How many people will you need to interview?
Five? Ten? Twenty-five? One hundred? Depending on the size of restaurant, bar, or hotel you’re planning to open, the number of people you will need to hire could be as few as five or as many as one hundred (if not more).
Stop and think about that for a minute. Even if you’re only conducting the interviews for your management team and asking them to do the rest, that’s still a lot of interviews that you’ll need to lead.
If I asked you right now which interview is the most important, you might tell me the head chef, director of operations, or your general manager. These roles are critical for the success of your venue. However, you’re forgetting the most important person you need to interview before opening.
And I feel I can safely guess that you’ve never interviewed this person: Yourself.
Image: nedimshoots / Unsplash
Are You the Right Person to Lead Your Hospitality Business?
You’re about to invest heavily in your concept with time, energy, resources, and money.
Once the doors are open there will be many people relying you. The success of your business affects your team, their families, your family, your community, and your lenders (to name a few). It’s a responsibility that shouldn’t scare you, but it’s also one that you should take seriously.
Exactly who is going to be leading the startup phase and beyond? Who will make final decisions?
As the founder, it will most likely be you. Therefore, you need to ask yourself if you’re the right person for the job.
Why Founder Self-Awareness Matters
Self-awareness allows you to be ahead of the game. Knowing where your strengths and weaknesses lie, along with what your typical behavior patterns look like, will enable you to make smarter decisions while running a hospitality business.
I’m not sure why we overlook ourselves. Or why we sometimes shrug off the importance of putting in the self-work required to be the leader our business requires us to be.
But I know this: it needs to stop.
It’s time to invest in the person who will be investing everything into the business. And it all starts with the most important interview you will ever conduct: the one with yourself.
How to Interview Yourself Before Opening
So, how do you interview yourself?
It starts with questions that dig deeper than surface level. It gets done with raw honesty. The end result will be clarity and a roadmap towards future decisions.
Sit back for a minute and take yourself out of the picture. Imagine that you’re handing over your dream, your concept, your resources, and your money to someone else. This person will take over and operate your business.
What questions would you ask them during an interview? How would you know they’re the best fit for your concept? How would you be able to judge if you could trust them?
Write these questions down. If you have fewer than ten, you aren’t digging deep enough. Once you have a thorough list, it’s your turn to answer them.
Answer the Questions with Evidence, Not Ego
Here’s the tricky part: we often tell ourselves what we think we should say.
We tell ourselves little lies to make us feel stronger, more capable, calmer under pressure, or more successful. For this exercise, ego needs to be left at the door, as does judgment.
Answer questions openly and honestly. Look to past experiences for proof of behavior. Don’t think of the leader you want to be; think of the leader and person you are right now.
What you’re trying to reveal is an honest snapshot of yourself: the amazing qualities, the accomplishments, the failures, the repeated behaviors, and the weaknesses.
You need to uncover the accurate picture of yourself, not the idealized version. Then, and only then, will you know who you’ve “hired” to operate and lead your business.
Turn Self-Awareness into a Leadership Plan
Now you can plan ahead properly.
You’ll see the gaps in yourself that you’ll need to hire to fill. You’ll have an operating system for your own behavior, which will help you recognize how you’ll act under pressure and how you’ll make decisions.
You’ll be stronger because you’ll be aware.
You may see the value in interviewing yourself but find the idea of being interviewer and interviewee simultaneously too challenging. Or perhaps you don’t know where to start in asking the right questions.
I created the Readiness Interview for this exact purpose: to provide something that doesn’t exist but is desperately needed—an interview for the founder, so you know exactly who you’re trusting with your dream.
So, go ahead and get real, get ready, and get aware. And remember to show up for your interview.
Learn More and Book Your Readiness Interview Here
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