- Gabriel Stulman’s TEDx talk, "A Winning Recipe – Lessons from Restaurants on Engaging Your Team," explores how restaurants can serve as a model for employee engagement, offering insights that can be applied across various industries.
- He highlights the challenges of running a restaurant, including slim profit margins and high-pressure environments, and discusses how these factors make employee engagement critical to success.
Stulman emphasizes three key strategies for fostering engagement:
1. Celebrating the Individual:
- Taking a personal interest in employees and supporting their passions outside of work can increase their enthusiasm and engagement. He shares the story of a server who was allowed to contribute his photography skills to the restaurant’s website, leading to greater pride in his work and improved performance.
2. Collaboration:
- Encouraging teamwork, even when it's less efficient, can result in greater engagement. Stulman illustrates this with a collaborative approach to cocktail creation, where all bartenders contribute ideas and take pride in the final menu.
3. Internal Promotion:
- Promoting from within is key to building a strong culture, improving retention, and ensuring that employees have clear paths for growth. Stulman stresses that internal promotion fosters loyalty and motivates employees when they see real opportunities for advancement.
Stulman concludes by highlighting the broader issue of disengagement in the workforce, noting that a significant percentage of employees are disengaged or actively undermining their organizations.
- He calls for leaders to take proactive steps to improve engagement through recognition, collaboration, and fostering growth within their teams.
Skill Level: Beginner
