Pal’s operations at each location are based on three principles:
- Leaders and managers champion company values by setting an example with their own personal choices and behaviors.
- Each business transaction is focused on creating an experience for customers that delights them.
- Store leaders and managers are to think strategically and act like owners to maximize success of their operations and their personal successes. This includes considering the short- and long-term impact of decisions and actions as well as the local and systemic impact.
These long-standing principles form the cornerstone of the Pal’s Leadership approach. The overall goal is to create a business system and culture that has a self-replicating passion for excellence.
The key character traits we focus on for store-level leadership and management are:
Decisiveness, Responsibility, Organization, Boldness, Truthfulness, Sincerity, Dependability, Punctuality, Thoroughness, Enthusiasm, Creativity, Initiative, Diligence, Discernment, Flexibility, and Honesty.
When we find an employee with all these characteristics, we know we have a candidate for our Leadership Development Pipeline.
Once trained, or leaders have three primary jobs as store leaders. They are to assess processes, teach and coach, and build relationships with customers. We do not focus them on the store’s daily functional jobs so strongly that they cannot see the big picture and how they fit into it and drive success.
True to our core value of visionary leadership, corporate leadership helps each store create a vision and goals for that specific store and to align it with the corporate vision and goals. To help monitor progress toward the vision and goals, to recalibrate performance to standards, and to define our high level of trust and respect, all corporate visits to a store are announced six weeks in advance, along with an agenda of topics to be reviewed and discussed.
- Thom Crosby, President/CEO Pal’s from Restaurateur’s Insight Into Performance Excellence