Short conversational excerpt from a Donald Burns YouTube video about leadership and restaurant culture. Burns explains a rapid culture-audit: ask team members one question—"Who do you work for?"—and interpret answers as evidence of whether leadership serves the team and whether the team serves guests. Main claim: culture flows down, so leaders (owners/GM) should see themselves as serving their team, and teams should serve guests.
Leadership is the most important thing, but it's because of what it's tied to. It's the cause, and the culture is the effect.
Right.
Both good and bad.
You know my favorite question to ask when I walk into a restaurant and I tell. I tell owners this all the time. I said, I'm gonna be able to get a read on your culture in 20 seconds. And I go, how? I go. I'm gonna ask. I'm gonna go around. Ask your team one question. And I walk up there with people on the team, and I'll ask them this one question. Who do you work for? 9 times out of 10, they'll say the person above them. Like, if I ask a server, oh, I work for the gm. I ask a gm, I work for the owner. I say, that's wrong. Because culture flows down.
Yeah.
I ask an owner, who do you work for? I don't work for anybody. I work for myself. I'm the owner. No, that's wrong. You work for your team.
Right.
The GM should work for his team, and the team should work for the guest.
Yeah, yeah, Right.
Right away, you can figure out which way the culture is going just by that one question. Who do you work for?
