The Challenge: To maintain their stellar customer experience while continued to attract, develop, and retain the highest quality managers and employees in the industry.

The Solution: A leadership and self-leadership process was developed for training every new and existing manager.

The Results: Customer satisfaction is higher as is productivity. Communication is greatly improved as is peer and manager coaching. This organization was recently ranked 6th out of 25 finalists for the best employer in Australia award.

Many who journeyed Down Under to catch the action at the most recent Summer Olympics headed to a roadhouse to grab a beer and a bite to eat. Chances are they found their way to a fun and vibrant atmosphere filled with Texas paraphernalia, neon beer signs, and country music.

The Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon restaurants embrace a southwest American style, featuring Texan artifacts and music, along with sizzling steaks and a kick-up-your-heels attitude.

Although the international restaurant chain prides itself in generous portions offered at moderate prices, the owners of Lone Star in Australia say that it is the people working in their restaurants who make the critical difference for their customers. In addition to offering high quality, attentive service—a result of each waitperson being assigned to no more than three to four tables—the employees are also a part of the ambience. Guests can’t help but smile back when greeted by the enthusiastic staffers, who are known to perform their own Lone Star style of line dancing during the evenings.

People enjoying their work and delivering excellence is no accident here. “Lone Star is committed to attracting, developing, and retaining the highest quality managers and employees in the industry,” says Bob Lapointe, Managing Director.

Before launching Lone Star, Bob Lapointe and Jamie Coulter had shared a long and successful association over many years as Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut franchisees. They opened the first Australian Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon at Parramatta with Bob’s son Rob acting as General Manager.

Paul Stapleton of The PTD Group, Pty. Ltd., the Blanchard organizational development and training affiliate in Australia, has worked with Lone Star for years—at first conducting a three-day Situational Leadership^® II/One Minute Manager (SLII^®/OMM) program for Lone Star general managers (the head person in a restaurant) and assistant managers (normally three per restaurant).

“When we first started, Lone Star had four restaurants—today they have 31 located in all states of Australia,” says Stapleton. “The first step in the training was to develop the leadership skills of all managers in the company. Also, to help internalize the training, we have accredited four district managers and one trainer in SLII; they also have three accredited Situational Self Leadership (SSL) trainers. As the business grew, Paul Stapleton attended selected quarterly management meetings to coach Rob Lapointe and other management team members. It became evident at this time that new managers learned the language of SLII—referring to their stages of confidence and competence as D1, D2, D3, D4, etc.—however, they could not “walk the talk.” They were classic D1s as Situational Leaders! “They made SLII more like alphabet soup than a leadership model,” says Stapleton.

The organization’s leaders decided that a concentrated effort would be made to train every manager who joined Lone Star and had not been through the program. And, a total of 83 managers were developed with coaching in SLII/OMM skills.

“Put simply, the results have been ‘WOW’,” says Tim Smith, National Operations Manager. “It was more than apparent from the moment the assistant managers returned to the store (from training), that their individual level of self-actualization had risen greatly,” says Smith.

He explains that the impact has been twofold.

“First, our training has become more effective, resulting in a noticeable increase in our guest satisfaction, and a similar increase in productivity,” says Smith. “Secondly, in-store communication has increased to such a level that managers are now finding they have the time to coach where previously there were just not enough hours in the day.”

“The bottom line is, we are becoming more effective in all facets of our business and we can now see a time when we are all ‘walking the talk,’ not just talking it.”

The executive team took a close look at the company’s overall picture with the help of Blanchard’s TDSA Team Profile. The process uncovered several gaps, including a need for formalizing the organization’s purpose and values. Subsequently, a session was conducted to develop company values together with the executive team’s purpose statement. “From there, the values flowed down through the organization,” says Stapleton.

He reports that the executive team then went on to complete the Building High Performing Teams Team Skills program, and a series of SMART goals were set for the company at a pre-Christmas meeting. Just before the start of the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Stewart Koziora, Lonestar’s Chief Operating Officer, reported that he was very happy with the progress to date.

“Our employees contribute to the ongoing success of Lone Star through their daily contribution to operations,” says Koziora. “We can always expect above average performance and outstanding commitment to our concept. They seem to thrive on the fast pace of our restaurants.”

Excellence and achievement at Lone Star has not gone unnoticed. A visitor to the company’s Web site (www.lonestarsteakhouse.com.au) can scroll down a long list of awards.

Recently, the company entered for the first time the Australia-wide “Best Employers to Work For” award competition. The Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Graduate School of Management, and Hewitt Associates organize the event.

The winners were selected by survey and were cited for demonstrating “a strong practical commitment to their employees by creating workplaces where people are inspired to give their best everyday.” In the category of companies with more than 1,000 employees, Lone Star ranked sixth out of 25 finalists.

Just another one of the reasons they’ll be shouting “Yahoo!” at Lone Star tonight! “In-store communication has increased to such a level that managers are now finding they have the time to coach where previously there were just not enough hours in the day,” says Tim Smith, National Operations Manager.