Donald Burns argues that restaurants relying on signs and posted rules signal broken communication and toxic culture. He cites a communication model where only 7% happens through words, claiming signs are ineffective. Better culture means removing them and talking to staff directly instead.
When there's no communication with the team, then the owner will just get pissed off and then they start making rules. There's signs and there's rules and don't do this and don't do this. It's like, this is your fault, completely, 100% your fault. Yeah, because you don't have a culture.
And signs are the worst thing in the world. When owners just go around and put up signs. I tell you, that's the most passive aggressive I've ever seen in my life. We talk about the communication model when we're teaching, coaching, or we're talking to people. We're talking about the communication model at 7, 38, 55. 7% of how we communicate is the word we use, 38% is the tone, 55% is non verbal. So when I post up a poster and just tell people to do this or that, that's only 7% effective communication. And we wonder why people just don't get it. And then I'll ask him, well, what happened? Well, I put a, I put a notice on the wall, I put a memo on the wall like, oh, yeah, that's not going to work.
I've told so many, so many clients, take all those dumb signs down and.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
