How to Transform Frontline Managers Into Leaders w/ Monica Rothgery (fmr COO - KFC US)

Frontline managers have the power to change lives. But 49% are burned out on a daily basis. If we’re going to rely on them to run our businesses and take care of our people, they’ll need our help.

Monica Rothgery, former Chief Operations Officer of KFC U.S., joined JD Dillon to discuss the essential role frontline managers play in today’s workplace. They explore practical strategies for helping managers balance corporate priorities, demanding customers and frontline needs. Sharing real-world stories and lessons learned from years spent managing restaurants, movie theaters and theme parks, they unpack why it’s time to shift from managing to leading on the frontline. 

• Watch the full video of this episode plus past ITKs on the Axonify YouTube Channel.
• Grab a copy of Monica’s book - Lessons from the Drive Thru - at monicarothgery.com.
• Subscribe for ITK updates and show announcements at axonify.com/itk.
• Get a copy of JD’s book - The Modern Learning Ecosystem - at jdwroteabook.com.

For more about why Axonify is the proven employee enablement solution that equips frontlines with the essential tools to learn, connect and get things done, visit https://www.axonify.com.

Transcript

-=Speaker 1 (00:12):

Hi friends, how are you today? Well, it's great to see you and welcome to the 49th episode of In the Know Your 25 Minute Deep Dive into the Modern Employee Experience and what we can do to make it better. I'm JD from Axonify, and today's episode is all about managers. Now, what makes a great manager a great manager? Is it technical know-how is it the ability to hit operational targets? Is it caring about the people they're responsible for leading? So I want you to drop a comment in the LinkedIn chat, what do you think it is that sets the great managers apart? Now, once you decide what great managers do, you naturally want to figure out how do we get all of our managers to do those things? And that's why leadership development is a $60 billion. Industry organizations have been trying for years to figure out how to build great managers.

(01:03):

And despite all this investment research from CMI shows that 82% of bosses are accidental managers, people who are put into the role with little to no training on how to do the job. And I know exactly what this is like I was one of those accidental managers. I got my first promotion to management when I was 19 years old. And now I don't mean to brag, but I'm going to do it anyway. I was a great frontline manager. I spent 10 years managing operations in movie theaters and in theme parks, and I learned a lot from these roles about running a business, about dealing with challenging situations and about managing people. I still apply these lessons today, but I was also one of the 40% of frontline managers who is burned out on a daily basis as I struggled to balance shifting corporate priorities with everyday employee and customer needs.

(01:54):

A big part of that burnout came from the fact that I was learning to do the job on the fly. I would argue that I became a great manager in spite of the support that I received, not because of it. In my first gig, I was scheduled for manager training months after I stepped into the role and then later on, one of my bosses just wouldn't give me time to attend training. So I went on my days off because I knew it was important for my development. And thankfully I worked with some epic managers along the way. The company didn't teach me how to deal with a blackout on the 4th of July or what to do when the world's most popular ride breaks down on your first night in charge. I learned that stuff from Kathy and Joey and Dan and Allison. And there's this popular meme, it goes around LinkedIn a lot that says people don't leave jobs, they leave managers.

(02:45):

And of course that's a gross oversimplification of reality. But it's also an important point, especially on the frontline because after all, frontline employees don't work for your company. They work for their managers, the people hired them, schedule their shifts, assign their tasks, and make sure that they get paid. So how often do frontline workers leave their managers because their managers were set up to fail from the start? And there are two things that drive frontline retention more than anything else, including pay. People are more likely to stay when they like the people they work with and they trust their managers. And that's why managers account for 70% of the variance in team employee engagement according to research release this morning by Gallup. So if we want to improve the frontline experience, reduce turnover, boost engagement, bring customers back and drive business results, we need to help our frontline managers first.

(03:43):

And that is why I'm so excited to be joined by today's special ITK guest, Monica Rothgery. Monica started her career as a Taco Bell restaurant manager 30 years later, she was the first woman to become chief operations officer for KFC in the United States as a speaker. And coach Monica helps frontline leaders realize their potential to change lives. And her new book is titled Lessons from the Drive-Through: Real Life Wisdom for Frontline Leaders. And now I have consumed hundreds of books and articles and podcasts and webinars all about management principles and leadership development. And this book is by far the most real practical and downright useful piece of content on the topic of frontline management I've ever come across. I needed this book 20 years ago, but today I'm happy to say, Monica, you're in the know how you doing

Speaker 2 (04:31):

Jd? Thank you for that high praise. I mean, what else could you want someone to say about your book? That it was practical, easy to read and hopefully a little bit funny. So thank you for that. I'm so excited to be here and I love talking about frontline leaders and development of those folks, so let's jump in.

Speaker 1 (04:55):

Sure. So we have a lot in common. That was one of the things that jumped at me when I was reading the book. I read it on an airplane and I think people around me probably started to notice that I was talking to myself as I was reading the book because there were so many similarities happening between my experience on the frontline in your own. So we both managed frontline operations. You were in restaurants, I was in movie theaters and theme parks. We both then made a jump to learning and development on our way to becoming senior management. And in both of our cases, it's been a little bit since we managed frontline teams. So with years now spent among the executive ranks, I'm curious what inspired you to write this book now and reflect on your time as a frontline manager?

Speaker 2 (05:34):

This is a juicy question. There's a chapter in my book about Rocky and Bullwinkle. It was a late closed 2:00 AM cold Chicago night, and I still had to put up all the POP for our upcoming promotion, which was Rocky and Bullwinkle. It was the end of the week. And so the sales report had printed end of day report, and I had missed food cost again, sixth time in 10 weeks. And I was struggling to get this rocky and Bullwinkle standee. It was like this eight foot standee to stay together and stand. It kept falling over and the more I tried it, the more frustrated I got.

(06:20):

And on that cold night in Chicago, I just sat down in frustration and the tears came. And that night I promised myself that if I ever got promoted, if I survived this and didn't get fired, if I got promoted, I would spend the rest of my career doing what I could to support managers and frontline leaders. And I like to think that I did that throughout the roles I had in the various restaurant companies I worked in, but I knew there was more I could do and that this book is my gift to frontline leaders. There are so many books written by executives, executives for senior leaders. I haven't found any, maybe there's a few out there. I think Jim Sullivan might have one, but there are very few, if any books written for the people that need it the most, which is our frontline leaders. Most of the time they just got slapped, a name tag that says assistant manager and the Keys, and they have no idea how to lead people. And so it's a hard job. It's a lonely job. And I hope that my book helps them know they're not alone. They don't have to struggle the way I did, and they have the power to change lives. So I always knew I was going to write it.

Speaker 1 (07:39):

Awesome. And I can echo that sentiment given how many times we worked in different types of environments. But there were so many times reading the book where I said, that happened to me and I wish someone had been there to show me how to overcome that problem or how to deal with that situation before it became that difficult. So that's why I think more people need to learn a few lessons from the drive-through. So what we're going to do while we're here today is we're going to give a few books to a few lucky LinkedIn Live viewers. 

(08:19):

 So it might've been a while since we've been in these roles ourselves, but as I continue to work with frontline operations and frontline management teams, I actually find that the day-to-day job isn't that different all these years later. So I'm curious to get your perspective. How has the job of a frontline manager changed since you were in the role, and how is it the same as it was this many years later?

Speaker 2 (09:04):

Yeah, I think it's a lot more the same than different. I wish it was more different than the same. I wish it was easier. Now, I wish technology was enabling the job to be easier, and in some ways it is, but it's got a long, long, long way to go. The biggest differences I think, and I actually asked some managers this question, I don't want to pretend like I still know what it's like, right? So I actually asked, and the first thing out of their mouth was phones. Employees have phones and they're constantly drawn away from their task. They want to check texting or check messages or whatever. And so that's the single biggest thing that at least managers were telling me that's different from maybe when I was running a restaurant. I think the other thing is customers might be a little more impatient now and behavior, certain behaviors that were rare, like getting a drink tossed at you, sadly, now maybe a little more common. So it's even more challenging to diffuse and de-escalate and handle customer issues. So those would be the two. I think, otherwise it's very much the same

Speaker 1 (10:35):

For me. I am often surprised by that when I visit a company that my team works with, I love going straight towards whoever's the store manager or the frontline manager of this particular team and asking certain questions. And one of the first questions I like to ask is, how'd you get here? And how did you become the manager? And more often than not, the answer is, well, the manager quit and I was the best salesperson, or I was the most tenured employee. So it is one of those things where, oh, that echoes because that was kind of why I stepped in. And then when you ask what people do every day, and even the technology that's used looks so similar to the technology I was using 14 years ago, but maybe now it's on a phone instead of being on a desktop computer in the back of the store, it's on a tablet.

(11:21):

But for me, it often comes down to the fact that, oh, it's still about people, whether it's customers and whether it's employees, and it's about getting the job done and it's about balancing priorities. And maybe I didn't receive, we had memos back in the day, maybe a little bit more than we had emails, I'd interoffice memos at one point in my career. So the mechanisms were a little bit different, but the kind of nuts and bolts of the job is so similar. And I think most frontline businesses, they understand the importance of the manager. They know how challenging it is when you lose a manager from one of your locations or from one of your stores or restaurants. And there's a reason that we see some very large companies right now are investing in increasing compensation and benefits in order to attract and retain experience managers. So they know it's a hard job, they know it's an important job, but there's often still something missing when it comes to their ability or maybe even willingness to give managers the help they need to do the job well. So what do you think companies get wrong when it comes to how they support their frontline managers?

Speaker 2 (12:28):

Yeah, I continue to be frustrated by this because I don't know how much more data we need to show that the frontline manager, especially today in an environment where wage rates are so high, competition is fierce for talent and retention is at an all-time low that the frontline leaders, the key prices are through the roof, that your frontline leaders the key to not just taking care of your restaurant but growing that business. And I still don't understand why organizations don't take the time to invest the money in their frontline leaders. I'm not talking about, it's so interesting. My training was, I don't know, six weeks or something like that, and I learned how to make tacos, burritos, I learned how to shut down the register and do end-of-day inventory. The managers know how to do that stuff. They know how to make chicken and pizza.

(13:35):

You knew how to make popcorn. That's not what you need help with. What you need help with is what happens when, what happens when three team members don't show up or what happens when customers get violent. And that's the stuff we don't provide these guys. And so it drives me crazy and I'm on a mission to try and help organizations realize that the key to unlocking the growth in your business is engaging with these folks and helping them recognize that they have the power to change lives in their team members and to grow your business.

Speaker 1 (14:21):

What's interesting as you speak to those kind of different points with regards to what people need to be prepared for so much of being a great frontline manager in my experience, has been being able to deal with the unexpected or the things that you weren't explicitly trained for. Because I made a reference in the very beginning of the show to a blackout on the 4th of July, and that happened to me in one of my movie theaters, a kid in the parking lot, those bollards that lighted bollards that make sure you don't drive up onto the pavement in front of different locations. A kid just happened to kick one and it broke and it shorted, and it took my entire theater down with it, and it was the 4th of July. It's kind of a busy day in movie theaters at that particular moment in time. And there wasn't a manual for that because it was, I dealt with my share of blackouts and power outages and things like that, but it was a unique experience at that particular time that still echoes in my mind.

(15:16):

And it's one of those, how do you train people for this? How do you prepare people for this? And a lot of it is making sure that you're working alongside people who have done it before, who've seen it before. And there are managers out there today who've been doing this for 10, 15 years. They've seen it, they've done it. They've been called every name. They've had every particular food item thrown at their head. That's right. Unfortunately. And it's one of those, well, how do we share that insight and that intelligence and that know-how, in a way that I think doesn't match up with your kind of traditional corporate leadership development training methodology or kind of perspective, especially for managers like yourself who you are on a bit of an island in your particular restaurant or restaurants that you were managing. I had the benefit of when I worked at a large theater, there might've been six or seven of us who are operations managers.

(16:04):

And then at Disney, I was on teams that had 12 to 15 different managers. So there was a bit of osmosis that happened by circumstance when you're around people who are more experienced than you, and we kind of slam into those walls together where if you're like yourself and you're the manager and people are looking at you for these types of circumstances and you've never been through these types of situations before, that question of, well, how do we connect you with the right people to kind of work through problems together and give you that time and space to do it versus like you said, here are the keys in my case, here's the keys, here are the radio, run this business.

Speaker 2 (16:39):

Good luck. Yeah, I, and I write about this in the book, I had some problems that I was trying to solve related to food costs, cost of sales, and I was too proud and too scared to ask my peers for help, partly because they were kind of positioned as competition. I was competing against them to have better results, and I didn't think they would want to help me. And that was a misconception, and I do write about that. Once I realized that my peers could really help me if I swallowed my pride and asked, that shifted a lot for me once I did that, and then I started to understand, okay, there's no problem that somebody hasn't already solved or seen, and they probably have hacks that aren't even in the manuals anyways, so you're better off just calling your buddy or texting the manager in the next suburb and you'll get to a resolution faster.

(17:45):

And we're going to talk about l and d and HR later, but how do we that in so that it's not like an ad hoc just, but rather it's baked into the learning system so that it's already there or they know how to go and get what they need when they need it. You didn't need to know how to solve a power outage on the 4th of July until it happened. And then once something happens, that's when you need to know the POS goes down or the truck shows up and it doesn't have certain ingredients on it. What do you do? Right?

Speaker 1 (18:21):

Yeah. We could spend an entire hour and a half conversation talking about my first night managing the world's most popular theme park attraction and how things went wrong. Yet it was a demonstration of my, I believe, superior management skills. Believe that all the time. So I want to dig into a popular term that we use a lot in the corporate space, and that is the word leader. So somewhere in the last 15 years, I think we decided that people aren't managers, they're leaders. But I think that leader is a title that you can't be given. It's a title that you earn. And that's why I don't use the word leader very much when I talk about these types of topics. And if you look at it, leadership and management are two different skill sets, in my opinion, both critically important. But you can't just say, well, you have the manager title, therefore you are a leader. So I want to get your thoughts on what it means. And you talk a lot about this in the book shifting from managing to leading as a frontline manager.

Speaker 2 (19:18):

And it's a great differentiation because I think we train people to be managers, how to open, close, run the shift, get the money to the bank, achieve the labor cost targets, hire people. But leading is kind of that heads up this group of people, these 30 or 40 people, which who has 40 people reporting to them, what leader has 40 people reporting them anywhere in corporate? But on the front lines, it's crazy, right?

Speaker 1 (19:52):

I opened a theater once, I had 120 direct reports,

Speaker 2 (19:54):

And you have the least amount of experience and the most responsibility. But that leader is one that starts to recognize that they get things done through others, and that their real job isn't getting things ready for the lunch month rush. Their real job is being a person who their team can come to providing the tools, the resources, the support, the coaching, the feedback, the shoulder to cry on whatever it is they need, the recognition so that their team is enabled to do their role. I think that's what it really boils down to. And once I realized that as a manager, and I didn't for quite a while, I was putting this cape on and just being a superhero to turn around this restaurant, once I realized that I couldn't do it by myself, and that the real job was building a team that cared about each other and that I had to care about them before they were ever going to care about me each other or the company, right?

Speaker 1 (21:09):

That's why I always echo that sentiment around the fact that frontline employees don't work for the company, they work for their manager. And the fact that we will talk about the importance of community and culture within a frontline business or within any business. But that idea that I think it's a mistake if companies think, well, we have one culture and one community as a business. No, in my opinion, you have as many cultures and communities as you do locations potentially, because even when I was working with Disney, one attractions environment in one theme park was meaningfully different as a community from another, even though we had similar operating procedures, we were working towards similar goals, we had similar structures, the people were different. And the experience of work day to day was different, which fostered a different type of relationship. And it changed what my job had to be in managing this team as opposed to this other team.

(22:02):

Even though the job itself and the buttons and what it took to open and close every day, it was very similar. Understanding the people side of it was what I think created that transition from management to leadership. And when you think about the role that corporate plays in this, I often talk about the importance of giving managers permission to lead because instead of expecting that managers, because they have the title, they have the keys, oh, they can do this. They can lead their teams. It's really about, well, how do we give them permission by making sure they've got the tools, they've got the training, they've got the priorities, they've got the time to effectively manage their work too. So how do you think about organizations effectively supporting managers? What do they need maybe when managers first get started? And then how should management support change over time as you get more into the job?

Speaker 2 (22:55):

Oh, there's so much to unpack here. Do you know most team members don't even know if they work for the corporation or a franchisee? They know they work for Taco Bell, but at the end of the day, they work for JD, they work for Monica, right? And if they stay or not stay, it's because of that manager. There's no true, no bigger truism than that. I think what organizations get wrong is way too many KPIs and KPIs that aren't focused on growing the business. So I had a workshop in February, 50 restaurant managers. I said, describe your role in one sentence, but you can't use the word manager run. I manage a restaurant. You can't do that. And oh my gosh, Didi, I heard everything like serve the customer, make food, deliver speed of service, get the money to the bank, train people, create a culture.

(23:51):

Finally, one guy in the back, older guy said, grow sales. They are so in the weeds of doing their tasks that they don't even appreciate or recognize that their role really ultimately, and the reason you do the audits and preventive maintenance and great service and speed, all of that stuff is not a means to an end. But the purpose of all that is grow the top line. And so I think if I was a franchisee, I would spend all of my time and resources getting my frontline leaders, my managers, to think like owners to drive the top line. And I've seen when I was COO at KFC, I'd see franchisees that had sales growth and franchisees that didn't. And the difference was they empowered their managers to be accountable for growing the business, and then they gave them amazing, ridiculous rewards and recognition when they did. And that's, I think, the single biggest mistake that franchisees and corporations make and not empowering these guys to grow the top line.

Speaker 1 (25:08):

Great point. So we're starting to run out of time, but I want to make sure we get through the ITK lightning round now

Speaker 2 (25:14):

So fast.

Speaker 1 (25:15):

It's a quick show. It's a quick show. So what I want to do is I'm going to ask you a series of rapid-fire questions and you have to answer each question in 30 seconds or less. Ready? I'm

Speaker 2 (25:23):

Ready.

Speaker 1 (25:24):

What's the most important trait of a great frontline manager?

Speaker 2 (25:27):

Calmness.

Speaker 1 (25:29):

Great point, great point. What was your favorite menu item during your time at Taco Bell? So

Speaker 2 (25:34):

Easy. It was a chicken burrito, but it was put into the steamer, so the lettuce and cheese melted.

Speaker 1 (25:41):

This is the point at which I admit, I've actually never been to a Taco Bell, but KFC in Australia was my favorite meal during that trip. What's the biggest misconception people have about frontline managers?

Speaker 2 (25:51):

That they don't care that it's a dead-end job, that they're not smart and that they don't care. They care deeply, unbelievably, deeply.

Speaker 1 (26:01):

Absolutely. What can customers do to improve their own drive-through experiences?

Speaker 2 (26:07):

Well, I think I want to be smart and say, have your change ready and or have your payment ready and know your order and don't change it 15 times. But truly, I think, and people who have read my book said this, be patient with the folks in there. They're doing the best they can, and so just give them some grace. That's what I would say.

Speaker 1 (26:31):

Last one. What's one thing that you still carry with you today that you learned as a frontline manager

Speaker 2 (26:36):

Doing what's mine to do? I learned that in the restaurant when I did my team members' jobs, I wasn't doing my job and bad things happened all the way through my career, all the way up to COO, I made sure I focused on doing what was mine to do. It was the greatest and single. And it's actually a new book that I'm starting to work on because I think it is such an important concept that everybody typically in an organization does the job of the person underneath them. And so if you really want to have a growth-minded organization, you've got to enable everyone to do the job that they're paid to do.

Speaker 1 (27:14):

Great point. But at the end of our lightning round, but before I let you go, I have one more question because there's likely a lot of people watching and listening right now who are just agreeing with everything that you've said, that managers play an essential role in the business. They need more support to help them overcome burnout, to balance business priorities and to take care of their teams. But there's something standing in the way, whether it's culture, mindset, budgets, what have you. So as someone who's been both a frontline manager and an executive, what tips do you have for people, especially those in maybe HR L and d who are trying to get buy-in from their senior stakeholders to invest in their frontline managers?

Speaker 2 (27:49):

Number one, get side by side with your frontline leaders. Spend a day in the life observe, see what barriers they have, where there's opportunities for them to be more efficient. And then find ways to get knowledge and skills to them in a way that's digestible. I would look on my manager's emails in the back office, and there would be 10,000 unread emails, typically 10, 12, 15,000. So all the stuff that we're sending them that we think they're not even looking at. So I would look to my L&D team, my HR team, to find ways to get them what they need when they needed it in a way that they can digest it. Because sending 10,000 emails, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (28:39):

Absolutely agreed there. So Monica Rothgery, thank you so much for joining us today,

Speaker 2 (28:43):

My sharing your

Speaker 1 (28:43):

Personal experience, practical advice for empowering frontline managers. How can people connect with you, follow your awesome work, and grab a copy of your book, Lessons from the Drive-through

Speaker 2 (28:52):

Lessons in the Drive-through’s available on Amazon or Goodreads anywhere you get your online books. And if you do pick it up, please drop me a line and let me know how it resonates. It is transcending just restaurant industry, the lessons. And so I'm excited about the future of the book. You can reach me at Monica monica@monicarothgery.com or on my website, monicarothgery.com. I'm on a mission JD. I want to help frontline leaders recognize they have the power to change the world, to heal society, just like teachers and coaches, their frontline heroes. And so anybody out there who's willing to help me do that, just give me a call.

Speaker 1 (29:34):

Absolutely. Amazing cause And thank you so much to Monica Rothgery for sharing her passions and insights into the critical role that frontline managers play with enabling their frontline team. So if you've been watching on LinkedIn Live, be sure to keep an eye on your dms because you might be walking away with two copies of lessons from the drive through, one for you and one for someone that really needs to hear Monica's story. So if you had a good time today, be sure to subscribe to ITK. Head over to Axonify.com/itk to sign up for show announcements and reminders and binge-watch all of our past ITk episodes in the Axonify YouTube channel or listen to in the Know on your favorite podcast app. And we'll be back with our next IT K in July. But you can catch the Axonify crew at a few upcoming online events before then tomorrow.

(30:17):

That's Thursday, June 13th. Axonify co-founder Christine Tutssel, will join Jennifer Baker, director of learning and Development at Footlocker to share a reimagined approach for onboarding in retail. So check out their CLO webinar, the Secret to Reducing Labor Spend while Optimizing Performance, and we're going to drop a link to sign up for that webinar in the LinkedIn chat right now. And then on Tuesday, June 18th, you can hang out with me and my friends at more retail as we discuss frontline talent strategy. We're going to be joined by speakers from Ulta Beauty, Whole Foods Market and EyeCare Partners. So get the details on this webinar via the other link that we're dropping in the LinkedIn chat, and of course, follow Axonify on LinkedIn for even more event updates. And of course, I'll see you back here for our next episode of ITK on Wednesday, July 24th at 11:30 AM Eastern. Until then, I've been JD. Now you're in the know. And always remember to ask yourself the important questions like, if Burger King married Gary Queen, where would they live? White Castle. I'll see you next time. In the know is produced by Richia McCutcheon, Visual designed by Mark Anderson. Additional production support by Andrea Miller, Tuong La. The show is written and hosted by JD Dillon. ITK is an Axonify production. For more information on how Axonify helps frontline workers learn, connect, and get things done, visit Axonify.com.