At a recent meeting, one of our community leaders quoted: “The main thing is to know the main thing. And to keep the main thing, the main thing.”

At first I was taken aback. Then I thought about the meaning of this quote. What is the main thing for me today?

For me as an Executive Chef, it is to develop my people, provide cutting-edge food to our guests, and treat everyone with respect while achieving business results as outlined in our operating budget. My question to myself regarding all of this is, How do I keep my chefs aligned with my main thin—get them to realize that our “main things” are the same?

We just had our weekly leadership meeting, reviewing the past year’s business results in detail. Compared with the industry overall, we feel that we did rather well, with more guests over the prior year but per cap revenue down. We have been recognized repeatedly in the media over the past year for food and beverage, including the level of service and quality of food. We are expanding our catering operation and are very passionate about our training and development programs.

With the recession dragging on and our new budget on hand, however, we face operational challenges in order to meet our owner’s new expectations. We also spent a good portion of the time discussing employee morale. How can we as managers recognize great performance at the heels of reduced benefits, which affect everyone? How can we provide the team with tools to take care of our guests with a training budget reduced to barely provide for certification related topics such as ServSafe? How can we recognize individuals and teams for great achievements while there are neither merit increases nor incentives this year?

As I mentioned earlier, we feel we have done better than many other establishments in the industry and in the region. Many restaurants closed over the last year and good people lost their jobs. Not so at our casino. Just in the past couple of weeks, a local department store announced the closing of one of their distribution centers, and a nearby gaming facility is about to close its doors too. In light of news like this, I appreciate the fact that our company continues to make job preservation its priority. No layoffs, increased insurance premiums, and no more free employee meals is a small price to pay as I see it.

So how do we maintain good employee morale, keeping the team engaged with locked-on service? Performance reviews continue to be a critical aspect for feedback, coaching, and development of the team members. Positive reinforcement—rewarding behavior you want repeated—works well if done systematically and consistently. As many studies indicate, employees find personal recognition more motivating than financial rewards. The key is to know your employees and know what makes them tick.

For younger professionals, this is probably the first time they have faced economic challenges like this, for others, like myself, we have seen previous recessions through and learned from them. We all know that this recession will end, but when we get out of it depends on the region and industry as well. Yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

“The main thing is to know the main thing. And to keep the main thing, the main thing.”