Operator-turned-author offers guide to successOperator-turned-author offers guide to success

Lisa Jennings

Consultant Kathleen Wood is a 30-year food-service veteran who was previously president and chief operating officer of Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers and co-founded both the Elliot Leadership Institute and consulting firm Elliot Solutions. So, she notes, it was a natural next step to write a book.

Wood, whose consulting firm Kathleen Wood Partners LLC is based in Long Beach, Calif., is author of the self-published book “The Best Shift of Your Life—The Restaurant Manager’s Guide for Success Outside the Restaurant,” which is due out before the end of the year.

Wood borrows from her own experience as an operator, corporate executive, strategic advisor and board member to create the framework for the book.

What’s the premise?

It’s a practical, personal development book for restaurant managers using restaurant management principles.

For example, it starts with the “opening shift,” in which the reader checks in with their own reality. Where are you today and where do you want to go?

In the “mid-shift” section, it’s about how do you take where you are now to achieve what you want to do, both personally and professionally? You’ll develop a menu of your life, for example.

And in the “closing shift” section, you establish a routine to sustain your own personal and professional success as well as a routine that gives back to others to help them reach their goals.

What prompted you to write it?

We really have always talked about investing in people, both personally and professionally. This book will help companies do that, but it will also help with retention. This will help their managers be more personally fulfilled and move their careers forward, and, as a result, they’ll be more likely to stay.

Is it only for managers?

The concepts will resonate with people at all levels, including executives and entrepreneurs. It’s the process of how do we all take ourselves to another level, personally and professionally.

Is this your first book?

Yes. It has been an amazing experience. Someone once said writing a book is a noble calling because you do it to help others, but I have found it offers such personal clarity. It has really been one of the best shifts of my life.