Teamwork & Training Sports Inspiration
“I’m a big believer in the idea that you don’t rise to the
occasion — you sink to the level of your training.”
– Mike Tomlin, Head Coach, Pittsburgh Steelers.
The characteristics between the sports world and owning and operating a pizzeria are vast. It is really what I fell in love with many years ago. I was a skinny beanpole as a kid, and that meant that I became the coach of many of my brother’s youth sports teams. I gained many leadership qualities at a young age unknowingly. The first Friday I worked in a pizzeria I simply fell in love with the team aspect of what was happening.
It all started when the order was placed and then the ticket got handed off to the dough stretcher, who then gave it to the person making the pizza. And just when you think that’s it, the pizza goes in the oven and an oven tender does his part. The result of seeing how happy the customer was to receive the pizza was a magical moment for me. I remember early on in my pizza delivery days showing up at a customer’s door. The guy was having a party, and everyone cheered for the pizza guy (me)!
The reason I tell those stories here is to bring to light the idea that what we do is special and takes a great team and training. I believe that many of us need inspiration from other walks of life to bring that aura into our kitchens. I quoted Mike Tomlin to start this article, and recently I was lucky enough to be in a private setting with him. The room was full of business owners. I thought the questions they were going to ask would be football related. But, to my delight, they were aimed at team building. One of the questions was how to handle a big personality that also produces at a high level. He answered that everyone needs to be treated as an individual, and that every person needs to be attended to with a different approach. How you talk with one person and what methods work with one person may not work with another.
One of the other questions was centered on a moment of difficulty or a very decisive decision and how you bring the team back together afterwards. That answer was also telling. He spoke about confronting it head-on and letting everyone know that things are not personal, but that it’s a business and business decisions need to be made. The most important part, though, is not letting things build up but also getting ahead of the issues and dealing with them as they come up.
When we realize that it may seem like we are in the pizza business, but we are in the people business, most of our issues will start to have solutions. The more that we can build our team around great people and then teach them our ways, the quicker we will win the day-to-day grind. In the next installment, we will get into what fundamentals and back-to-basics are important to us as pizzeria operators.
Nick Bogacz is the founder and president of Caliente Pizza & Draft House in Pittsburgh. Instagram: @caliente_pizza
