The Demand

This week, you walk your operation and find the standards you have been walking past. Every unaddressed violation — the broken chair, the greasy hood, the server who says “guys” instead of using a Guest’s name — is a decision you already made to let it stand. If you do not name it and remove it this week, the unwritten ground rule updates again: that standard was always optional.

The Work

  1. Walk the building today, front and back of house, and write down every standards violation you can see, hear, or smell — the physical ones and the behavioral ones. Do not filter the list before you write it.
  2. Next to each item, write how long it has been true. If the answer is more than one shift, that is your unwritten ground rule already in effect, not a pending problem.
  3. Pick the three items with the longest tenure and fix or address them before your next shift. Fixing does not mean scheduling a fix later. It means the item is gone or the conversation happened.
  4. Identify the last contemptuous interaction you witnessed or delivered in front of the cast — the eye roll, the dismissive tone, the brush-off. Name it out loud to the person involved this week, including yourself if it was you.
  5. At your next pre-shift, state the standard you are reinstating and why. You are the Chief Reminder Officer. Say the standard again before the shift, every shift this week, because the cast defaults to whatever they heard most recently.

By Friday, the three longest-standing violations on your list are gone, and you have said the standard out loud at every pre-shift this week.