Why Focused and Steady Beats Business at the Speed of Light

If you aim for nothing, you'll hit it every time.

ON any day or evening you walk into my restaurant, you will probably find me wearing a tie with a turtle design. It's not because turtle soup is one of our most famous dishes (although we have sold more than 1,250,000 bowls at Brennan's of Houston alone). The tie is to remind my people and me that, like Aesop's tortoise, we will be successful over the long course if we remain focused and steady.

The tortoise approach may seem boring in today's hare-brained, broadband world, but the moral of the story remains the same: Focused and steady wins the race. Business is a marathon, not a sprint. Sure, we must move quickly to prevent our competitors from gaining an advantage, but the real need for speed is to stay one step ahead of our customers.

Plodding is rooted in the belief that understanding and focusing on the basics of your business, combined with a predictable and steady implementation process, will allow you to be victorious over the "need for speed" methodologies heralded by business writers (who, after all, get paid to write about what's new, rather than what really works).

Warren Buffett is the role model for investment plodders. He made billions by carefully analyzing and understanding the fundamentals of businesses and not letting fads influence his investment decisions.

Buffett did not invest in the Internet because he could not understand how those companies might make a profit. And as it turns out, many of them never figured it out either.

Business at the speed of light allowed companies like Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing to forget common sense and diverted those who should have known better from understanding the fundamentals of their businesses.

At Brennan's of Houston we don't sprint from one idea to the other, but rather, methodically develop business strategies and solutions that are always focused on the Simple Truth. We are proud to plod.

Plodders understand the difference between moving quickly and decisively and are sure they follow the customer, not the crowd. Plodders understand what's important and what's not, and stay the course when everyone else is racing like the hare.

Plodding does not mean dragging your feet or lethargically going through the motions. Rather, it is an acceptance of the powerful force of human nature and is guided by the insight that humans hate change and hate quick change even more.

Plodding, though, is a process of change. Every employee must understand that the status quo is not acceptable, nor is just knowing the right thing to do. Continual improvement is so important that it's the first concept I discuss in orientation. Plodding means incremental and continued improvement without losing focus. We plodders pace ourselves, moving when the customer moves and never losing sight of our Simple Truth.

Of course, even slow change is scary, and even plodders must take risks. One of my favorite expressions is, "Behold the turtle; he only makes progress when he sticks his neck out."

Plodding makes employees feel safe and empowers them to learn from their mistakes, not worry about dying from them.

Plodding is working with human nature, not against it.

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