Restaurant Critics and Reality
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My wife and I love to eat out. We love the trial and indigestion that goes with trying new restaurants and the joy of finding a good one. So you might think that I read the restaurant reviews regularly. But I don't read restaurant reviews at all.
I don't read restaurant reviews because they're written by restaurant critics. Restaurants make sure that the critics get the best table, the best service, and the best food they can provide. Restaurant critics see a restaurant at its best, sucking up to a special guest. Reality may be something else.
If you're a boss, you're likely to get the restaurant critic treatment from your team. When that happens, you don't get an accurate idea of how things really are. There's one important thing you can do to prevent restaurant critic treatment.
Show up a lot. When you show up a lot, the simple fact that you're there is not a special event calling for special behavior. I had a friend who was a restaurant critic. There were several restaurants she visited frequently because she liked them. In those restaurants she wasn't The Restaurant Critic. In those restaurants they knew her name and the names of her kids.
Boss's Bottom Line
Showing up a lot is a core behavior that makes lots of good things possible. Make showing up and having conversations a habit.
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This triggered two thoughts:
1. Reminds me a little of the ole Management By Wandering Around made famous by Tom Peters back in the day.
2. The Restaurant Critic analogy is similar to one I heard where truly outstanding leaders need to make sure they "get outside the bubble". Organizational realities generally conspire so that leader's always hear they made great moves and decisions and that everything is going according to plan...until its too late to do anything about it when the above turns out to be untrue.
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Thanks, David. There are certainly elements of MBWA here, as well as my certainty that the most important thing a boss can do is touch base frequently with his or her team members.
Getting outside the bubble is important, too. The higher you go on the org chart, the more you need independent sources of information, or you get your reality filtered through the self-interest and biases of others.
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