How a T.G.I. Friday's restaurant was saved by a dedicated manager who invested in the development -- and the future -- of his employees

To hear Dennis Greer tell it, he was simply trying to live up to the expectations of the three most important women in his life.

His mother, although she was poor and raised a family without Greer's father, constantly made sacrifices for others. Greer couldn't believe the number of people who came to her funeral to talk about something she'd done for them.

His wife would not let him take the comfortable route when a chance to help other people presented itself in his career.

His daughter hears his lectures about integrity and credibility. Greer knows she will disregard his advice unless he lives up to his own rhetoric.

By aspiring to leave a positive legacy, Greer took a restaurant that his company wanted to close and made it the most profitable in the region. Along the way, he changed some people's lives for the better.

An appeal to conscience

The T.G.I. Friday's restaurant in Southfield, Michigan, sits on the boundary between two vastly different cultures of the Detroit metropolitan area. On one side is prominence and wealth; on the other is poverty, drugs, and crime. In 1999, both the restaurant property and the morale of its staff were run-down. The restaurant was seriously underperforming.

"We were ready to close that unit," says Mark Snyder, who was the local director of operations at the time. "It was only doing a couple million dollars in sales, and we were working on how we could get out of that lease, because the restaurant was twenty years old, and we hadn't been successful there in the last, five, six, seven years."

That might have been the end of it, but the lease made it more expensive to close the restaurant than to take one last shot at turning a profit. Casting about for who might take on the task, Snyder turned to Greer, then the kitchen manager of the T.G.I. Friday's restaurant 13 miles south in Dearborn. Greer had earned high marks for hard work and solid personnel decisions. He made himself the "obvious choice" to lead Southfield, Snyder says.

Greer turned down the job. "We had a nice life going for us, and I was comfortable," he says. "I heard the stories about what goes on there. My wife was going through a difficult pregnancy. I didn't want to put myself in a situation like that and take a chance on losing everything that I had worked so hard for . . . everything I had done for my family."

Greer's wife, Kathleen, reminded Dennis about his own childhood in the public housing projects of Jackson, Tennessee; he had always talked about wanting to make a difference. She suggested that maybe he should accept the job. "She was actually disappointed in me because I took the easy route instead of going over to help the people," he says. "She kind of, like, made me feel guilty about not going."

So Greer went back to Snyder, telling him that not only would he take the job, he'd also turn around the business. "Listen," Snyder recalls Greer telling him, "I'm going to make this restaurant successful. There's great potential here. There are great people here. And I'm going to make it work." Snyder promised to back him up with employees and managers from other restaurants who could help in a pinch.

Maintaining standards

Turnover was very high, and that made it impossible to retain trained and experienced staff or to give the guests a consistent experience. "A guest would show up, and they could get great food and service, but the next time it might be extremely slow, or the food could be wrong, or the food would be cold," says Snyder.

The customers were demanding but didn't tip much, making it even more difficult for the restaurant to keep people on staff. General managers -- who usually didn't last more than six months in the Southfield restaurant -- made excuses for why they couldn't live up to T.G.I. Friday's brand expectations. Snyder says their attitude was essentially, "We deal with a different clientele. We deal with a different employee base, so [the expectations have] to be different."

In its 12-item employee engagement survey, the Q¹², Gallup asks for a reaction to the statement "There is someone at work who encourages my development." In Southfield, many workers couldn't even say they had someone at home encouraging their development, let alone at work.

"A lot of the people come from very dysfunctional homes," says Josephine Costew, a 69-year-old veteran of the restaurant and de facto mother hen to the workers at Southfield. Between child-care problems, staying out too late the night before work, or lack of transportation, they often showed up late -- or not at all.

Trying to balance compassion with resolve, Greer set his sights on turning around the Southfield restaurant. First, he had to organize a group of like-minded managers. A half dozen were shown the door as he struggled to create a consistent approach.

Greer aimed to be more open with the staff about the restaurant's results. "I didn't want to operate in the 'secret squirrel world,'" he says. "I call it the 'secret squirrel world' because all the managers would go into the office, where employees weren't allowed, and it sent a message that something secret was going on. If people wanted to know what was going on with the business, they could just come and ask me." In return, he expected the staff to get involved in improving the numbers.

Once a stronger management team was in place, Greer could focus on front-line staff. He began by rejecting excuses. "His whole mantra was, 'No, this is a Friday's. These are our standards. This is how we operate. This is how we treat people. This is what we're going to do,'" says Snyder.

Maintaining standards wasn't easy to do with employees whose personal lives were often in turmoil. Even though Greer came from a tough background himself, he admits, "I was still in for a culture shock" as to how some employees and customers behaved in the restaurant.

One day, a waiter reported that a man had a gun with him at his table. "Dennis walked up to the guy and said, 'Listen, put your gun away. This is not how we do business in here. If you want to stay here, you need to put your gun in your car. If you don't want to do that, I'm going to ask you to leave and not come back,'" says Snyder. "It didn't rattle him the least bit. He was a leader. Everyone saw that, so they had confidence in him."

As for the employees, Greer says, "We had to change a lot of their behaviors. I told them, 'What happened in the past is the past. Whatever it was, I forgive you, and I'm willing to press on today as if nothing ever happened.' I told them I would judge them from this day forward, not by what happened in the past, as long as they came in and did the right thing."

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Greer expected his managers to be mentors to the others in the restaurant. Whether workers were trying to buy a house, had credit problems, or needed to go to a shelter, managers were supposed to be ready to help. "Unfortunately, we've dealt with a lot of situations like teenage pregnancies or abuse, so we've worked with shelters and other agencies that were able to help them," Greer says.

The new Southfield general manager always seemed to be at the restaurant, says Costew. His investment helped the employees and the business. Greer explains, "Whatever situation they were in, helping the members of the team get through a personal issue or crisis also benefited me professionally, because they came back and did a better job for me."

Ebonie Finley had been employed at the restaurant only a short time when she found out about her unplanned pregnancy. When she told Greer, he wanted to know how he could help. "He told me to let him know if I needed anything. If I needed time off, I should let him know," says Finley. When she delivered the baby, friends from work visited the hospital and sent flowers. She was eager to get back to work, but, Finley recalls, "He wasn't having it. He said, 'No, you take the whole six weeks. We'll take care of it. Let your body heal.' I remember all of it."

When Finley returned from maternity leave, Greer offered her a chance to work in the carryout section of the restaurant. It was a Friday night, which -- as one might suspect from the restaurant's name -- is a busy evening there. Everyone was overwhelmed. "Dennis did carryout," says Finley. "The servers were too busy. He cleared tables. He did it all that day. Since we were so busy and I couldn't handle it, I was going to make that my last night doing carryout, but he worked with me until I got better."

At other jobs, Finley had been left on her own to figure things out. In similar situations, she'd been told, "That's tough. Can you try a little harder?" "But trying harder isn't going to make me do it any faster or any better if I'm new at it," she says.

Just knowing she had Greer to coach her made her work harder for T.G.I. Friday's and helped her think about her own potential.

"So, what do you want to do in the future?" Greer asked her one day.

"Maybe be a manager?"

"Sure, why not?" he replied. "I don't see why you can't."

"You think I could?"

"Sure. Maybe that's something next after carryout."

Gallup interviews with employees in a host of industries show that incidental discussions like this one can have a tremendous effect on the commitment and confidence of workers. Finley calls it "the little oomph" she needed to believe in herself.

Last chances

Constantly searching for new hires, Greer was also willing to take a chance on people who were working their way through the criminal justice system. He formed a partnership with Judge Ingram (Judge is his first name, not his occupation), assistant director of the local office of Michigan Works, a job placement office that often helps probationers find their court-required job. "For a while, I was dealing with nothing but ex-offenders," says Ingram. "Dennis would take a chance on them. I could depend on him. I could call him when I couldn't call anybody else."

Ingram routinely called Greer to ask if he would interview people who needed jobs. "I couldn't save everyone he sent to me. Sometimes I had to tell him no," says Greer. "But I was able to help most of the people that he sent to me."

If Greer has a weakness, says Costew, it's his soft heart. If there's a chance someone might turn around his life, Greer wants to give him the opportunity. He also has a knack for helping people. "He could always pick out the person that was an underdog and see what's wrong, whether it was their home life, or whether they were having other problems," says Costew. "If he couldn't develop them, they didn't want to be developed."

Balancing a desire to help people on the rebound with the need to maintain the restaurant's standards wasn't easy. "If they're a potential high risk, I sit down and I have a hard conversation with them right from the get-go," says Greer. "I let them know there's two options: They will work well and be successful, or they're going to go back to jail. I will pull either string. I will make them successful, or I'll be the one to call the judge and say, 'Put this guy back in jail.'" He gives the members of his staff his cell phone number and tells them he'd rather have them call before they get in trouble -- when he can help them out -- than call him from jail.

He's had his share of failures and tragedies -- "heartbreakers" Greer calls them. Just recently, a former employee was shot and killed while riding in the car of a relative. "Some people were looking [to shoot the relative], and when they saw the car, they just shot at it," Greer says.

Costew cautions Greer not to be too optimistic. "I'd tell him, 'Dennis, no matter what you tell them, they're going to do what they want,'" she says.

"I know," he replied, "but I've got to try and help them."

Greer also finds that, whatever the odds of success, encouraging the development of his team members is one of the best ways to grow his business. "I always go into it not as I'm hiring somebody to get better sales, but rather, I ask myself, 'What can I do for this person? How can I make them a better person? How can I grow them? How can I make their life better?'" Greer says. "Usually with that approach, I get more out of it than going in thinking, 'Well, I just need this person for this reason only.'"

Greer often speaks to schools and other groups to motivate urban kids to stay out of trouble and make something of themselves. He borrowed some lines from his wife's pastor about the three things people must change if they want to improve their lives.

"They've got to change their mouth -- change the way they're talking," says Greer. "You can't talk like you're in the 'hood if you're not in the 'hood. When you get a job, you've got to speak professionally.

"You have to change your members -- change the people you're hanging around. If you're not a drug dealer, why are you hanging around a drug dealer? If you're not a drunk, why are you hanging around a drunk? If you don't steal, why are you hanging around with a thief?

"If they change their mouth and they change their members, then they'll change their mission. A lot of people don't even know what their mission is, and that's just as bad as knowing what your mission is and failing at it. If you don't know what your mission is, then you don't have a purpose or meaning in life; you're just taking whatever comes whenever it comes."

For some of Greer's employees, the advice took hold. Now firefighters, teachers, business owners, or otherwise successful, they come back to thank him for taking a chance on them. One man who originally came to the restaurant wearing a court-ordered tracking device on his leg is now running a successful mortgage company.

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Greer's team considered him so possessed of such wisdom, they gave him a nickname. "They call me 'Grasshopper,'" he says. "I haven't really figured it out yet, but it's from the old TV show Kung Fu." (Kwai Chang Caine, the main character in the 1970s series, was called "Grasshopper" as a boy by the Shaolin monk who taught him lessons about life.)

While turnover at Southfield remains high in comparison to that of more stable neighborhoods, "Dennis was able to cut it in half," says Snyder. "He was also able to cultivate some really great team members in the restaurant. A couple of them were promoted into management. His staff did a good job and cared about the guests and the business. It really made a difference."

Engagement scores at the restaurant increased to the top quartile in Gallup's employee engagement database. Word spread among nearby residents that the restaurant was a dependably enjoyable place to have a meal. Revenue more than doubled to almost $5 million a year. Southfield -- which was no longer losing money -- had become one of the most profitable restaurants in the division. Snyder, now vice president of operations, says in his 25 years at T.G.I. Friday's, he's never seen anything like it.

The improvements have made Greer's life better financially and earned him a promotion to director of operations over eight restaurants in the Detroit area. But if you ask him why he put so much heart into Southfield, he returns to the memory of his mother.

"When she passed away and I saw all the people whose lives she had touched and the difference she had made in so many lives, it struck me that life is about people. If you build relationships with people based on what you can do for them, then you don't have to worry about anything for yourself. That stuff will take care of itself," he says.

Reflecting on his mother's funeral, he sometimes wonders about his own. "When I die, what is the story that I want people to tell about me? What are they going to say? What did I do? I don't want cars and houses; those things come and go. Instead, I think about what legacy I will leave for my kids. What will it say about what their father did in this world? That drives me the most."

-- Consultant Janet Kaiser assisted in the preparation of this story.

This Exceptional Manager's Talents All managers put their own unique stamp on success, because everyone has his or her own unique combination of natural talents. Here are Dennis Greer's top five talent themes, as measured by the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment. Focus Managers especially talented in Focus tend to judge every activity by whether it leads them toward a particular goal. Greer says this outlook even influences his family's vacations, which he does not allow to deviate from the scheduled route and timetable. "There was no detouring," he says. "Along the way, the kids would see fireworks places and these nice things on the side of the road. I said, 'We've got this much time. We've got to stick to the schedule.' I usually won't steer off the course." At his restaurant, "My focus is on us being a for-profit company. Winning in business is to be profitable and to be respected. All of our actions speak to whether we will attain our goal," he says. Strategic People with powerful talents in the Strategic theme can think several moves ahead and connect those moves to reach their destination. "I often view the consequences of every situation, not only what's going to happen after that situation, but what's going to happen after that, and then after that," says Greer. To him, this extrapolation allows him to foresee anything that might interfere with success: "I don't view it as a risk. By the time I anticipate all the possibilities, it's not really a risk anymore. It's close to a sure thing." Relator Relator talents lead managers to get to know people deeply and to build trusting relationships with them. "Building relationships is the foundation of your business," Greer says. "If you can converse and build relationships with people by truly listening and talking and relating to them, you will have a lot of success." These talents do expose Greer to the possibility that when he hires some people with troubled pasts, they will abuse his trust. But he remains hopeful. "I tend not to give up on people too easily." Achiever Greer's Achiever talents encourage him not to compete against other people, but to compare his performance to his own internal goals. In Greer's case, his estimation of the man he should be -- his drive to live up to his mother's example -- looms large. "The strongest feedback I get from other people is that I am too hard on myself," he says. Last year, he spoke at a women's business forum, following a speaker who had a message so similar to his he felt impelled to speak extemporaneously. Although people in the audience said he did a great job, he still thinks he could have done better. "I asked if I could speak to the women's business forum again," he says. "I didn't do like I know I could have done. I have to do it again, for myself, so I can be satisfied with how I did." Responsibility Managers with exceptional Responsibility talents take psychological ownership of events around them. They cannot rest until their work is completed, and they don't allow excuses to get in the way. "At the age of six, seven, or eight, I was treated differently than my brothers that were ten and eleven," says Greer. "My mother would send me to pay the telephone and gas bills, which was a thirty- or forty-minute walk from where we lived. She would trust me to go and come back. I think that's where the Responsibility in me comes from." Greer lectures both his staff and his children on the importance of delivering on commitments. "In everybody's heart, they know the right thing to do. What you say you're going to do, you do. If you say you are going to be there at eight o'clock, be there at fifteen minutes to eight. If you say you're going to have it done on Tuesday, have it done on Monday. Be credible about what you do in life, and let your name stand for something."

The Clifton StrengthsFinder and the 34 StrengthsFinder theme names are protected by copyright of The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ, 2000. All rights reserved.

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