Christin Marvin: 0:08

Are you a restaurant leader who loves to geek out on self-awareness assessments, like I do? If so, stick around, as I offer a leadership development resource today that focuses on developing your strengths rather than identifying your weaknesses. Today, I'm going to highlight the book Strengths Finder. Five of the 34 strengths outlined in the book and give you specific tips on how you can implement this tool into your restaurant, not only to develop your management team, but to develop your entire team.

Christin Marvin: 0:42

Welcome to the No Hesitations podcast, the show where restaurant leaders learn tools, tactics and habits from the world's greatest operators. I am your host, Christin Marvin, with Solutions by Christin. I've spent the last two decades in the restaurant industry and now partner with restaurant leaders to help them overcome burnout, increase retention, reignite their passion and drive successful businesses. I also work directly with restaurant leaders through one-on-one coaching and group workshops to help them identify their blind spots, build their confidence and overcome challenges in their business. If you're curious about learning more, visit my website at ChristinMarvin. com./ Contact to book a 15-minute goal planning session. This podcast is sponsored by ScheduleFly. Schedulefly provides a simple, web-based and app-based restaurant employee scheduling software backed by legendary customer service. If you are using pen paper, excel or fancy scheduling software with tons of bells and whistles that you don't use. Schedulefly is perfect for your business. When I was a regional manager handling seven locations, schedulefly was our go-to for scheduling. It's hands down the easiest platform that I've ever worked with, and their employee scheduling tool is awesome for shooting out mass messages about crucial restaurant updates. Visit ScheduleFlycom and mention the no Hesitations podcast to learn more and get 10% off. I hope you enjoy this episode.

Christin Marvin: 2:19

Before we jump into today's episode, I have some really exciting news that I want to share with you guys. Today I was lucky enough to be featured in an article that came out on LinkedIn from Toast, the POS company, about the 35 restaurant podcast that you don't want to miss. I was super excited this morning to wake up see that there were some notifications happening on LinkedIn. I clicked on the article and I thought, oh my gosh, is there a chance in hell that I could be included in this list? And I scrolled, and I scrolled and I scrolled and I found my names. Anyway, I am incredibly honored. I am very thankful to Toast for publishing this article and, man, am I in some really great company? If you want to check out that article, let me know. If you want to send me a DM on at Christin-Marvin at, I would be more than happy to send it over to you through LinkedIn, or I can text it or email it to you, whatever you want.

Christin Marvin: 3:18

I am very, very excited today to share with you a resource that I learned about really really early on in my career when I was thinking back to my early days in restaurant management. Again, a lot of the stuff is coming up for me right now as I'm writing my book. I was thinking about how hungry for growth and development I was early on in my career and I loved getting my hands on any new resource right. Danny Meyer, setting the table Strength finders is a resource that I'm going to talk about today. The book Emotional Intelligence anything that I could really sink my teeth into and getting a moment of insight from, or just have a moment of self-awareness, was really, really helpful for me. I loved being more self-aware about what I was doing and how I was showing up. I loved challenging the way that I thought about my own leadership and I loved being a little bit more thoughtful about the decisions that I made around running a restaurant and how I managed a team. I, like I said, recently, when I was going through my book chapters and thinking about resources that stuck out to me, strength Finders came up and I went and dug it out of my bookshelf and opened it back up and saw all the notes that I had taken when I first discovered this book, the. It's kind of funny, actually, how I came upon this. I was at the time interviewing with a new restaurant group and I remember sitting with the owner and I never heard of the book Strength Finders before and he had mentioned it to me and said that this was something that they had used in their company to develop their leaders.

Christin Marvin: 4:58

I was immediately excited by the opportunity and it was perfect timing because Tyler and I were getting ready to head out for our annual Mexico vacation and every year I would take a new book to read because my mind would slow down enough to be able to read an entire book. And on this trip every year I would set personal goals for myself. So I'd bring a notebook, I would set some personal goals and professional goals. I'd usually bring a book that I wanted to read. I'd bring a women's health magazine to focus on some personal health things, and then I'd usually also bring like a stupid trashy magazine around, pulp culture or something just to kind of like have something fun to flip through.

Christin Marvin: 5:39

So, anyway, this was a really crucial time for me to make an investment in myself, and when the owner of the company that I was interviewing with told me about this book, I immediately ran to Barnes and Noble. I know I'm dating myself, but I immediately ran to Barnes and Noble and spent the $25 to invest in the book. So when I opened it up, I was really delighted to find that there were a list of 34 strengths in the book and that there was an assessment on the very last page of the book that would give me my top five strengths, in addition to a comprehensive plan, action plan based on the results that I had. What I discovered in taking this assessment that were that my top five strengths were harmony, achiever, responsibility, deliberative and consistency. I'm going to take you through each of these just a little bit so you can see how I kind of thought about them and the role that they played in my leadership, and then, if any of you have similar strengths as to mine, you can see how they show up. My number one strength was harmony, which was really, I think surprising to me. They say that over time, if you take the assessment again, that your strengths would change. So I'm very curious to know now, if I went in and took the assessment, if these would change at all. But harmony, really, this strength really taught me and helped me understand that I don't like conflict, I avoid it, but I also really care about the harmony that the people have around me.

Christin Marvin: 7:13

The thing that showed up for me in the leadership world was mostly around wanting everybody's voices to be heard. So oftentimes I think about ops meetings that I would have where each week where we'd sit around six or eight of us in the management team. If there was one person that was really owning the entire conversation, or there were two people that really had opposing opinions, I would really do the best that I could to try to bring in other voices into that meeting so that everybody really felt like they had an opportunity to speak up and could be heard and that their opinions and voices mattered. If there was conflict happening, I would try to really resolve that as quickly as I could. I really wanted to strive to find common ground within the teams. That I did. I also loved bringing people with diverse backgrounds together so that they could all live in harmony and learn from each other.

Christin Marvin: 8:16

My second strength was Achiever, which this one, for me, I was just over the moon about. This really gave me a huge moment of insight and aha moment, helping me understand why I love to make lists, why I get a dopamine rush every time I cross something off my list. It helped me understand that I constantly seek validation and acceptance from myself and others by accomplishing tasks every single day. The joy of making lists for me happened not just at work, but even on my days off. Not necessarily that I was writing things down, but there was always constantly a tally in my head on days of I've got to do laundry, I've got to go grocery shopping, I want to work out, I need to walk the dogs, whatever it is, but again, crossing those things off. My list really validated that I was doing something productive and really helped me. This strength really helped me understand my ambition and my drive. The next strength for me was responsibility. This one really came as no surprise.

Christin Marvin: 9:20

I was an only child with divorced parents. My parents divorced at 18. I spent a lot of time on my own. I started staying home from school when I was 10. I'm an introverted kid, but my mom taught me how to balance the checkbook when I was 10 years old. She really helped me understand how money was flowing in and out of the household and what money we could spend on groceries, what money we could spend on going out to eat whenever we did that. I think that that and then obviously I was helping with house chores and things like that too but it really taught me the value of hard work. That's a lot of the reason why I started working at 15 and got my first job in the restaurant business and have had an incredible work ethic since then. But I think that really exposure to understanding the big picture of what life and being an adult was all about was really pressed upon me at a very young age. It really propelled me to take 100% ownership over any task before me.

Christin Marvin: 10:23

I'm very much like that in work. I love to ensure that a task is completed to the best of my ability and in a very timely manner, because otherwise it stresses me out. If I've got something lingering on the to-do list for too long, it just gets really, really uncomfortable for me. So again, achiever plays into this a little bit because I like to complete the task, move on to the next one, but I will say that this one for me, the responsibility piece does bump up against people that maybe don't have the strength, because I really have a zero tolerance for people that make excuses. I love working with other people that also have the strength of responsibility. The next strength is deliberative. This one really spoke to me because it made a lot of sense as to why I am the way that I am and the way that I show up.

Christin Marvin: 11:14

So I've always been a really guarded person, a very private person. I try to keep the peace a lot, I think, at home, and hide a lot of emotions, because I grew up in an emotional household where there was just a lot of anger and I tried to be positive and kind of keep the peace, and so I think me being an introvert. I know that I'm really thoughtful and intentional around everything that I do, and this really has translated to my work. Because I'm a planner, I really like to manage risks in case something goes wrong. I'm always the one that would sit in ops meetings and I know I drove people crazy, but we would start talking about new initiatives that were gonna be presented and my first questions were thought was always like how is this gonna work? And I know that that drove people nuts, because I was in operations and sometimes it was up to me to figure out how to implement those new systems and how to make them work.

Christin Marvin: 12:13

Hello to all of you amazing leaders in the restaurant world. Before we dive back into today's episode, I wanna take a moment and let you know about one of the incredible ways that you can further your team's leadership development. If you've been listening to the show, you've already experienced the passion I have for enhancing leadership skills. Did you know that I also offer exclusive leadership workshops tailored for restaurant management teams? These sessions focus on strengthening leadership abilities, fostering effective communication, crafting a unique leadership style and developing robust business strategies and visions for the future. If you or anyone you know in the restaurant industry is looking to treat their team to a customized multi-day leadership training that will improve every aspect of their business, please reach out to me at KristenLMarvin at gmailcom. Thanks a million for being awesome listeners.

Christin Marvin: 13:17

The final strength for me was consistency, and I take a lot of pride in this, and I'm really seeing this strength show up for me now in my business and I'm just so proud of it because it helps me show up every single day and it helps me be consistent with the systems that I've created. It helps me produce content, it helps me deliver value, it helps me keep my business afloat and running the way that I wanted to, which is something I, again, I'm really, really proud of. So it's interesting because the book talked about consistency more in terms of how you treat people, that you really believe that everyone deserves to be treated fairly and consistently. I think a little bit more about this in terms of the systems that I've created. I love creating systems and I think I do that for myself and always have for business, because I believe that people should be held accountable and have very clear, consistent expectations set for them. It just makes the job easier, and I believe that creating systems in restaurants specifically helps minimize questions, helps minimize stress and anxiety and frustration, which helps the team work better, more seamlessly together, which in turn, gives the team an opportunity to spend more time connecting with each other and connecting with the guests, which is what it's all about, right?

Christin Marvin: 14:44

So I would say that once I read this book on the beach, I was immediately energized and I felt really proud of just again knowing who I was and knowing some of the things that I was really really good at. And I just had this really awesome moment of clarity. And I remember running back to the company the Kirk company that I was working with, and I was just so excited. I'm the type of person if I discover something I wanna tell everybody about it, like I'm the one that invented it. So I ran back to Denver. I went back to the restaurant group that I was working for, told the owners oh my gosh, I found this great book. We should buy copies for all the managers and they should all take this assessment and we should start focusing on people's strengths. And it's gonna be awesome, right, like I'm excited about it now, even thinking about it. And the response that I got from the ownership team, or from one of the owners in particular, was you're reading a fucking self-help book.

Christin Marvin: 15:37

And in that moment I wish I would have seen the look on my face, because all that excitement and energy just completely drained out of me and shifted. And in that moment for me, in the back of my mind, I was saying to myself Kristen, this is exactly why you're looking for another job. This is validation that you're not in the environment that you want to be, you're not working with people that have similar mindsets with you and that are aligned on the goals that you're aligned on. So it in that was a great opportunity, a great gift that came out of that conversation. But I laugh every time I think about that because it's just, it's just really short-sighted, right, anyway? So when I left the kind, I ended up taking the job right with the new restaurant company and again they you know, they had given each manager a copy of this book and asked them to take the assessment and then we put everybody's strengths into an excel sheet and unfortunately we didn't do much with it. After that point I wish we would have and and I think in hindsight you know what, what I would have done with that information was really gone through and sat with each manager and reviewed each of their five strengths and incorporated that those conversations about their strengths into each of their one-on-ones.

Christin Marvin: 16:59

You know, the cool thing about this book is that, in addition to giving you the strengths and then a comprehensive plan, action plan on how you can develop them, they give you little moments of insight around how this strength shows up in your leadership, what it sounds like when you're talking to other people. It gives you ideas for action. So, for example, the hyperachiever excuse me, the achiever strength. For me, one of the action items was select jobs that allow you to have the leeway to work as hard as you want and which you are encouraged to measure your own productivity. I've really thrived in the local restaurant scene right, because sometimes there aren't a lot of systems set up and you have to set up your own systems to manage your own productivity. It says also that this will help you feel challenged and alive in these environments, which is huge. In addition to the ideas for action, it also tells you how you can work with others who have the achiever right. So another example here is to establish a relationship with a person who has the achiever strength by working alongside them. Working hard together is often a bonding experience for the two of you, and people that have the achiever strength can be annoyed by slackers, which I definitely would say that to me. It's interesting because I did give this assessment to the managers that I had working with me, which are some of my close friends, and I wrote their names down in the book and one of my good friends has the achiever strength. So I think about how our relationship had developed and crossed the multiple concepts that we worked with and it really did develop and working side by side with each other. So that was a pretty cool takeaway.

Christin Marvin: 18:47

So, again, I wish I would have included these more in one-on-ones. I think what I would have done with that to take it one step further was once the managers really started to dive in and develop each of their strengths and leaned into them and really led with confidence around these strengths, I would have taken the strength finders assessment to the next level and given it to our entire team. I would have bought a book for everybody, had them take the assessment and then I would have probably selected four or five employees for each manager to own and then do the same thing, have some one-on-ones work through each of their strengths and start to start teaching the managers how to develop people. You know, I can only imagine what our restaurant would have looked like had we focused on, you know, supporting each other, building each other up, identifying strengths, calling them out, celebrating those, rather than focusing on our weaknesses or cutting each other down or, more often, recognizing moments where we needed to impact change or or solve other problems. So I really hope that this is.

Christin Marvin: 20:00

If you've heard of this resource, I would highly recommend that you go back and just revisit it. It's definitely a feel good book. It feels great again to really have this self discovery around what you're really good at and why you are the way that you are and what makes you tick. And again, there's there's always an opportunity for us to get better and to grow right and also to look at the people that we're currently work with and help understand what makes them tick and and how we can help support them and lift them up.

Christin Marvin: 20:32

And if you haven't heard of this book, I highly recommend you go pick it up at Strengthfinders by Tom Rath. The website is awesome. There are there are a lot of additional resources and tools that this can provide you, so there's a ton that you can do with this. You can be certified in this as a coach. There are there's just a lot that you can do with this in your career. So I hope that you have found this valuable today. I really appreciate your time and again, thank you so much for listening and be sure to share this podcast with any leaders that you know in the restaurant industry, and be sure to check out my step-by-step guide on how to retain your employees at my website at ChristinMarvin. com. Thanks everybody, we'll talk to you next week.