ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - October 2, 1998

Happy October!

GET A LIFE
For the last two days, I have had the distinct privilege to be able to conduct a management retreat for Reading Restaurants, a Perkins franchise group in southern Ohio. The group of 40 encompassed all the company GMs, all the regional management team and key people from the central office.

A month before the retreat began, I asked everyone to complete an extensive questionnaire. I was trying to get a sense of what their individual worlds looked like, what situations were driving them crazy and what they hoped to get out of the retreat. The common theme that ran through them all had to do with feeling frustrated about their inability to achieve balance between the demands of their professional lives and the needs of their personal lives.

I doubt that it is much different for most restaurateurs. This business can easily consume every available hour of the day and, if you let it do that, eventually it becomes "just the way it is." After awhile you stop realizing that there might be any other way to do it.

Gandhi once said that there is more to life than just speeding up its pace. Remember that you are working for a living . . . make sure you give yourself a little time to live!

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