Q&A Hero

Question

Don owns and operates Don's House, a suburban restaurant in a large metropolitan area. He took Coogie, his assistant manager, to the monthly dinner meeting of the local restaurant owner's association. The restaurant owners take turns hosting the event, providing dinner for each other. Each restaurant shares a taste of some agreed upon menu item. Last month, Don's chicken salad was voted "the best chicken salad in town." So, tonight Don is supposed to share the recipe with the group at Harry's Harmony Palace. Next week, all member restaurants will feature "Don's chicken salad" as a menu special, with a footnote about Don's House. The free publicity practically guaranteed Don new visitors from all over town. Don and Coogie arrived early, going around the room. Other owners greeted Don warmly and congratulated him for the chicken salad and admired the picture of his new grandson, Don Jr. Don introduced Coogie to each one in turn, saying, "Coogie, this is [owner's name] from [owner's restaurant]. They have the best [something] in town. Coogie here perfected my chicken salad recipe!" Coogie did not remember any of the names, and had forgotten all his chicken salad stories by the time they finally sat down. Ray from "The Place in the Shade" won the onion soup competition. On the way home, Coogie commented, "That was terrific! You know everyone in town! How did this start? Whoever heard of sharing favorite recipes? They really liked my chicken salad, didn't they? Thanks, Don. I feel like I made some new friends tonight." Don commented, "Thank yourself, kid. It was your recipe. It was my pleasure to help you show it off. They are a great bunch of guys. Me and Ray started this, I guess, about 15 years ago, him on the east side and me out on the west. We'd run into each other at that little market downtown on Thursday mornings. Pedro, the market owner, introduced us one day. We started talking about business and stuff. Our kids were the same age, liked the same sports, that kind of stuff. People here don't try new places on their own. So, we hit on the idea of mentioning each other's restaurant to our steady customers, telling them to try something different once in a while. Pretty soon, the other guys started hanging out with us and we decided to do the dinner routine. We formed the association to put that little decal doodad in our front windows. Customers like that kind of stuff, you know. Want to come again next month? Maybe we can work on the names a little bit beforehand. I almost died laughing when you called Tubby Jones Sir.' That was terrific." Please refer to this scenario for the following question.
Help Coogie build his power base, social network, and refine his influence tactics. What can he do before next month's association meeting? Should he go to the meeting? What should he do at the meeting?

Student answers will vary, but Coogie should go to next month's association meeting. Questions about his long-term career goals may surface. Does Coogie want to be an owner someday? Don is grooming him, perhaps to be co-owner. Before the next meeting, he should work on the social network. He should follow up with everyone he met, a quick e-mail or phone call, asking how the chicken salad worked out or about any personal detail mentioned. Don will have to help him with the names. He also has to figure out how to remember names. A discussion of Levy's FACE system would be good at this point. Coogie needs to be more comfortable meeting people by that meeting. Furthermore, he needs to be up on onion soup and prepared to meet the chef. His power base at this point includes expert from the chicken salad and referent because he works for Don. Coercive should be avoided. If there is opportunity to become an associate member, he could join a committee, or do some work for the group. He needs to give to the organization what he can before he tries influencing. Students may have some interesting ideas - exchange or coalition would be reasonable places to start.