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Au Bon Pain: The Cycle Of Failure

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Au Bon Pain: The Cycle Of Failure
Au Bon Pain (ABP) President Ron Shaich hired Len Schlesinger as Executive Vice President/Treasurer to increase sales and profitability. They associated the recent store performance degradation from “the cycle of failure” (threat) caused by chronic inability to recruit high performing managers, employee shortage, insufficient training and inefficient District Managers. Through case-based research, Ron/Len developed a new Partner/Manager compensation program for General Managers and Associate Managers of the stores to help reverse the cycle of failure. Their assumption is this program could attract top talent that would result in higher employee ownership to drive store outputs - consequently improving the customer experience and profits. In
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