Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Chef's Lessons in Leadership | Chef's PSA Podcast Ep. 107

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Chef's Lessons in Leadership | Chef's PSA Podcast Ep. 107 · Chef's PSA Podcast

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  Hello Chefs, this is Chefs PSA Podcast.
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  I'm your host Andre Natera. On today's episode, we are going
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  to talk about effective leadership in the kitchen.
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  Stay tuned. This episode is brought to you
• 0:21
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  further than Old Style Sausage. Go to oldstylesausage.com to.
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  Find out more before we get started.
• 0:55
  Just a brief update. The next episode I'm going to
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  have my former chef to cuisine, Jacob Cischen on the show.
• 1:02
  You can't pronounce his last name.
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  We call him Triple Z or I just apparently found out they call
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  him HJ. But that's the story for another
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  time. He'll be the next guest.
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  I really enjoyed the episode. It also gives you some insight
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  into what it was like to work with me.
• 1:15
  We talk a lot of different things, so lookout for that
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  episode next week. But for those of you that may be
• 1:21
  unaware, if you subscribe to My Sub Stack, you get early access
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  to the podcasts. I think I'm about two weeks
• 1:27
  ahead on Sub Stack. Plus you get exclusive podcasts
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  that are only available there, all the free ebooks, some
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  audiobooks, exclusive leadership classes, 15% off everything at
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  the Chef's PSA store for ten a month you get chef brands.
• 1:41
  It's a good deal. O if you want more Chef's a
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  content subscribe to the sub stack.
• 1:46
  I'll put the link in the show notes.
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  Also my new book Bad Cooks everywhere.
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  People love it. Go get it.
• 1:53
  If you want to support what I'm doing and you like the other
• 1:55
  books that I've written, you'll really enjoy this one.
• 1:56
  It's fiction, it's the story of a cook.
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  It's a fun read. Go get it.
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  Bad Cooks everywhere. All my books are available on
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  Amazon. I'm unsure, but I kind of want
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  to write another book. I've been thinking about one of
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  my favorite podcast series that I did with Chef's PSA is The 48
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  Laws of Power. It's a four part series and I, I
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  honestly think like if you listen to any of my podcasts,
• 2:15
  that's my best work at least. Maybe I need to go back and
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  listen to it. I think it's my best work.
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  And I was thinking about taking the 48 laws of power as it
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  applies to chefs and writing another book based on that.
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  I don't know if I will. I might.
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  If I do write another book, it'll either be that or like a
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  spin off of Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings.
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  But as applied to chefs, I think that would be fun also.
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  Anyway, what were we talking about?
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  We digress. Leadership.
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  In the culinary world, the word chef means chief.
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  Basically, it implies that you're a leader.
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  All the different stations require leadership, from the
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  executive chef to the chef to cuisine to the Demi chef to the
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  chef to party to the comedy chef to the chef concierge.
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  Leadership is implied through the title.
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  Effective leadership is really what's going to separate good
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  chefs from everyone else. The ability to think abstractly
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  as a leader is what really separates great chefs, the ones
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  that think differently and operate differently and take
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  pride in leadership. There's an old expression, a
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  chef can cook, but a cook can't chef.
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  There are managerial aspects to leadership that are usually task
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  based, like checklists, making sure that you filled out your
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  temperature logs, the schedules written.
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  That's managerial. Leadership is usually what
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  doesn't involve a clipboard, a spreadsheet, or some work on the
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  computer. Leadership is inspiring.
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  Leadership makes people want to work for you.
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  Leadership makes people want to follow you.
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  Leadership makes people feel good when they're in your
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  kitchen. It's an unconquering force.
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  And what's really interesting about the concept of leadership,
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  specifically in the kitchen is some of the best chef leaders
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  aren't necessarily the best cooks, but some of the best
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  chefs that are cooks aren't necessarily the best leaders.
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  It's the dichotomy of being a chef.
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  It's an interesting paradox. When I was a young chef, I went
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  through my first three executive chef positions not really
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  knowing who I am and really understanding my leadership
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  style. The first one, I was green and I
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  wanted to do all the work myself, so I wouldn't delegate
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  anything, but it was a smaller operation, so I can get away
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  with that. The second one was a much larger
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  operation and I still wanted to do everything and it didn't work
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  out. I was punching above my weight.
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  I wasn't very successful in that job, even though the food was
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  good, the culture wasn't. The third chef job I had was
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  this amalgamation of good leadership and good food, and
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  then finally I started to figure it out.
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  And then my ego got the best of me and I wasn't a very good
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  leader. I was this polarizing character
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  who thought to get results I had to behave like an angry chef.
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  I was too tied up in the result emotionally, which would lead to
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  frustration. The next few jobs after that, I
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  struggled because I had success. My food was on point, but my ego
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  was getting the better of me. I didn't fully understand the
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  responsibility of a leader. It took some failure for me to
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  understand and to reflect. There was a moment in my career
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  where I sat there and I analyzed the ups and downs in my career.
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  There were moments when I was very successful and there was
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  moments when I wasn't. And I would look back on the
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  places where I was really successful and say what was
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  different between this place and that place?
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  And it was never the food, it was the workplace culture.
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  That's when the light bulb went off for me and I realized that
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  leadership in kitchen culture was really the driving force of
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  the success of the restaurant or the place where I was working.
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  It wasn't necessarily the food because there were places where
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  you could argue that the food was better, but we failed.
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  And there was places you could argue that we succeeded and the
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  food wasn't as good. It took me down this road, which
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  led me to Chef's PSA, and it was about four or five years or
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  longer of thinking about this is how do you create an environment
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  where people can succeed? And I thought about all the
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  mistakes I had made as a leader and wanted to correct them.
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  But I got better as a chef. I learned to control my
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  emotions. I learned how to lead people.
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  I learned how to work with different styles.
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  And I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I was
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  constantly refining my style of leadership.
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  So what makes a great leader? First and foremost,
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  communication. The ability to communicate
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  what's expected of service, The ability to communicate what's
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  expected of the cooks in the kitchen.
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  How many covers do we have? Where are we going?
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  How do you make a recipe? How do I make sure you know how
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  to make the recipe? No surprises.
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  We know what's coming up today. We know what's coming up
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  tomorrow, we know what's coming up next week.
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  Everyone's informed. There's transparency in the
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  communication. If someone has a question,
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  they're not afraid to ask. A lot of times people are afraid
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  to ask the question because they feel like they're going to get
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  in trouble. Communication is A2 way St. up
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  and down, down the hierarchy. Cooks need to be able to
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  communicate with chefs. Chefs need to be able to
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  communicate with cooks. The better the communication,
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  the better the kitchen. So it's not just about having
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  communication, it's about being an effective communicator.
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  If you're communicating via e-mail, making them short, not
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  so long that people don't want to read it, making them brief,
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  bullet point, highlight what's important, say more with less.
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  If you're communicating in meetings, pertinent information,
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  meetings aren't too long where you're wasting people's times
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  and they've tuned out and they're not listening anymore.
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  You're not bringing people to meetings discussing things that
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  could be done over text, right? A lot of meetings are time
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  wasters. Good communication is being
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  respectful of people's time. Good communication is distilling
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  the information as it comes to you and getting to the point
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  very quickly. Good communication is making
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  sure that everyone knows what's expected of them.
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  New hires and veterans. They have recipes, menu,
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  syllabus, photographs, station diagrams.
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  That's all part of communication.
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  Being organized is good communication.
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  Next is vision and inspiration. A leader knows where they're
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  going. They know where they're taking
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  their team. We're going that way and I
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  promise you if we keep going that way, we will succeed.
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  There's inspiration. Everyone knows their role on the
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  team and they play a part. There's no arbitrary roles.
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  Everyone knows that what they are doing funnels to the overall
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  goal where we all succeed. They have a sense of belonging
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  and they feel like they're a part of it.
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  If they don't feel like they belong, they will go somewhere
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  else where they do belong. A sense of belonging is a very
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  strong thing. A good leader knows how to
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  create a dragon that everyone's going to go slay.
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  So sometimes I like to say I would create false Dragons,
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  whatever that may be. A new award we're chasing that.
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  Our competition, a big event, that's the dragon you create a
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  little bit a fear, not fear in a bad way, but fear in a sense
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  that they don't want to fail. Fear in the sense that they want
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  to succeed. A challenge, maybe a challenge
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  is a better word. They don't want to lose.
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  You get addicted to winning. The more you win, the more you
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  win. A good chef leader is adaptable.
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  They could read the data that's coming in and no wooden pivot.
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  When do they need to change the menu?
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  When do they need to reorganize the line?
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  When do they need to stop the books or the door?
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  Because after a certain point, it's no longer going to be a
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  good service. People come and go in
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  restaurants all the time. Are you able to reorganize
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  quickly and shuffle based on the players that you have currently
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  in your kitchen? What if one leaves?
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  What do you do? Does the whole thing fall apart?
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  A good leader has a plan and has a contingency plan for
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  everything is very adaptable. Sometimes there's no good moves
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  on the chess board. You just got to make the best
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  move. A good leader builds A-Team,
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  doesn't break them down. A good leader encourages their
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  growth, is talking about their future, see something in them
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  that they might not yet see in themselves.
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  A good leader is able to push you and extract that greatness
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  from you. There's a lot of great people
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  out there, and sometimes they just need to be poked a little
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  bit to pull that greatness out. A good leader should be able to
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  recognize that in someone. They sit down and they
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  communicate with their team and they figure out what makes them
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  tick. A good leader understands that
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  the success of the whole is greater than the success of a
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  few or an individual. It's not my win, it's our win.
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  We win together, we fail together.
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  It's not I win, you fail. When someone on the team wins,
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  everyone wins and we celebrate the success.
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  When I was a chef, we were so addicted to winning.
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  We'd celebrate anything. Anyone's win.
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  Someone won a local competition, someone got a promotion, Someone
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  got a new job, someone had a baby.
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  Celebrate. You want to make sure that you
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  have a culture of celebrating wins, because the more wins you
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  celebrate, the more wins you'll find.
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  Because you're constantly looking for a way to win.
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  You could also fall into the trap of complaining about
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  losses. You're always complaining about
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  losing. You will find more losses, so
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  you can complain about them. To do the opposite, you got to
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  rewire your brain and reframe how you look at things.
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  A good leader delegates spreads the work appropriately.
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  Now in kitchens, sometimes one person has more work than the
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  other, but it's usually because they're more competent than
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  another cook, right? A green cook in their first few
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  weeks of cooking isn't going to be as efficient as someone
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  that's been doing it for 10 years.
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  So you can't give them the same workload.
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  They're not going to be able to get it done the same.
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  A good leader understands that, but a good leader also doesn't
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  give someone less work and make it easy for them.
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  A good leader challenges them and makes it harder and
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  increases the difficulty setting with every task.
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  The broom wall has to get a little bit better.
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  The sear has to get a little bit darker.
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  The tomatoes got to be diced a little bit faster.
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  You're always increasing the difficulty setting for the
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  cooks, so they are also seeing themselves improve.
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  When you've been doing it for a while, you know you got to do
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  these things. But sometimes the new cooks
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  don't know this. They don't know that they got to
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  constantly challenge themselves. So you got to time them for
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  everything. You got to say, hey, you got 30
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  minutes to do this job and when they get it done, you got to say
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  a good job on getting it done in time.
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  Here's how you could do it better tomorrow, right?
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  You're going to do 29 minutes or you're still going to do it in
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  30 minutes, but it needs to be a little bit more precise.
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  A good leader is also giving feedback, positive and
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  constructive. You're reframing your words to
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  make sure that they're learning. A good leader is able to tell a
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  story so it sticks and explain why something needs to be done a
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  certain way. You can't just say do it because
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  I said because that won't stick. But if you say do it like this,
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  and here's why you do it like this, it's more likely for them
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  to understand. That's why stories are so
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  helpful in the kitchen, understanding the back story.
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  Hey, This is why you cut your tape straight.
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  This is why it needs to be short because if you use a piece of
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  tape that's one inch, where is it?
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  A piece of tape that's 8 inches long, it's eight times the cost
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  of the tape. And imagine if you do that with
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  everything right. If they understand that being
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  wasteful effects what they do, they might be more likely to do
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  the right thing. If they understand that if you
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  fold your towels, you get an exponential amount of uses out
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  of it and it's cleaner, then they might be more likely to
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  fold their towels. If you explain to them that you
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  don't put wet ingredients behind dry ingredients on your station,
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  so when you're grabbing the ingredient it doesn't drip over
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  the dry ones and get your meson plus all wet, well then that
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  might click. But sometimes we just don't
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  notice these things because we're new and sometimes we do
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  things and we don't know why we do them.
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  We just know intuitively, but we forget that we learned it at one
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  point. A good leader can communicate
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  those ideas and is an effective teacher.
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  A good leader handles conflict quickly.
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  Recognizes when something's getting out of hand and the
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  tension is rising and de escalates things.
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  Pull someone into the office that says what's going on.
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  Has the tough conversations that need to be had and has them
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  quickly sits people down and helps them make peace.
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  Recognizes when someone isn't a good fit in your kitchen and
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  gets them out of there. Recognizes when one of your
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  cooks is being bullied but can't speak up for themselves and says
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  something. That's what you get paid to do.
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  You get paid to do the things that other people don't want to
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  do. It's it's what comes with the
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  territory of leadership. It's not all fun and games.
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  A good leader cultivates a positive work environment.
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  Make sure that people enjoy coming to work.
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  Make sure that they enjoy cooking the food.
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  They enjoy being a part of the team.
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  A good leader helps people grow in position, mentors them,
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  coaches them, and a good leader knows when to let people go to
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  find better opportunities. And I don't necessarily mean
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  that like you're firing them. I also mean that sometimes you
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  recognize someone like, hey, this is not the right kitchen
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  for you. You would be much better suited
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  in this kitchen and I'm going to help you get in there.
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  I was never the type of chef that would hold anyone back.
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  If I thought it was a good move for you, I will tell you it's a
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  good move for you to go to that kitchen.
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  If I thought it was a bad move for you, I will also tell you
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  the same thing, like, hey, you have a blind spot, you're not
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  ready for that yet. You need to stay in this
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  position a little bit longer. People sometimes are very
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  impatient to get to the next role and they need a good leader
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  to explain to them why they're not ready, but not just tell
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  them why they're not ready, but explain to them and show them
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  why they're not ready. It's about trust building.
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  If you have a mentor, they're worth their weight in gold.
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  You want to make sure you hold on to them, especially an honest
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  mentor, not someone that's just telling you what you want to
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  hear, but someone that's pushing back sometimes and not always
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  agreeing with you. There's a quote from the Dao Dei
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  Jing Lao Tzu that says when the leaders work is finished,
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  everyone around them will say, amazing, we did it ourselves.
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  And that to me is the sign of a good leader is when people learn
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  how to stand on their own 2 feet, they're able to feel good
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  about what they've accomplished. And they didn't even notice your
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  leadership was almost invisible. That's when your leadership is
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  really good because everyone is getting better.
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  The food is coming out beautifully.
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  The success just keeps pouring in.
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  No one recognized that you were the driving force behind it
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  because you did it so seamlessly.
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  That's good leadership. Great leaders create great
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  leaders. One of the proudest moments I've
• 14:43
  ever had is when I opened up and I had eight chefs around me.
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  And of those eight chefs, my 8 sous chefs and chefs to
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  cuisines, all of them are now very successful executive chefs.
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  I could not be more proud of them.
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  And I'm hoping that my legacy is I'm helping cooks become chefs
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  and chefs become better chefs. I'm helping you find your
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  greatness. So you have to ask yourself,
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  what kind of leader are you? What's your legacy going to be
• 15:04
  anyway? You want to support the show,
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  This hat right here. I don't know if you see it, it's
• 15:25
  camo. Look out for next week's
• 15:27
  interview. I think you'll really enjoy it.
• 15:29
  We'll see you next week. Hit the porno music.