This content was created by Tamsen Webster. This content was uploaded by Tamsen Webster. This is a YouTube episode titled "The Red Thread of the Waffle House Index - EP:092" (published 2018-11-14) in which Tamsen Webster hosts an episode of her Find the Red Thread series. The excerpt is a single-speaker presentation / monologue describing the Waffle House Index — how Waffle House’s people-centered operating system (positioning staff, employee key fobs, supply pre-positioning, and on-site manuals/non-perishables) enables stores to stay open during disasters and serves as a proxy for disaster severity. The piece connects that operational approach to the company’s core belief of measuring success by people and frames it as a “red thread” worth emulating.
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What do waffles have to do with the Red Thread? Waffle House and the Waffle House Index. That's what we're talking about this week on Find the Red Thread. I'm Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com. If you're a fan, please do me a favor, like and subscribe. Waffle House index? You don't even know what the Waffle House is. Well, if you live in the American South, you just may, because the Waffle House is a chain of restaurants that's been around since the 1950s that's famous for not just their good food at good prices, but particularly for being open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Now, this always open piece has given rise to two things. The first an urban legend that says that there aren't locks on the doors. It's not true because occasionally Waffle Houses have to close in the face of disaster or national emergencies. And that's where the Waffle House Index came into play. Because the Waffle House is so good at staying open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the people who manage the emergency response started to pay attention to what extent the Waffle Houses were able to stay open in a particular area affected by a disaster. If a Waffle House was closed, that was not a good sign. If it was operating under a limited menu, it meant that the area was definitely affected, but that certain things could still get through. And of course, if it was green, then everything is just operating fairly close to normal. So the more Waffle Houses that were closed or limited, the worse they could kind of use as a proxy for how bad the disaster was. Now, how is it that Waffle House got to this point of helping emergency management officials determine how severe a disaster was? Well, it all comes down to the whys behind their why, the Waffle House operating system, the Waffle House red thread. Now, their goal for their audiences, the goal that they help their audiences and their customers satisfy, is that good food, good prices, always open. Now, the problem of perspective— what they see that other folks didn't see— is that it's not just about the food or the prices or being open. It's really about the people. That their perspective is that the people are what matters. And in fact, that leads to their company truth, a core belief and value that's right on their website, that they measure success by one thing: people. Not just the people who come and eat at their restaurants, but the people who work for them. That's why their entire mechanism for responding to and preparing for disasters, in fact, for just making sure that they're ready to be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, focuses on people. In a disaster, they do a number of different things. So first, they position people near enough to the area that's going to be affected so that other employees from other areas can come in and work at the affected areas. Waffle House so that the employees who are affected by the disaster can go take care of their homes and their communities. They also do things like making sure that every employee has a key fob with important information on it, so they've got all the numbers and all the things that they need in order to direct questions, answer questions, get additional supplies. They also make sure that they pay attention to the supply chain beyond just where do they get their particular food supplies from, but they're looking at how can they position even supplies nearby so that in a time of disaster they can get to— get supplies to their restaurants quickly. And that leads to one more thing that they do. They have a manual in every Waffle House that walks employees through exactly how to operate based on the supplies and the conditions that they're in. So they make sure, for instance, that they have non-perishable items close by, and they've got instructions on how to prepare it. All of this comes because they're not just focused on how can we make the most money by staying open, but understanding that staying open all the time requires people. It requires people who are prepared to continue to deliver that great food, great prices, always open, anytime. And that, I'd say, is a pretty fascinating red thread and one worthy of an index. That's this week's episode of Find the Red Thread. If you're a fan or looking to help find your own red thread, reach out to me at tamsenwebster.com/contact.
