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- The best leaders flip burgers
Today is about learning how to lead, and I’m beginning with one of the best examples of leadership I’ve ever read.
It starts with flipping hamburgers.
Of course, anyone can flip a piece of meat, but not every burger restaurant executes on the simple truth of a patty shack—cooking the burger is the most important task in the building.
We aren’t talking about just any burger today, either. We’re talking about thin patties of 100% USDA ground chuck. Toss in caramelized onions, lettuce, tomato, and a toasted bun, and you have the best fast food burger in America.
There are a lot of ways you could build a process to crank out burgers at fast food pace. You could have one dedicated burger specialist—the stereotypical burger flipper. You could flash freeze pre-cooked burgers and just rewarm them for consistency.
Or you can put your leadership in charge of the burgers, as In-N-Out does.
Great leaders aren’t above simple tasks like flipping burgers.
No, great leaders understand that every role is necessary for success. The best way to build a team that also understands that is to lead by example.
The Big Lebowski movie created a huge cultural lift for the now-famous burger chain.
Adversity finds your real leaders
No matter the company, there will be moments where it all hits the fan and the team is on a tight deadline. In these moments, your real leaders become apparent. They’re in the war room, facilitating decisions. They order take out to ensure they’re nearby if the team has questions. They stay late to support their comrades, even if the actual work is largely out of their hands.
I try to stay grounded in these principles and practices. A few months ago, our company was onboarding 29,000 products for our ecommerce store. We were expecting the new partner to have a good, clean data feed to help facilitate all the categorization of these products (for example, how should we, GoWild, categorize this product in our store? Is this tool an Archery Accessory, or an Archery Tool?).
As the deadline heated up, though, the data was a combination of not ready and just not aligned with our needs. In order to power through and onboard the gear in time for our peak season, our team decided to brute force the categorization.
I’ve found no better way to build respect among a team than to show them you’re not only in charge, but that you understand every role is necessary to get the job done."
We chose to sort through the products one item at a time in a monster spreadsheet and get the task done.
When the team started divvying up work, I made it clear I was going to help. There was pushback, as expected. “You have plenty to worry about—we got this,” our Director of Ecomm Ops said.
But I saw two things:
First, there was just too much work and we didn’t have enough manpower. Taking me out of the equation would put us possibly a full week behind as someone else would have thousands of extra products to sort.
Second, I knew that by not offering to help the team with this Herculean effort, I was sending a signal—”I’m too good for this task.”
The truth? Everyone was too good for this work.
We had Directors and C-level Cofounders diving into face fulls of data management that could have easily been labeled as “not my job.” I was asking everyone to do something they didn’t sign up for, and it was quite frankly miserable and monotonous work. In showing that I—the CEO—was not above it, I gave the signal that no one was above it.
I have to admit, maybe comically, we got into a similar situation recently, and I tried to help again and the team flat out refused to give me access to the document. Either they appreciated the gesture but didn’t need the action, or I really was not good at data aggregation. Both are strong possibilities.
Back to burgers
Last year I read the book “In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules.” It’s a really fascinating read, especially if you have an affinity for Animal Style. I took quite a few mental notes down from the book, and one of the most notable was this:
The manager cooks the burgers.
A family business, Harry Snyder stands with his family at the original In-N-Out Burger.
I don’t know if they still do—I tried to look it up but haven’t found any concrete evidence. But when the founder’s son, Rich Snyder, started scaling In-N-Out he remained committed to quality. This was nowhere more evident than the fact that his managers were in charge of cooking the patties in the store, just like his dad had been in the original In-N-Out. Rich was so committed to this, that he founded In-N-Out University in 1984, an internal school for upcoming managers that taught them how to lead, and among other things, how to properly flip a burger.
Similarly, although with a far less quality product, I watched “The Founder” on Netflix recently. It’s about how Ray Kroc started and scaled the McDonald’s chain. The man was the ultimate Head Honcho, but Ray was notorious for walking into stores and picking up trash. Not only did he own the brand, he owned the land the franchisees leased to stay in business. Still, when he saw garbage on the ground, he took the time to pick it up. It’s hard to conceive a more powerful signal to his franchisees.
Whether it’s flipping a burger, picking up trash or staying late with the team and ordering them dinner, real leaders understand their job is more than the decisions they make. In order to be effective, leadership requires respect. I’ve found no better way to build respect among a team than to show them you’re not only in charge, but that you understand every role is necessary to get the job done. Real leaders don’t diminish any task, from trash to spatulas.
There are caveats here. We’re all specialized in what we do, and quite frankly it’s true that a C-level person’s time is often worth much more than an entry level person’s. Your most skilled, high level people’s time is usually a force multiplier within the company, too. Their strategic work ripples far and wide through the company. Of course, if you take enough of the entry level roles out of the picture and progress may grind to a halt. They’re collectively critical roles, too.
And that’s the power of the gesture of picking up trash or flipping the burger every now and then!
Leaders and founders, don’t forget the power of these moments. In addition to building a strong culture, these gestures can help you find and understand just how inefficient some tasks are. Remember that brutal data problem I mentioned a few paragraphs ago? Now that the GoWild Cofounders understand how horrible it is, we’re looking at ways to automate this process using artificial intelligence.
It’s an idea that would have likely never come had we not picked up a spatula.
3 takeaways leaders can use to step up to the heat in the kitchen and build culture
1) When monster tasks hit, don’t just ask for answers. Jump in with questions.
One of my most loathed bad manager sayings is “Don’t give me problems, give me solutions.” Bad managers never see their job as facilitating processes to help a team get to the right answer. Great managers roll up their sleeves and help the team fight for success. When you’re facing adversity, think of your role as a facilitator. You may not be able to write the code, do the creative, or whatever your direct reports do, but you can help them work through a creative thinking process to find answers, and then squash any pending roadblocks they see ahead.
2) Getting in the weeds can lead to fresh ideation
When leaders get in the weeds with their team, they’re often offering a fresh perspective to tired eyes. Diving into complex problems to help often puts a set of fresh eyes on the work that can say “have you ever tried doing it this way?” Sometimes this answer will be “duh” but it only takes one question to send the team exploring a new solution. It’s OK to throw out some bad ideas if they get you to a winner.
3) Take note of anyone who thinks they’re above getting dirty
Team players won’t hesitate to get dirty. When your team is up a creek without a paddle, keep an eye out for anyone not willing to use their hands as a propeller. Those who don’t like to get wet are likely not good team players, and like barnacles on the hull of the boat, they’re probably causing constant friction with your team.
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