Fall is here, and with it comes a familiar rhythm of business: steady volume, new Team Members finding their footing, and the daily dance of keeping the store sharp through every daypart. You know the moment: the lunch rush clears, speed-of-service drops below your target, and the team takes that first breath. What happens in the next twenty minutes?
If you’re honest, Second Mile service slips, restocking gets half-done, and that leadership candidate you meant to call sits in your notes for another shift. Have you been there too? I have. You’re not missing your vision: you’re falling to your default response. You need design.
We kicked off our Atomic Habits book club sprint on October 13. [If you’re joining late, start where we are today]. No catch-up required.
You Fall to Your Systems, Not Your Goals
The insight that can transform your leadership: under pressure, you don’t rise to what you hope will happen. You fall to what you’ve made automatic. The chaos after daypart isn’t a motivation gap. It’s a design gap.
Let me show you how one micro-habit can fix it:
- Set your trigger: The peak hour ends, SOS drops below target, you clear your screens.
- Run a two-minute reset: Restock front counter and bagging stations, delegate who champions Second Mile service for the next hour, finish with one action (call, text, delegate) to keep the hiring process moving.
- Make it visible: Tally it on a manager station white board, or check it off on the shift leader huddle board so you and your leaders see the system working.
- Add one friction flip: No cash registers get counted or closed out until the reset checklist is photographed and sent to your leadership chat
You’ve just made excellence the easy path and chaos the annoying one.
The big challenge is making your habit simple enough to build real momentum. Here’s why this matters even when you don’t see results immediately:
Create Systems that build momentum:
Having a system simple enough to outlast the valley of disappointment is what leads to being an ‘overnight success’.
A habit like this moves your quarterly scorecard. Guest satisfaction climbs when Second Mile service is owned throughout the mid-afternoon. Your talent stays excited about working with you because you were excited to get them in the door. CEM scores hold through mid-day because restocking to a standard is routine, not optional. That’s how defaults protect your standards when the day gets sideways.
Your habit design determines whether excellence is easy or hard after every rush. One question for this week: Which daypart will you redesign so your team falls into excellence instead of scrambling out of chaos?
Jump in here and join us reading through Atomic Habits here: [LINK].