We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Toni-Rose Bioc. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Toni-Rose below.
Toni-Rose, appreciate you joining us today. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?
One thing I would like to change about the educational system is adding a core curriculum around the development of interpersonal skills throughout every level of education. Especially in recents years, I’ve found myself investing more time in learning how to improve on my interpersonal skills in order to build more meaningful connections with people. I have learned more about myself and developed deeper connections with others from reading books, listening to podcasts, and learning from people’s stories about communication and how to put language behind our emotions. I have learned so much about myself from my own readings/listenings, and I wish I had learned these valuable skills at an earlier age, in the educational system.
In the workplace, I often utilize skills like active listening, showing empathy, developing emotional intelligence, as well as sharing and being open to feedback. What I have seen with my staff is that these skills are just being learned and developed in our workplace. The hardest part is when constructive criticism in the workplace is taken personally rather than being processed and turned into something productive.
When I was just starting out managing my family’s business, I struggled to ignite change and have my back of house team buy-in to any new ideas or changes in protocol. Before I could even finish my sentence, I was already being shut down and given an excuse as to why change wouldn’t work or be a good idea. Innovation, trust, communication, and teamwork were non-existent. Everyone stuck to their station and co-worker cliques were beginning to form. You could feel the tension in the kitchen, and see a difference in the team’s performance based on who was working.
One person didn’t like working with the other person, but did not want to communicate ones issues with the other person. If something was done incorrectly, rather than directly telling their co-worker in the moment, it would be kept to oneself until the mistake was discovered and the blaming would begin. It has taken years of work to remove the armor from my team. Maintaining a safe space and work culture where co-workers can give and receive feedback, respect each other equally regardless of status or position, and hold each other accountable without taking it personally is an ongoing process we work on to uphold.
Both personally and professionally, we’re always going to run into these types of challenges and I believe the educational system could teach us skills to cope in these situations. Having refined interpersonal skills not only reduces your chances of being misunderstood and unheard, but also helps promote healthy relationships with family, loved ones, friends, and especially oneself.
Toni-Rose, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Toni-Rose Bioc, I was born and raised in the suburbs of Silver Spring,Maryland and am Filipino American. I was introduced to the Filipino grocery and food industry at a young age. My father started the family business when I was three years old. Growing up, after school and on weekends, if my brother and I didn’t have any extracurricular activities, we would head straight to the store to help in any way we could: cashiering, restocking the shelves, processing money remittance, and picking up phone calls. When I went to college I initially chose my major thinking that the path I wanted to take was to become a physical therapist. Throughout college I worked at the library, lifeguarded, tried physical therapy internships, and continued to work at the store on weekends more often near the end of college. I discovered a lot about myself in college, and one of the lessons I quickly learned was that the traditional way of learning in a lecture hall was not for me. I knew that if I chose to continue my original path of being a PT, I would lose interest in the process. So after I graduated with a Bachelors of Arts degree in Health Administration & Policy in 2015, I asked my parents if they would be willing to give me a chance to fill their shoes in the family business. I wanted to waste no time and jump straight into work the following month after graduation day, June 2015.
Manila Mart is a Filipino grocery store and fast casual restaurant. We also offer bubble tea which definitely sets us apart from other Filipino markets & cafes since bubble tea isn’t a Filipino specialty, but compliments our food well. Something else you won’t find at any other Filipino restaurant is our house made dipping sauce that we serve with our lumpia shanghai (Filipino style spring rolls) and lechon kawali (crispy deep fried pork belly). It is a family recipe unique to the province that my mom is from, Malolos Bulacan. One of its main ingredients is squash, but you would never be able to tell from the flavor it packs!
We also offer most of our dishes in catering sizes. Filipino cuisine consists of simple ingredients but can be very labor intensive and time consuming! I’m grateful that our customers trust us to prepare their food when life gets busy and there’s not enough time to prepare a meal for lunch, dinner, or an event.
I am most proud of the progress we have made in sharing our vibrant culture through food and seeing the diversity of our customer base and staff continue to grow. Filipino cuisine on the east coast has continued to grow its presence, and my hope is to continue doing our part in sharing our culture and growing the Filipino food scene!
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Leadership opportunities were always something I was interested in, even at a young age. Oftentimes and even to this day, I am advised that in order to be an effective leader, you cannot befriend your staff.
This was a lesson that I had to unlearn. I understood where being friends with your staff could be a set up for some sticky situations, and I have even seen it first hand. You can lose your effectiveness as a leader– risk your team not taking you seriously when giving direction, and make hard decisions and conversations even harder due to unconscious bias. Favoritism could happen and general biases could cloud your judgment as the leader. You could also lose the trust of your direct reports and vice versa.
This advice comes off as very black and white, but personally I’ve learned to keep an open mind and take a different approach. We spend a significant amount of our lives working. Taking the time to get to know your staff and making genuine connections with your co-workers not only makes coming to work more enjoyable, but from a managerial standpoint, makes you a more effective and empathetic manager. When you get to know someone on a more personal level, and show genuine interest and care, you’ll be more understanding of their situation. You’ll indirectly learn their strengths and weaknesses and gain more of an understanding of where they’re struggling and why.
As a caveat, it takes a strong level of self-awareness and being able to set and communicate clear boundaries and address those boundaries when they’re broken without hesitation. Being open about talking about your feelings and having emotional or hard conversations may become routine, and helps build a healthy emotional intelligence.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
When managing a team, I advise prioritizing cultivating a safe environment and culture around giving and receiving continuous feedback. I think planning and hosting social events outside of work helps develop and maintain high morale amongst the team but it’s not enough to make a lasting impression. When someone has the courage to speak up or voices their concerns, your reaction as a manager is so important. Understanding and asking each individual team member what support looks like in any instance removes the guessing work as to how you can help or address the concern.
Creating a work environment where the majority of the team knows how to effectively give and receive feedback takes work, and a lot of time. Not only does leadership have to buy into this idea, but so does the rest of your team! Visible progress can happen in weeks and months, but it could take years to develop this kind of open feedback work culture. Moreover, as a manager, it’s important to take the time to get experience first hand, working with your team side-by-side to gain perspective and context as to what problems exist in the workplace. Due to being short staffed this past year, I have spent significantly more time learning in the kitchen for the first time in my seven years of managing Manila Mart, and I gained a new perspective of our kitchen staff. When you decide to put yourself in the system, it gives you more context to the situation to help you better empathize and better understand the problems your team is facing. When it becomes a habit to seek to understand first, and take action, trust within the team begins to develop and with a positive work culture it’ll make it easier to maintain morale.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.manilamart.com
- Instagram: @manilamart
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ManilaMart
- Tiktok: @manila_mart
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/manila-mart-beltsville
Image Credits
Joy Washington Thomas Divita