Coaching Multi-Unit Operators To Grow

Why Leadership Alignment Matters Most

Two Stories That Reveal The Gap

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If you sat down with your business partner today and asked them what success looked like for your restaurant in three years, would their answer match yours? If you're not sure, this episode is exactly where you need to be. Today, we're talking about why leadership alignment is the single most important work you can do as a multi-unit operator, what it looks like when owners are and aren't on the same page, and the real cost of that gap, and the tools that create lasting alignment across your ownership team and your entire organization. Let's dive in. Welcome to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast, where we coach independent, multi-unit restaurant operators to build systems that drive profitability and reclaim time so they can scale with confidence and spend their time and energy where they want to, not where they have to. I'm your host, Kristen Marvin, restaurant coach and author of Multi-unit Mastery. If you are an independent restaurant owner managing multiple locations, you know the chaos that comes with growth. Inconsistent execution across your restaurants. Managers who won't take ownership. Constantly answering questions your team should already know the answers to. You're stuck in your current role when you want to be playing a bigger strategic role as you scale. You don't have the right leaders in place, or you keep losing them. And you're not sure how to find great people and actually keep them around. We work with passionate independent restaurant owners who found success with their first few locations and are ready to scale strategically. Our clients aren't looking to just survive expansion. They want to thrive through it. They're committed to developing strong leaders and creating exceptional guest experiences. Through the independent restaurant framework that we teach in multi-unit mastery, we coach independent restaurant groups to move from chaos to confidence by focusing on three pillars: people, process, and profit. You can grab a gifted copy of the book at irfbook.com. On this show, we bring you real coaching conversations, leadership strategies, and the frameworks that you need to lead like a CEO instead of operating like a worn-out manager. And here's the thing: coaching has changed our clients' businesses and can change yours too. If you've never experienced what it's like to have someone in your corner who actually gets the restaurant world, we'd love to connect. We offer one-on-one and group coaching. Head to kristinmarvin.com slash contact for a complimentary coaching session, and let's talk about what's possible for your restaurant group. Today we are going to talk about something that doesn't get talked about nearly enough in the independent restaurant world, and it's something that just keeps coming up with the majority of our clients time and time again as we continue to work with them. It's leadership alignment, specifically when you've got two or more owners at the helm of your restaurant group. By the end of this episode, I'm going to make sure that you understand why misalignment is one of the most common reasons restaurant groups stall out, what it actually looks like when owners are and aren't on the same page, and the tools that will get your entire organization rowing in the same direction. Let's get started. Misalignment is one of the sneakiest killers in a multi-unit restaurant group business. It doesn't necessarily show up all at once. It creeps in really, really slowly in the decisions that don't get made, in the conversations that keep getting avoided, in the team that's looking to one owner for direction and constantly getting a completely different answer than they expect from the other. It's kind of like the mom and dad area here. The worst part though is that most owners don't even realize it's happening until they're so deep in the weeds that stepping back feels nearly impossible. So that's what this episode is all about today. Because we've sat across from too many talented, passionate operators who are working their asses off and still not moving forward. And nine times out of ten, misalignment is the reason why. I'm going to provide you with a couple of stories here from restaurant groups that I've recently talked to. One is a family-owned restaurant. They've seen incredible growth over the last three to four years. They've tripled their business. They're really pushing the limits of what the restaurant can do. They're building a bunch of talent. There's real ambition to get ready to scale the business. And underneath it all, there's a succession plan that's never really been fully executed. Roles and responsibilities that are really murky for what owners are doing what in the business. And a very, very much an old school mentality that it's the owner's job to be in the restaurant every single day, touching every aspect and grinding. Conflicts with where the new owners want to take the business. So it's causing a lot of tension. The new owners are ready to move forward. The business is ready to move forward, but the alignment isn't there.

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And it's creating this huge bottleneck that no amount of hustle can fix.

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When I was coaching this owner around this obstacle, I just I asked one simple question who is the decision maker when it comes to major business decisions and what and and how you all move forward. And he just shrugged his shoulders and said, I I have no idea that's the problem. They know where they want to go. They just haven't had the really tough, important conversations that they need to have for the business and with each other in order to move things forward because they're a family and it's really, really tough. And we see this a lot in the independent restaurant space.

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Another story is a pair of people that have been working together for 15 years. Two owners 15 years in business together, a restaurant that from all outside appearances is successful.

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One owner decided that they wanted to step back for a period of time, take a break, understand what was going to be next for that for that specific person. And when that owner stepped back, they had a huge moment of clarity and they actually saw how the business was running without them. They recognized all the gaps and the conversations that they hadn't had, and the expectations that they hadn't set, and things that they hadn't documented that they really, really needed to. They realized they never actually sat down with the other person and agreed what success looked like. They had their ideas financially. Here are the numbers that we need to hit, here's what we want in terms of our people, but they hadn't actually sat down and had that conversation together.

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They had been building the same business over the years with two completely different destinations in mind.

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And now that gap is really costing them.

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It's costing them in their decision making, it's costing them in their culture, and it's costing them in their growth.

The Real Cost Of Misalignment

Clear Signs Of Strong Alignment

Shared Vision Mission And Values

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There are so many ways that businesses run, and I'm amazed sometimes. I'm inspired by how creative and innovative people are, but I'm also amazed sometimes at how well businesses can run without this alignment. But there's something magical that happens when you actually take time to make sure that you are both clear and focused and collaborative and working together on growing the business. That's where the magic happens. You start to break down a lot of those walls and barriers that are stopping you from growing your business. If either one of those stories that I just mentioned to you, mentioned to you, hit really close to home, I want to put something in your hands right now. Everything that we're going to talk about today, shared vision, core values, the meeting structure that keeps your team aligned quarter after quarter, it's all laid out inside our book, Multi-unit Mastery. This is the blueprint that we built from 20 years in the industry and hundreds of hours coaching independent restaurant owners through exactly the challenges that we're talking about today. We want to gift this to you. So go ahead and grab your copy at irfbook.com and I'll drop the link in the show notes for you. Go grab it. Let's keep going with the episode today. So let's talk about the why. Why is misalignment an important thing to really understand in your business? And what does it actually cost you? You don't have a growth problem in your business. You have an alignment problem. I want to make sure there's a very, very specific distinction there. Until you fix the alignment problem, though, no amount of systems, hiring, or marketing is going to move your business forward the way that you want it to. Look, when two owners are not aligned, the entire organization feels it, right? Anybody, even if no one can actually name the thing that's happening, your leadership team feels it, your hourly team feels it. It's like you're being pulled in two or more directions, and people aren't quite sure which direction is best. And so there's a lot of uncertainty there, and that uncertainty doesn't feel good. And it shows up in the guest experience as well. Your team is always watching you. We know this, right? We're always on stage as leaders. They know when leadership isn't on the same page, and they will fill that vacuum with their own interpretation of what success looks like. And that is terrifying, right? Again, now you've got an entire team of people that are moving in their own directions and moving towards their own agendas. Misalignment shows up in decisions that contradict each other, like I mentioned earlier. Someone goes to one owner and asks a question, they go to the, they go to mom, they go to dad, and they get the answer that they want. It shows up in inconsistent culture around across your shifts or your locations, right? One runner, one owner runs the shift a certain way, and then the next day it's completely different. It shows up in leaders who don't know who to go to or what answer they're going to get. And it shows up in momentum that starts to build and then very, very quickly collapses. One of the stories I was highlighting earlier, the owner I've talked to said, man, we are just, I am rolling out all of these things. And we are really struggling with implementation and creating successful change on a really long-lasting, sustainable, in a long-lasting, sustainable way, because the other owner isn't bought in to exactly what is happening. And so of course they're not there to back you up and to back the team up. The succession planning trap, it's it's a really good example of the need for very clear roles and responsibilities. Who is doing what in the business? And are they playing off their strengths? Are they are they being the most efficient with the time? Are they making the impact that they want to in the business? And then what things, what gaps do you need to fill around those owners in order to make sure that the business is really, really sustainable? You can't build a foundation that isn't solid. And understanding the roles and responsibilities that you play as an owner is really important, especially for those of you that have directors of operation, regional managers, GMs, executive chefs. They need to know who to go to for what, right? Who to rely on, who to get the answers from, who the expert is. They need that clarity. They're very, very busy people. We're all really busy people, right? They need that focus. The 15-year trap here is really important. Time and business is not the same thing as intentional alignment. You can't just say, well, we've worked together for 15 years, so we know each other now, we figured it out. We've got to be more intentional than that. You've got to create it on purpose. The cost of waiting, every quarter that you spend misaligned is a quarter that your competitors are gaining around you. Your best people are getting frustrated, and your growth potential is sitting on the table. So let's talk about what strong alignment looks like and what it doesn't look like. Let's start first with what it doesn't look like. It doesn't look like owners who avoid the hard conversations because the timing never feels right. It doesn't look like roles and responsibilities that exist in everyone's head, but never on paper. It doesn't look like a vision that lives in the owner's brain but has never been shared with the owner, let alone the team. This is another conversation I've recently had where the owner says, well, I'm just creating the vision for the entire company, and then I'm just sharing it with the partner and they're sharing it with everybody else. You got to have collaboration and buy-in. It should be the entire company's vision, not one person's vision. There's nothing that frustrates me more. And I, you know, when I was working in the industry and transitioning into some new locations and people saying, Oh, the owner wants it done this way, or the owner wants it done this way, or when they're in the building, we do it like this. It should be that this is what the company's way is, not just one person. When you put the onus on that one person, it takes the power away from the rest of the leadership team. And it means typically that people are doing things differently when that owner's in the building versus when they're out of the building. And that's not how you build consistency in business, and that's not how you set yourself up to scale. Strong alignment doesn't look like leadership teams that are pulling, being pulled in different directions because they're getting mixed signals from the top. It doesn't mean decisions being made based on urgency instead of strategy because there's no agreed agreed upon filter to run decisions through. And it doesn't look like a team that's talented and hardworking, but can't gain any traction because no one has given them a clear destination. They got to know where they're going. Let's talk about what it what a strong what strong alignment does look like. It looks like two or more owners that have sat in a room together with intention and built a shared vision for where the business is going in one three to five years. It looks like a leadership team that can make decisions confidently because they know exactly what the business stands for and where it's headed. It looks like core values that aren't just words on a wall. They're filtered. They're the filter for hiring, for firing, promotion, and coaching. It looks like a mission statement that every single person in the organization can speak to and articulate from the owners down to the newest hire. It looks like quarterly planning meetings that keep the vision alive and top of mind, not just something that got created in January and forgotten by March. And it looks like owners who disagree sometimes. My business partner and I love to have this conversation. What do we do when we disagree? It's good to disagree. Healthy conflict is part of alignment. It's important to have those different perspectives, to look at those different options and make sure that you're managing the risk from all sides before you make an important business decision. Healthy conflict is part of alignment, but who always walks out of the room, you want to make sure that the owners are always walking out of the room in lockstep. That's the goal here. So let's talk about some of the tools that create and success and sustain alignment. One is a shared vision. Again, like I mentioned earlier, it's something that's built together. It's collaborative, it's not handed down. The more that you bring your teams in and have them collaborate and are involved in the decision-making process, the more buy-in that they have. It's a non-negotiable here to have a shared vision that's built together. Every owner at the table needs to have a voice in building the vision. When people build it together, like I said, they own it. When it gets handed down to them, they tolerate it. Very big distinction there. The vision needs to cover where you're going, what success looks like very, very, very specifically. The numbers, the number of teammates that you need, leadership, I mean, all of it. Get really specific here. And it needs to include what role each owner plays in getting there. And it has to be written down. Another tool is a mission that means something. Your mission is your why. It's what gets your teams out of bed and what gets your guests what your guests feel when they walk through the door. If your owners can't agree on the mission, your team will never be able to live it. This has to come first. The other tool is core values that drive behavior. Values are not aspirational wall art. They are behaviors you hire for, you promote for, you coach against, and yes, you fire for.

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The behavior that you tolerate becomes your culture.

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We've talked about this a lot, and I've heard this more and more and more over the last six months. The behavior that you tolerate becomes your culture. Your core values are so important, and defining the behavior behind them is so important so that your managers aren't interpreting exactly what each value means. But those values also challenge you as the owner to hold yourself accountable to make sure that.