SHIFT BREAK: Owners, It’s OK to Make Mistakes

Chris DeferioPodcast

Coffee shop owners, do you ever feel as though the entire world is on your shoulders and that one mistake will send the whole business crashing down? The pressures and expectations that cafe operators face drive many to pursue unrealistic standards…

475: Essential Tools for Cafe Management

Chris DeferioManagement, Podcast

Being a manager in a coffee shop may be one of the most difficult jobs in the cafe. Not only do you bear the responsibility  of the daily operations, you also have the expectations from the owners as well as your barista team. Most managers are barely making is through. Much of the stress experienced can be avoided when we …

SHIFT BREAK: How to Assess a Barista’s Performance

Chris DeferioPodcast

One of the most critical parts of leadership in a cafe is how you invest in developing those you lead. Depending on how it is done, evaluating and assessing performance can either inspire and encourage, or it can deflate and discourage.  Today on…

SHIFT BREAK: Feedback is Not a Lecture

Chris DeferioPodcast

Too many times we confuse giving feedback with lecturing our staff which easily shuts down the person we were intending to communicate with. Feedback is critical to your culture but, As past guest and friend of the show,Tom Henschel has said,…

SHIFT BREAK: Evil Owners and Lazy Baristas

Chris DeferioPodcast

How many times have we fallen prey to assumptions about one another in the cafe that end up creating needless strife and hold back progress at maybe the most critical point in the supply chain? Answer, too many times to count. We create these…

472: Why Technical Skill as a Leader is Not Enough w/ Jonathan Raymond, Refound, Author: Good Authority

Chris DeferioLeadership, Podcast

Being technically skilled as a leader is a small part of what makes one effective. The larger part of cafe effective leadership has to do with emotional skill and how we either create or destroy relationship in the daily life of our coffee businesses. The impact of our over-focus on technical skill leads to many cultural issues that eventually show …