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Lesson #2: A Strong Team Leads the Trail to Tomorrow

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Lesson #2: A Strong Team Leads the Trail to Tomorrow
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“I’m only as good as my team,” says Ramsay. “Building a team is part of the foundation of a good business.”

You may not know it to watch Ramsay in action on his “Hell’s Kitchen” reality television show, where verbally abusing his kitchen staff is a regular occurrence, but Ramsay actually does place a high importance on the people around him. As much as he may let his temper get the better of him from time to time, Ramsay knows that it is the team by his side that is helping him get the job done.

“Everyone thinks you’re an arsehole to work for because you get straight to the point,” says Ramsay. “I’ve the most amazing relationship with my guys, and yeah, if things go wrong, they have to take it. But I expect just as much from myself as I do from them.”

To that end, Ramsay is a firm believer in leading by example. Whether it’s scaling a salmon or sticking his fingers inside a turkey, if Ramsay does it, he makes his kitchen staff do it too. “No one calls me Mr. Ramsay, it's Gordon. It's not chef, it's Gordon,” he says. “We spend more time at work than we do with our families, so they're our family and we have to make them feel included. That's how you get the best out of your team.”

Ramsay also knows that as head chef, it is his role to guide and help teach those who work under him. It is only by educating them and challenging their abilities that they will remain motivated and eager to work for him, despite his temper. “You stay on top of it by building momentum,” says Ramsay. “I expose my staff by really dropping them in at the deep end. It's sink or swim. If they sink they are going to drop down and division and if they swim, they're going to go on and become successful.”

Ramsay still has 85 percent of his staff that he had in 1993, which is relatively unheard of in the industry and speaks volumes about his abilities as a team leader. Part of his secret to motivating his troops involves keeping them focused on the task at hand. They are not allowed to read restaurant reviews, if they are positive that is, because he does not want them to be self-indulgent.

“It's important not to rely on approval from outside the team,” says Ramsay. “It's about every day achievement; we have to start from scratch every day. We don't think in terms of what we've got and how good we are. I'm not interested in reading a complimentary letter; I want to see a complaint letter.”

But so far, what are most of those complaint letters about? “That our switchboard is blocked,” says Ramsay. Indeed, his call centre averages 2,500 calls a day for reservations at one of his restaurants. By that measure, the Ramsay team seems to be on top of its game.





Lesson 2 A Strong Team Leads the Trail to Tomorrow

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Michiel Jonker
As a Certified Information Systems Auditor, Michiel assists businesses in a professional capacity by evaluating the threats to their businesses. He acquired the necessary knowledge, skills, and techniques to minimize a business owner’s risk of business failure and to maximize his chances of high growth and success. He strongly believes that you CAN maximize your chances of business success, by implementing the business solution he has advocated for more than 12 years in your business plan and planning. Michiel has decided to share his experience with business owners by putting almost everything he knows in a business plan and survival guide (compiled in an e-book format) and written as a high growth SMB coaching course for SMB business owners, directors and managers - titled as the “Survival Kit for Small and Medium Businesses - Profit from your Business Risks!” According to Michiel, his goal was to add new techniques to a business owner’s business planning survival kit and instruct him or her in using these in the future - without any help from a consultant! For more information about the benefits of implementing profit protection planning in your business, please visit: http://www.business-around-the-globe.com - Visit Michiel Jonker's Website

Dianne Crampton

Dianne Crampton is North America's leading authority on team culture.  She is an author and professional speaker and president of the leading team culture consultancy, TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Crampton has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down or to subscribe to TIGES Free monthly e-newsleeter go here.

Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009.  Her new book TIGERS Among Us: Winning Business Team Cultures And Why They Thrive, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010.  To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here.

- Visit Dianne Crampton's Website


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