I’ve spent four decades watching new chief executives walk into their first day in one of two ways – certain they understand the job or, just as they’re closing their office door for the first time, saying out loud, “What do I do now?” The reality is that the person certain of what they’re going to be doing will find out quickly that the job they acquired and the job they imagined were two different things. Their first 100 days running the company will determine far more than first quarter numbers.
This happens often in the restaurant and fast-service industry, especially those trying to rebound from a crisis. New Cracker Barrel CEO Dave Deno is currently experiencing this pressure, with more emotional weight than most incoming executives ever face. Cracker Barrel is more than just a restaurant chain to its customers. It’s a piece of personal history for millions. That’s precisely why the connections made internally and externally in his first 100 days will determine far more than first quarter numbers.
Having worked with restaurant executives in dire situations, I know the chair they’re sitting in rather well, and I know why they were selected. So let me provide what I’d offer any new restaurant chain or group CEO walking into a wounded, watched, and wary organization.
1. Time is shorter than you think, and shorter than it should be. The average tenure of a CEO in the United States runs a little over three years. Deno is inheriting a company that just lived through an activist fight and a rebrand that had to be reversed within days of launch. The board and the shareholders looking to restore their restaurant’s reputation are going to be impatient. Use the early days deliberately. Focus on avoiding the two typical mistakes new leaders tend to make. The first is to recognize that new CEOs are going to bring change, and change causes fear throughout an organization until the new leader is trusted. The second urgent and ongoing concern is to communicate, communicate, communicate. Your goal in the early going is to build trust. Getting out into the restaurants to meet people at every level will tend to build trust and reduce the fear that comes when new top management takes over.
2. Resist the urge to prove yourself with another big swing. The single clearest lesson from what happened at Cracker Barrel is that fast, sweeping change introduced without the guest and employee base walking alongside you is premature boldness. It’s just exposure. I’ve watched this pattern destroy CEOs who mistook activity for progress. It’s critical for these new CEOs to demonstrate that they actually listen before they act, and then to act with appropriate speed.
3. Share your version of the story or it will be silenced by someone else’s version. This is the mistake I see destroying more executives than any strategic miscalculation ever does. When a company goes quiet during a period of uncertainty, the vacuum gets filled by activist investors, media narrative, and employee speculation. If new CEOs are inheriting a restaurant chain or group that just lived through exactly that dynamic, they must start communicating directly and frequently from day one: short, honest updates to their own people first, in their own words, before they ever need a quarterly earnings call to explain themselves.
4. Get out of headquarters and into the restaurants. A restaurant’s culture lives outside of their main corporate office. It lives on the floor, with the servers and cooks who show up every day regardless of what’s happening in the boardroom. CEOs need to shake their employees and diners’ hands, eat where they eat, and let them ask questions directly. That single behavior tells every restaurant manager operational reality is what matters, rather than slide decks from consultants or the chorus of self-appointed advisors they inherited who insist they know better. The new CEO must be guided by what they are actually hearing from guests and employees.
5. Trust is the strategy, rather than prepared talking points. Dave Deno has already spoken publicly about the warmth and hospitality Cracker Barrel represents. It was a good instinct, but it’ll take more than words to rebuild what was damaged. CEOs must continue to be transparent about what’s happening, especially if the restaurant is going through a remodel. They need to give employees and franchisees a clear, credible signal that the brand’s identity is settled rather than overhauled again on someone’s whim. Trust is demonstrated repeatedly in small and visible ways. As trust is established, fear of change is reduced.Remember, trust is the absence of fear and fear is the absence of trust.
Luckily for new CEOs, when it comes to restaurant groups in crisis the underlying business is healthier than the headlines suggest. It gives them runway most incoming CEOs never get – the chance to be intentional rather than reactive.
The measure of the first 100 days will be whether the employees who show up to serve them every day feel like the restaurant and their jobs are finally being steadied. More so, they must ensure the people who have loved the restaurant brand for decades feel like they are continuing to come back to a place that gives them comfort. After all, ultimately the customer is always right.
James E. Lukaszewski is known as America’s Crisis Guru, CEO of The Lukaszewski Group and a best-selling author.
