Last week I posted a video interview I conducted with author and wellness specialist 
Isabelle Lipari after having just read her new book 21 Days to Change Your Lifestyle Habits. I was thus quite surprised and even shocked to read that the Pacini restaurant chain would be launching a new brand of restaurants called Bolo Bolo. The idea came from the owner of Pacini Pierre Marc Tremblay, who got inspired by a chain 
from New York called The Meatball Shop. I was shocked because I remember reading an article about Mr. Tremblay and the Pacini chain several years ago where I learnt how the focus of the brand was on providing a more healthy menu. 
If you go on the Pacini website one of the first things you see is the slogan or statement “Pacini is taking good care of you” as well as “Change the World with Us!” So how can this be more contradictory for the chain who has promoted a mission of taking care of people’s health and now be launching a chain of restaurants that does the contrary? 
Do we need another restaurant chain that feeds us fat and salt laden greasy unhealthy food? Aren’t there enough fast food chains at every corner that limits the choice for good nourishment? If you read the article Les Affaires, they describe some of the types of meatballs that Bolo Bolo plans to serve. How about Buffalo chicken wings meatballs or fried macaroni cheese meatballs or barbecue rib meatballs? Now for the average person this sounds pretty appetizing. But the point is, the average person eats pretty bad and needs to start eating healthier. Again, just watch the video with Isabelle, or read this article from CTV news. I see this plan by Mr. Tremblay and the Pacini chain as a conflict in values and business strategy. From my perspective, this can only result in disaster. Perhaps Mr. Tremblay is looking to recoup the losses he suffered from the bankruptcy of the Le Commensal chain of vegetarian restaurants. That chain was sold to Imvescor Group from New Brunswick, which also owns other really healthy restaurants like Mikes, Baton Rouges and Scores. The alignment of values and business strategy is crucial for the development of a strong brand and for executing all business objectives well. I cannot see this being the case for the new Bolo Bolo restaurant chain. It sounds like Pacini and Mr. Tremblay has been fooling the public all along and claiming to make healthier food just to differentiate itself and make more profits. Of course it’s much more time consuming and costly to try and educate the public on the benefits of eating healthier than it is to go with what is popular and a good business opportunity. So what’s more important, living your values or making money. The ideal is to have the two be aligned and in the situation of Pacini and Mr Tremblay that does not seem to be the case. The future success of this restaurant chain will show if I am right or wrong. Perhaps it will succeed at the expense of the Pacini chain and then Bolo Bolo can define their values.
Yearly Archives: 2014
21 jours pour changer vos habitudes de vie. Entrevue avec l’auteur Isabel Lipari
21 jours pour changer vos habitudes de vie
Auteur et spécialiste en bien-être, Isabelle Lipari a écrit le guide de référence pour une santé optimale et le bien-être.
Ce guide a été créé pour aider les individus à changer leurs habitudes de vie, un à la fois, en facilitant le changement de comportement. Il propose une méthode simple et facile à adopter de saines habitudes qui auront un impact direct sur la santé et la qualité de vie de l’individu. 30 habitudes sont proposés, répartis en 4 catégories:
• Nutrition
• Activité physique
• Sommeil
• Gestion du stress.
Plusieurs outils sont inclus dans le guide pour faciliter les changements d’habitudes et de maximiser les chances de réussite pour tous. En outre, en adoptant les habitudes proposées, le lecteur sera également en mesure de parvenir à un équilibre de vie.
Dans cet entretien avec Isabelle, nous discutons des éléments clés pour bien manger, être en forme et se sentir bien.
21 Days to Change your Lifestyle Habits: Interview with author Isabel Lipari
Author and wellness specialist Isabelle Lipari has written the definitive guide to optimum health and wellness: 21 Days to Change your Lifestyle Habits.
This guide was created to help individuals change their lifestyle habits, one at a time, by facilitating behavior change. It offers a simple and easy method to adopt healthy habits that will impact directly on the individual’s health and quality of life. 30 habits are proposed, divided in 4 categories:
• Nutrition
• Physical Activity
• Sleep
• Stress Management
Several tools are included in the guide to facilitate the habit changes and maximize the chances of success for all. Further, by adopting the proposed habits, the reader will also be able to achieve life balance.
In this interview with Isabelle we discuss the key components for eating well, being fit and feeling great.
Developing a leadership style to support continuous improvement
Continuous improvement is crucial for the ongoing success and growth of any business and organization. Your leadership style can either promote or hinder people practicing continuous improvement. I’ll talk about that in this video.
In a previous article and video, I talked about how to get employees to be more creative and drive continuous improvement. I spoke about three key components, which were the type of person, the level of self-esteem and self-confidence of people and thirdly, the culture of the company and the style of leadership.
The culture of an organization is driven by the values, beliefs and the style of leadership of top management. Thus, the leaders of organizations must evolve in their thinking and leadership style in order to drive continuous improvement from employees.
A participative leadership style is required to promote and support continuous improvement from employees. It necessitates taking a proactive approach to solving problems, rather than being reactive. This means practicing prevention rather than fighting fires.
It also means developing autonomous teams comprised of team members who are mature enough to facilitate problem-solving sessions in their respective teams or department. This requires training on team 
development, which includes interpersonal communication skills and problem-solving techniques. You cannot expect to just put a group of people together and presume they will work as a team. Just because people get along with each other does not mean that they are working as a team.
Teams need to grow from the stage of dependency to an interdependent state where they function more autonomously. Working this way they are able to step back from the day-to-day tasks and brainstorm to find ways to make improvements and then propose well thought out solutions to management.
A participative leadership style does not mean total democracy in decision-making. There are times when leaders need to take charge and be more autocratic in their style. But there needs to be a balance between controlling everything and having employees participate in decision-making and problem-solving.
Everyone has ideas and experience that they can contribute towards continuous improvement. Certain types of people embrace participating in these activities while others may shy away from it. The challenge is to get everyone to participate and this is why team development and problem-solving training is imperative.
Trust is another crucial element for employee involvement in continuous improvement. Trust needs to be established at all levels, between leaders and employees and also amongst employees and within teams.
Creating a mindset throughout an organization that promotes people practicing continuous improvement takes time and commitment on the part of leadership. Leaders need to assure adequate coaching and support to employees in order to go from simple task execution to continuously finding new and better ways to do things.
Any organization that clearly sees the benefits of performing continuous improvement and makes a commitment to the process can only reap great rewards.