Back in my restaurant days, a mentor of mine gave me a copy of Popes: A guide for Service Management. It was written by a man named H.H. Pope for his restaurant company, and it was a set of 21 rules for how to run a restaurant.
Learning Popes was a game changer. We taught it to every one of our managers. After everyone learned the guide, we were able to just shout out a number, and everyone knew what it meant. We were able to make changes quickly and could adapt on a dime to whatever the circumstances were.
At the end of the guidelines, there is a simple question that you ask yourself after every shift:
Are you proud of it?
According to H.H. Pope, “we must be proud of everything, which is going on, whether it is the cleaning, the preparation of the food, the service to the guests, or the efficiency of the operation. We insist that pride be the objective of everyone in the organization. Anyone who doesn’t wish to be dedicated to this objective cannot stay with our organization.”
I absolutely love this concept. When you are proud of your work, that translates to everyone in the organization. Pride in your work is a high standard, and yet, a very simple form of measurement.
If you aren’t proud of an area in your organization, that area is where you need to spend your time, effort and energy improving until you do feel proud of it. Don’t stop improving until your pride of that area returns.
POWER THOUGHT: Pride is something to be proud of.
*** I have searched high and low for anyone from H.H. Popes, Inc, so that I could thank them for this concept and give them proper credit for it. I have yet to find anyone. If any of you know who I can contact, please let me know.