Pizza Pilgrims was founded in 2012 and operates 23 sites. Based primarily in London, it’s also rapidly expanding across the rest of the country. Pizza Pilgrims serves slow-proved Neapolitan pizza in its pizzerias, at events across the UK, and through Pizza in the Post. All its dough is freshly made daily, and it sources the best ingredients Italy has to offer to create the best possible pizza base. As any Neapolitan will tell you – it’s all about the crust!
The difference between previous development firms and what MMU does is the after care in terms of the coaching and mentoring; rather than attending one workshop and being left to it. Clive Watkins, Managing Partner, Pizza Pilgrims
Challenges
Pizza Pilgrims needed support for its operations team of multi-site or area managers. As a business, Pizza Pilgrims spends so much time working on quality and people engagement. They needed support to add a structure and a process that would enable them to keep doing that while having disciplines around assisting in the growth of the overall business, and of the people within the team. The client wanted our support to help multi-site managers identify important goals and instil the self-discipline of focus and prioritisation needed, along with practical strategies to achieve these goals professionally and personally.
They felt that, in a world of multiple and ever-changing priorities, with constant interruptions and distractions, the team were feeling:
- Overwhelmed – with too many priorities to juggle, what matters most was getting neglected.
- Busy but not effective – they were putting in the hours, which was eating into personal time with no true sense of achievement, and too many to-dos were slipping through the cracks.
- Distracted and unfocused – interruptions and distractions were constant and pervasive, preventing focus and productivity when it matters.
Specific focus was needed on reviewing business performance and goals in a structured and consistent way, with accountability and follow-up.
Actions
After understanding the current approach to goal setting and planning, we developed a two-part programme. Part one was delivered in person and part two virtually via weekly Teams calls over twelve weeks. We used the Full Focus Productivity programme, a system that enables you to banish distractions, tame your to-do list and achieve the big goals that matter most:
Intend your time, spend your time and defend your time if you want to achieve the double win; to win at work and succeed at life! Michael Hyatt, Founder & CEO, Full Focus Company
Full Focus Productivity is for anyone serious about taking a new, structured approach to time management and enhancing their personal and professional productivity. At an in-person workshop, we explored three core practices that were essential to transforming their approach to productivity:
1. The Eisenhower Time Matrix
Developed over 50 years ago, this simple yet powerful model helps to prioritise your focus on what’s important, not just what’s urgent, and helps in taking a proactive approach to planning for the next 90 days.
2. Beyond SMART
More goal achievement than goal setting. We looked beyond the SMART framework, and identified individual, specific steps that could be undertaken, and reviewed on a weekly basis to help deliver on the goals set.
3. The Productivity Code – 60:30:10
We worked with the team to understand the need to regularly connect back to quarterly goals and to focus their attention on completing key weekly achievements to increase the likelihood of making progress and improvement each week.
We followed up the in-person workshop with one-to-one virtual calls with each multi-site manager, held weekly over twelve weeks, to act as accountability partners and to offer weekly coaching support, as the participants embedded these new habits and ways of working.
Your support really is invaluable to the growth of us as individuals, as well as to the wider business. Clive Watkins, Managing Partner, Pizza Pilgrims
Determining one or two “big rock” focuses each week, led to the creation of action plans that went beyond SMART objective setting. We identified clear activities to be conducted to increase the likelihood of achieving goals. These were recorded on a shared document to increase accountability and to share best practices.
The emphasis was on:
- Lag measures – results already achieved such as sales, customer feedback scores, profitability, and people measures. “What needs to be achieved and by when”.
- Motivation – what is the motivation for this goal or task and why is it important? “The why behind the what”.
- Lead measures – actions that can be taken proactively and tracked, with a clear who and when that are likely to lead to the achievement of the goal. “The how that delivers on the what”.
With best practices and insights at their fingertips, multi-site managers could achieve clear and practical outcomes. We always ensured the ‘big rock’ focuses were on one of the four key elements:
1. Colleague development and growth.
2. Quality of operations.
3. Customer experience.
4. Financial performance.
We then reviewed each week together with a focus on:
- What went well? Things we want to repeat or continue to do.
- What didn’t go well? Things we never want to do again or want to stop doing.
- What would be even better if? Things that were acceptable but if we did things slightly differently would achieve even better results.
Outcomes
As a result of these actions, Pizza Pilgrims’ multi-site managers can:
- Create goals and tasks that go beyond SMART and are consistently reviewed, covering the entire operation.
- Instil a discipline around planning and productivity, focusing on what really matters and what is important and not just urgent.
- Build a focus around one or two “big rocks” each month/week to create a proactive action plan around, which is specific and quantifiable.
- Generate accountability for completing actions with action steps, owners and deadlines identified, enabling commitments to be reviewed.
- Gain a greater sense of achievement by making progress on objectives that really matter, from both a professional and personal perspective.
Feedback
Clive Watkins, Managing Partner, Pizza Pilgrims told us: “Having worked with other training consultants in the past and with similar types of frameworks, with David and Lee I personally learnt how to become disciplined with the framework. This has enabled me to dedicate time where I get to reflect and focus on planning my days and weeks – meaning I get everything that I want to achieve out of my head and into a framework, which allows me to challenge myself around what is important or urgent.
With this information clearly laid out I can then plan a big part of my week to ensure I am working towards my goals. This has honestly changed how I work and improved not only the results but the way myself and my team work together. We all need our hand holding at some point and I am not ashamed to say I needed it to help me get these disciplines embedded.”
MMU has delivered clear, measurable training, which has supercharged our operations team. They teach and coach the most impactful skills, behaviours and frameworks. Our business and team would not be the same without Lee and his team of legends. Gavin Smith, MD, Pizza Pilgrims