company in America,” he says. “You’ve got to get that size relative to the mission right; you’ve got to find your sweet spot.”
In developing the company’s mission, Doody did a lot of soul-searching and asked several questions to determine where he wanted the company to head.
“I always was asking ourselves, ‘Do we have the right mission?’” he says. “In our industry, the questions are: How many? How quickly? Of what kind, of what concept? With what kind of culture and values do you want?”
You need to take the time to learn about the market and industry that you’re operating in so you can find the best place for your company in it.
“The most important thing for a CEO is to truly understand the business they’re entering — the culture, the strengths and weaknesses of the people who are there, and the strengths and weaknesses of the business,” Doody says. “I’ve always tried to be a student of the restaurant industry. I’ve tried to learn from other people’s mistakes, I’ve tried to study those companies that created value versus those that didn’t and understand why.”
Doody spent a lot of time going to the company’s various departments and asking what each employee did so he could get a grasp on the entire business.
“Getting a full understanding of the business and its strengths and weaknesses and where it’s headed is so important,” Doody says.
