Marco’s Pizza is one of the fastest growing pizza brands in the United States. With more than 1,200 stores in 34 states, locations in the Bahamas and Puerto Rico, and plans to expand into Mexico this year, the Ohio-based franchise is so successful that it’s clear the organization is a high-performing system.
The chain has all the components of a system – both interconnected parts (the stores) and a unifying purpose and structure (menus, store format, brand identity, training, etc.) – that work in sync to maintain a high-functioning equilibrium. The company is also successful at ensuring its own perpetuation, which is another important characteristic many systems have, according to the late systems thinking scholar Donella Meadows.
It should come as no surprise then, that a core component of Marco’s learning and development programs is systems thinking. John Rinehart, director of the Marco’s Leadership Development Institute, introduces systems thinking to both corporate staff and franchisees to help them collaborate more effectively, consider new ways to balance their resources and needs, and improve overall decision making at every level.
His tool of choice is Friday Night at the ER. He first learned about the game nearly 20 years ago when his wife Cheri was using it as a fellow with the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellowship Program. He joined her in learning how to facilitate the game, and eventually started to use it in his own work in community-based leadership development and as a consultant with health care organizations.
At Marco’s since 2020, he now uses the game in two key programs he developed – the Marco’s Immersive Leadership Experience (MILE) for high-potential employees who work at the corporate level and the Multi-Unit Leadership Excellence program (MULE) for franchisees and operational leaders with three or more stores.
We talked with John recently about the game and how he uses it to encourage systems thinking within the Marco’s franchise system.
John, you use Friday Night at the ER in two ways – to kick off a 16-week program for emerging leaders and to end an 8-week course for multi-unit franchise operators. Can you tell us a bit more about each course?
The Marco’s Immersive Leadership Experience (MILE) is a 16-week program for our emerging corporate leaders that is designed to help them prepare for the increasingly cross-functional demands that come with more senior leadership positions. Participants have already demonstrated their ability to lead their respective teams. What we want them to get from the program is a better understanding, and the skill set, to lead at a more strategic level, and to be prepared to help take the company into the future. It’s also a great opportunity for them to get to know, and to work with, their peers from other departments.
The Multi-Unit Leadership Excellence Program (MULE) is for franchisees and ‘above store leaders’ with four or more stores. The MULE Program’s focus is on helping the participants move from operational leadership into a strategic leadership mindset, and to help them transition from being team leaders to developing a team of leaders.
When people play Friday Night at the ER, they learn to think beyond their own part of the system to improve the performance of the whole. What are some ways the emerging leaders and franchisees can use systems thinking to benefit Marco’s?
While there is a lot of overlap, we’re able to adjust the game to focus on the different outcomes of the two groups. For the emerging leaders, we put more of an emphasis on identifying and eliminating the obstacles to organizational effectiveness. For the franchisees and above store leaders, the focus is more on how they share resources across their operations.
The game is set in a community hospital, but this setting is simply a metaphor for any system. When you lead game sessions, how do you translate the hospital setting to the pizza business?
We start by emphasizing that while the game talks about patients, staff and beds, what we’re really talking about are resources and needs, and that just like in their operations, resources are always going to be limited and needs will always be expanding.
The financial and quality scores are also very applicable to our business. If we put too much emphasis on controlling food and labor costs, guest satisfaction suffers. If we go too far the other way, then profitability suffers. Just like in the game, ‘winning’ depends on finding the balance between the two.
Have you ever used other games or simulations in your work? How does Friday Night at the ER compare?
I have. I think there is a value to all the games and simulations we use, but, compared to most of the others, Friday Night at the ER offers more opportunities for participants to be creative. The fact that there aren’t a lot of rules makes it more of a ‘thinking’ game.
Why use a game or experiential activity? What does this learning modality do that other modalities do not?
Different learners learn in different ways, but everyone likes to have fun. There is obviously a place for lectures, peer learning and on-the-job training, but challenging yourself, while competing against others (I’ve never set the game up as a competition; the participants always assume it is) while laughing and yelling is special. One of my favorite parts of facilitating the game is the aha looks on the participants’ faces when they make the connections between the game and the lessons and take-aways.
Playing Friday Night at the ER can be transformative for participants. What are the most common ‘aha!’ moments you see when you lead game sessions?
Number one would be the realization that they should have asked more questions before they jumped into the gameplay and then connecting that to if they are asking all the questions they should be asking in their day-to-day lives. Number two would be the realization that they needed to be proactive to prevent problems, that if they waited until the patients were backing up, it was already too late.
Learning about systems thinking is a good starting point for change, but it must also be paired with action. How do you lead your participants to this next step?
As part of the debrief, we have them go through and identify ‘real world’ barriers to systems thinking and structural challenges that need to be addressed. I also use a technique I borrowed from a friend years ago: I ask everyone to come up with at least one action item that they are going to implement the next day based on what they learned. It may be as simple as having a cup of coffee with a peer in another department, but they need to list at least one thing that they can do immediately.
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Julie Fraser: Using Friday Night at the ER to enhance leadership development in Australia
Lisa Yeo: Systems Thinking for Emerging Leaders
Phil Cady: Using Two Rounds of Game Play to Measure Improvement
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