As seen in the Dayton Daily News on August 15, 2015.
My daughter was excited to take us to an out-of-town pizza place she discovered. So for her birthday, we decided to meet for pizza and a movie.
Upon arrival, we were promptly seated and soon enjoying drinks and appetizers. As the salads arrived, I checked my watch. I was pleased to see we had plenty of time before the movie started.
Then we waited. And waited. Time was quickly slipping away. As we waited for our pizzas, I started getting nervous that we wouldn’t make our movie on time.
When I peered around the neighboring tables, I knew we were in trouble. The table next to ours asked to have their pizza boxed, because they couldn’t wait any longer. At another table, the waitress was offering free dessert, because they also waited a long time to get their pizza.
Since we were in a time crunch, I asked our waitress about the arrival time of our pizzas. She said, “I don’t know, our kitchen has been backed up all evening, again.”
Looking up, I observed two college-age kids making pizzas as quickly as they possibly could.
All eyes were on the pizza makers, the waitresses searching for orders and the visibly upset customers.
I couldn’t help thinking, “Why haven’t the owners cross-trained their employees? Clearly the waitresses, who were literally standing with their hands on their hips, could don an apron and start making pizzas, while the other waitresses cover their tables.
How did management not see the ramifications this bottleneck was causing? As first-timers, they blew the opportunity to give us a favorable first impression.
In addition, money was needlessly being wasted. Free desserts were given, along with additional drink refills. Not to mention, the cost of training new people, should their stressed employees decide to move on to a more agreeable work environment.
I see this same type of inefficiency happening in the corporate world, bottlenecks occurring and staff being underutilized.
Often, the underutilized employees are not any happier than those who are stressed by the bottleneck.
Take a close look at how your company is operating and look for ways to correct the bottlenecks.
In this scenario, the manager could have placed calls to bring in additional help and pitched in making pizzas until they arrived. Instead, he walked around apologizing and offering free dessert.
When things are calm, he needs to look at the kitchen area to see if there are ways to improve the efficiency of making pizzas.
He could also cross-train staff so they work as a team.
People want pizzas not apologies. As a leader, what can you do to make sure bottlenecks are prevented in your company?
