The Restaurant Doctor - Electronic House Call

ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - December 17, 1999

SUPERSTARS REVISITED
This from Lito Benitez <caferizal@netasia.net>:
Last year, I had a very similar experience to the "eliminating the superstar" analogy in your last newsletter. We had this great chef heading our kitchen crew who was very talented, creative, hardworking and what many would call a prize catch. Yet he still had his bad traits. he wasn't very people-oriented. Every week, it seemed, he would be in a word war with at least one of his staff. It was so bad that there were several close calls with fist fights right in our kitchen. Of course, he always had the upper hand because he was the head honcho. We lost a couple of good guys who couldn't take his ways anymore. Then, he gets "pirated" by a big catering company and leaves us in three days' notice. Our low morale lasted only a week as his assistants showed their hidden talents and even their ability to lead a good team to excellence. Obviously, we learned a lot of lessons last year, but all to our good fortune. I believe that we have the best kitchen team ever in our 13 years of operations!

A note from the Doc:
At the risk of repeating myself, remember that the success of the team is more important than the talents of any individual player. Maybe the Seattle Mariners will be the better for trading Ken Griffey, Jr. . . if they can ever manage to do it!

MANAGEMENT INSIGHT SERIES™
Look for a special notice to announce the kick-off of the Management Insight Series, the monthly subscription audio series mentioned back in August. The information sheet will arrive as a PDF file attachment to a separate e-mail early next week, along with a special offer just for recipients of EHC. There are some exciting folks who have already agreed to lend their insights and expertise to the project. Best of all, you can try it out risk-free!

HAVE A LIFE
You have enough things to worry about this week. Let's keep this short so you can get back to work, shopping (for those twinkle lights!) or hopefully spending some time with your family. Happy holidays.

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