Marc Haine describes a dishwasher who challenged a manager's SWOT analysis, asking why leadership would want input from someone who only knows about payday and smoke breaks. The story illustrates how leaders underestimate front-line staff and miss the operational insight they hold about workflow and bottlenecks.
One particular operator who I was talking to them about doing a SWOT analysis. And I was talking with the dishwasher and he pulled me aside and he says, why are you talking to dishwasher about my business? And I said, well, because the dishwasher will have intricate knowledge of how the flow in the kitchen is going, how his role can be helped or hindered. And he looked at me and goes, the only thing the dishwasher could tell me is when is payday and when can I go for a smoke break. And I thought, there's a limiting belief that when you want to trust that you have people in roles who have capacity, you can tap into those people. But you have to have the humility and the fortitude to be able to do so.
