Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Part 3 The Kitchen 48 Laws of Power
Transcript
- 0:00Hello chefs. You're listening to chefs, PS a
- 0:02podcast. I'm your host on your natera.
- 0:03On today's episode, we're getting into part 3 of the 48
- 0:07Laws of Power As Told from a chef's perspective.
- 0:10Stay tuned. So first, let's start with an
- 0:24update. What have I been up to?
- 0:26Well, I was on TV this week. I was on Fox promoting live fire
- 0:31which is coming up. April 6th.
- 0:33If you're in Austin, Texas, I'll be doing a live podcast from
- 0:38live-fire, actually, it won't be life.
- 0:40I'll be just interviewing other chefs and will be a podcast.
- 0:43I will be recording it at live fire but this will be the first
- 0:46time ever that chefs PSA has guests on.
- 0:49And what I'm doing is I'm interviewing many of the
- 0:51participating chefs that are there for.
- 0:53Life fire. Now this is going to be more of
- 0:55a one-off special event. I don't anticipate that this is
- 0:58immediately going to go into a guest Centric podcast, just for
- 1:01everyone listening. Don't don't start dming me
- 1:05saying. You want to be on the show,
- 1:07that's not going to happen right now.
- 1:08This is this is just a one-off for when I do special events
- 1:11like live fire or if I happen to be at a food festival or
- 1:14something like that and they want to do a chef's PS, a
- 1:16podcast, that's where I will do them.
- 1:18Also recently, I just tweeted this the other day, I've wrapped
- 1:22up the Audiobooks 14, kitchen Art of War.
- 1:25The next 14 line, cook survival, manual.
- 1:28Those are done. I've listened to both audio
- 1:30books to sound great, really happy with how they came out.
- 1:33They have been submitted to audible, which takes about 10
- 1:35days for approval. So, assuming there's no issues
- 1:38with it, I submitted that on the 28th of March, so they should be
- 1:44out in the next couple of days assuming that it's that it's all
- 1:47approved and then I will let everyone know.
- 1:49So, for those of you that don't like reading books, but you like
- 1:53The books that will be available.
- 1:54So all the chef's PSA books will be available on Audible.
- 1:58Also, for those of you that aren't aware, I do a Sunday,
- 2:01Q&A, I call it cigar Sunday's chefs PSA, we're all sit there,
- 2:05and I'll answer questions while I smoke a cigar.
- 2:07So, I will do it for as long as it takes for me to smoke one.
- 2:10Entire cigar, like to chill out there on Sundays and have my
- 2:13cigar night and drink, my whatever it is, I'm drinking
- 2:15whiskey or cognac, whatever the case may be.
- 2:18So if you want to ask me questions, that's the time to do
- 2:20it. I will answer them.
- 2:21I try to get to as many of them as I can.
- 2:23Sometimes sometimes I can't get to all of them.
- 2:25I'm sure you understand. There's a lot of questions that
- 2:27come in and some of them are not great question.
- 2:29So sometimes they're just statements people tell me their
- 2:32opinions and that's fine too. I read them but I tried my best
- 2:36to get to all the good questions as I can.
- 2:38If I'm not answering your question, specifically again,
- 2:40feel free to DM me, I'll do my best to get to all the all the
- 2:43questions that I get. But make sure they're good
- 2:45questions because sometimes the questions aren't great and I
- 2:48don't know how to answer them. So if it's something that you
- 2:50could Google that's usually not a good.
- 2:53Ian. So anyway, keep that in mind.
- 2:54Let's get into the 48 Laws of Power last week.
- 2:59We left off at law 22. So that is where we are going to
- 3:02begin. And by the way, if you like this
- 3:04series, let me know, you could, you could leave a comment and
- 3:08Spotify or you could DM me. And let me know what you think
- 3:11of this series. I will eventually wrap this up,
- 3:15probably two more episodes and then get back to the more
- 3:18standard Chef's PSA format. So, anyway, back to 48 Laws of
- 3:22Power from Chef's perspective, law, 22, use the surrender
- 3:26tactic, transform weakness into power.
- 3:30Now how can this relate to Kitchen example?
- 3:32A lot of times if you're the chef of a location sometimes
- 3:37sometimes you have a boss maybe it's a GM, maybe it's the owner,
- 3:41maybe it's maybe it's another Chef like a corporate Chef above
- 3:43you and you need to get items on the menu and so you start doing
- 3:46these tastings and a lot of times you put forward dishes
- 3:49that you know, are strong dishes and it and sometimes you may be
- 3:52putting a Dishes and the people that are critiquing, you are not
- 3:56even on your level to critique you.
- 3:58But yet you have to sit there and listen to their feedback and
- 4:02and take it or maybe the guest or maybe it's a food critic, or
- 4:05maybe it's a blogger comes in and to give you negative
- 4:07feedback, sometimes it's just best to let them win.
- 4:10Now a strategy, a strategy that I've used in the past is what I
- 4:14would do a tasting. And let's say I was trying to
- 4:17change 10 dishes. For example, I'd go in with some
- 4:20Duds that I knew that they weren't going to like, so, I
- 4:23would say here are 10 dishes and I knew like three or four of
- 4:25them. I didn't even want on the menu,
- 4:27but I needed to give them something that I know they
- 4:31wouldn't like, so that we could compromise it off.
- 4:33So I would make a bad dish deliberately.
- 4:35And and then they would say we don't really like this one and I
- 4:38say, okay, I think you're right, let's take it off and it made
- 4:41them feel like they still had the upper hand when it was
- 4:43intentional the whole time, I gave it to them on purpose to
- 4:46know that they would reject it. So anyway, that was one of the
- 4:49strategies that I would use to transform weakness into power
- 4:53Our moving on law number 23. Concentrate your forces.
- 4:56So what this means is you're allocating the resources that
- 5:00you have in the kitchen to a specific area.
- 5:03So what this means, I'll give you an example.
- 5:06Sometimes this works in, by the way, the example I'm going to
- 5:08give doesn't always work but let's just use this in it.
- 5:10As an example. If you oversee multiple kitchens
- 5:13in one of them is going down, allocating more Cooks to that
- 5:16one kitchen that's going down. Is concentrating.
- 5:18Your forces, right? If you have a menu or a
- 5:22restaurant That's very strong. Putting your top performing
- 5:26cooks and chefs in that kitchen is concentrating your forces.
- 5:29So the old expression fish where the fish are, if you know that
- 5:32something is successful, put the resources behind that on the
- 5:37flip side. If you know something is
- 5:38struggling, put the resources behind that, put your strongest
- 5:42people where you're going to get the mold the most bang for your
- 5:45buck. And if you happen to be one of
- 5:46these strong people, That, what you want to do is you want to
- 5:51make sure that you go to those areas in the kitchen where your
- 5:54skill set could be on. Great display.
- 5:57Okay, moving on law, number 24, play the perfect courtier and I
- 6:03think this is a good way to say, learn how to play politics at
- 6:08work. And a lot of people say, I don't
- 6:10like to play the game, I'm a chef and the old expression.
- 6:12If you're not playing the game, you're not even in the game.
- 6:15So keep that in mind just because you're not playing the
- 6:17game at work. Does it mean the The other
- 6:19people that you work with are not playing the game, that
- 6:21doesn't mean that the ownership isn't or the GM or the hotel
- 6:25manager or the restaurant GM. Whoever whoever might also be
- 6:29playing the game with you just because you're not playing,
- 6:32doesn't mean that they're not strategically making moves.
- 6:35So play the perfect courtier is that ability to move seamlessly
- 6:39in and out and have relationships with these people.
- 6:42Sometimes flatter them. Bring them gifts.
- 6:44You know, I talked about this, I think in the last podcast, where
- 6:47I knew this person would bring Gives, but I knew what they were
- 6:49up to. But what they were trying to do
- 6:51is to gain a little bit of advantage in my good graces.
- 6:54So, when you are, when you are unlikable and I know this for a
- 6:58fact because I've, I've made mistakes in the kitchen that I
- 7:02should have gotten in big trouble for, you know, maybe I
- 7:04miss food cost or whatever the case may be.
- 7:06And because people liked me because I played the courtier,
- 7:10sometimes, they would Overlook little mistakes that I've made
- 7:13on the flip side, when they don't like you, if you're the
- 7:16type of person that rubs everyone, the wrong, Wrong way
- 7:19and maybe you don't make a lot of mistakes but you do rub
- 7:22people the wrong way. The second to that you make the
- 7:24mistake rest assured, that there's people above you and
- 7:28position that have been waiting and licking their chops for you
- 7:31to stumble and we'll use a simple mistake to get rid of
- 7:35you. I've seen it happen, someone
- 7:37does something stupid and they get rid of you because they
- 7:39don't like you, because you've rubbed people the wrong way.
- 7:41So it goes without saying that likability and the kitchen and
- 7:45in the restaurant world is a superpower.
- 7:47So make sure you use that. To your advantage.
- 7:49Law number 25, recreate yourself.
- 7:52Now, As chefs, there's going to come a time when food Trends
- 7:57move on, and you may have doubled down on a certain food
- 8:00Trend. I like to use the example of
- 8:02bubble food and I say bubble food because that's, that's,
- 8:05that's the kind of food that you saw like, with Molecular
- 8:08Gastronomy when everyone's using spheres and Foams and alginates.
- 8:11And it was all over the world and let's say you just wanted to
- 8:15double down on that. And you know say this is the
- 8:18type of food that I'm doing because it's never going away
- 8:20and like every single food Trend out, there it goes away.
- 8:22And then now you've been And hold into being that Molecular
- 8:27Gastronomy chef. And the industry has moved on.
- 8:29So what do you do, right? You have to be able to recreate
- 8:32yourself great chefs that have lasting power, know how to
- 8:36recreate them, how to recreate themselves, when they've jumped
- 8:40onto a gimmick. So there's this is a cautionary
- 8:43tale because sometimes you could double down on that Trend and
- 8:46you shouldn't, this is why I'm always caution.
- 8:48I'm always cautious to talk about food Trends because I know
- 8:51they don't last in, there's no point in in me.
- 8:53When people that they should jump on this unless you're
- 8:55trying to make a quick Buck, there's really no reason to jump
- 8:58on a food Trend, but a lot of people do double down on this
- 9:01and sometimes they have to reinvent themselves.
- 9:02So, knowing how to recreate yourself and develop a new style
- 9:07when you need to as important. But it's really important that
- 9:09you're able to recognize. When that opportunity presents
- 9:11itself, that maybe you've been stuck in a culinary style for
- 9:15too long, that no longer suits, you might be time to really
- 9:18reinvent yourself to regain status and attention as needed.
- 9:24Law number 26. Keep your hands clean.
- 9:27I think that goes without saying, like, the best thing to
- 9:29do is keep your hands clean. Don't get yourself in trouble.
- 9:31Don't say any stupid shit don't do anything.
- 9:33That's going to come back and haunt you.
- 9:34And I'm sure we've all done that we've all said stupid things,
- 9:39but the fact of the matter is, what you need to do, as the chef
- 9:41is, you need to keep your hands clean.
- 9:43Now, I have a chef friend that runs a very large operation and
- 9:46he doesn't talk to anyone other than his two or three direct
- 9:50reports and the reason he does that is he wants to keep his
- 9:53Hands Clean. He doesn't want to interact with
- 9:55people because he's afraid that it might get him in trouble,
- 9:58especially in today's world, right?
- 9:59You got to be extra careful. The good thing I had in my
- 10:03career, as I had a, human resources department and a lot
- 10:05of the jobs that I had, which kept people honest, but a lot of
- 10:08chefs don't have access to a human resources department.
- 10:12That's making sure that they don't do stupid things, right?
- 10:14And first of all you shouldn't do stupid things.
- 10:16But the best thing you could do is keep your hands clean and
- 10:20avoid those situations. So What you'll see a lot of
- 10:24chefs do is they follow the rule of the mafia seven layers
- 10:28removed, not I'm not talking about seven-layer dip, I'm
- 10:30talking about being removed from the issue by seven layers.
- 10:33And the old example of the mafia is, there was always the boss,
- 10:38gave the order to someone who gave it to someone who gave it
- 10:40to someone and eventually it was seven people removed from the
- 10:44person that gave the order and the reason they would do that is
- 10:48because if someone was going to rat them out, the chances of all
- 10:53In people ratting and ratting them out all the way up to the
- 10:56top of the mafia was not likely. So that's that's where the seven
- 11:01layers removed example comes from.
- 11:02So if you if you know your history, that's the way it was
- 11:05done but a lot of chefs operate that same way as they remove
- 11:09themselves by seven layers. So if an order comes down from
- 11:13from the top that may be slightly unsavory, they need to
- 11:16have a little bit of buffer between them and you see a lot
- 11:19of chefs do this. You see smart chefs do this also
- 11:21that but Away the disclaimer that I'm given here is do the
- 11:25right thing. Don't be unethical.
- 11:27I should say that. You know, I have I have a friend
- 11:29that I talked to the other day that was talking to me about my
- 11:31podcast. I did a chef's PSA on this the
- 11:34other day that says, if you're going to be a good leader, I'm
- 11:36sorry. If you're going to be a chef
- 11:37leader, make sure you're a good one and that was their advice to
- 11:40me. They said look you have this
- 11:41platform, so make sure that you're giving good advice.
- 11:44So I'm going to give people, good advice, you need to.
- 11:47You need to do the right thing in most situations in all
- 11:50situations I should say. Anyway, law number Even play on
- 11:54people's need to believe in create a cult-like following.
- 11:57Now, I do talk about this in culinary leadership fundamentals
- 12:00but maybe I phrase it differently.
- 12:02And that is whenever you're building a team, if you want to
- 12:04make sure that the team is engaged, they need to have a
- 12:07mission. They need to have vision and
- 12:08they need to have a purpose. So creating that will help them
- 12:14share common goals, common motivations around you.
- 12:18So, every single person on your team needs to understand that,
- 12:21this is the objective that we're trying.
- 12:23To accomplish. This is the vision of where
- 12:25we're going. This is the role that you play
- 12:29in creating this Vision because if they feel disconnected from
- 12:32the overall purpose, they're not going to remain engaged with
- 12:35your team. So I I've said this many times,
- 12:38I think you need to have a Mission Vision strategy to get
- 12:42there and you need to be able to articulate that and communicate
- 12:45that to the teams that are beneath you and every single
- 12:48person on that team needs to know what their this is and how
- 12:54they contribute to that overall goal.
- 12:56So that kind of ties in making sure you create a cult like
- 12:59following. A lot of people will believe in
- 13:01you. See chefs like our goal is to be
- 13:03the number one restaurant or our goal is to get this star or win
- 13:07this award or create this this thing you have to have that and
- 13:12everyone has to believe in it in my last job.
- 13:15I think I had eight direct reports reporting up to me so in
- 13:19sous-chef executive sous, chef, or Chef De Cuisine capacity.
- 13:22And what I told them all as my goal was to make sure that
- 13:25everyone here and left as an executive chef.
- 13:28And I want to say very happily that all of them left as
- 13:32executive chefs with the exception of one who's an
- 13:33executive sous-chef right now, but they all believed in the
- 13:37mission and they all understood their role to accomplish it and
- 13:41when you create something that people could build something
- 13:43that people can believe in there, going to be more likely
- 13:46to stand behind you law number 28, interaction with boldness.
- 13:52Whenever you're going to commit whatever you're going to commit
- 13:54to anything right? Whether it's a new menu, whether
- 13:56it's a dish, whether it's, you know, a decision you've made to
- 13:58promote someone be confident in your decision and don't
- 14:03second-guess yourself. Now, if you're going to
- 14:05second-guess yourself, it's okay to do that in private.
- 14:07But don't second-guess yourself in public because people will
- 14:10smell weakness. Now, I'll tell you a story about
- 14:14how I screwed up something. And I've probably said this
- 14:17before but I had I had created a dish for a tasting for an
- 14:22Executive chef position and I completely over-salted it and I
- 14:25screwed it up. And what it was is I was making
- 14:27these bread gnocchi and I served him in a broth and the broth was
- 14:31over-salted because I had really made a concentrated Umami broth,
- 14:35which had prosciutto trim and Bonito Flakes and Parmesan rind.
- 14:39And it was just this beautiful stock, but I let it sit on the
- 14:44on the stove for too long and it reduced.
- 14:45So when I tasted it was perfect and then when I went back to
- 14:49serve it was no longer. Perfect.
- 14:50Now is inevitably salty. So I didn't catch that it was
- 14:54salty until I had sent the dish out because by mistake because I
- 14:57didn't treat aced it before I served it.
- 14:59I thought it was still fine. What I recognized that I had
- 15:03made this mistake, I went to the table and I explained to them
- 15:07that this was a style of gnocchi that came from a certain part of
- 15:12Italy. In the way that they do it is
- 15:13they would go get Buckets to see water and cook the pasta, the
- 15:17gnocchi. I'm sorry.
- 15:18The bread gnocchi and the in the in the water and it was intended
- 15:22to be salty. So don't drink the broth, only
- 15:24eat the gnocchi, which is blind and they love the story and I
- 15:27got the job, but if I had not said that with confidence and I
- 15:30have five Had gone in there and said, oh, I'm so sorry,
- 15:33over-salted it mistake. Let me do it again.
- 15:34Blah blah, blah, most likely I wouldn't have gotten the job.
- 15:37It was the confidence. That's that gets you.
- 15:40The job how many times have had someone come up to you and said
- 15:44something? That's complete BS nonsense, and
- 15:47you believe them just because they were confident in what they
- 15:49delivered. Now confidence is key.
- 15:52Whenever you're doing anything whenever you need to convince
- 15:54people to do something for you. So showing timidity in your
- 15:58decision is going to make other people.
- 16:01Lightly reluctant to want to jump in with you.
- 16:03So make sure and everything that you're doing, like I said, new
- 16:06restaurant, New dining concept. Be confident now publicly be
- 16:10confident. Now, if behind the scenes,
- 16:12you're recognizing that there's problems, feel free to mitigate
- 16:15them, but if you don't enter bold, not only do you risk it.
- 16:20Not working out, but you risk. The people that are you're going
- 16:23with doubting your ability. Law number 29, plan all the way
- 16:29to the end. When I was a chef sometimes I
- 16:33had the reputation of maybe planning too much and being
- 16:35stuck in my head. And I think I've talked about
- 16:37this before, I play a ton of chest.
- 16:40I love the idea of strategy that's kind of why I wrote the
- 16:43kitchen Art of War and whenever I'm making any decisions I'm
- 16:48thinking about every possible point of failure in every
- 16:52possible outcome that can happen.
- 16:55And my chef sometimes would get frustrated with me, but I didn't
- 16:58care. I would invite several chefs
- 16:59when I would brainstorm and say, what about this, what about
- 17:02that? What if we do this?
- 17:03And I would throw a lot of scenarios out there because not
- 17:06because I haven't thought of them, I've thought of them in my
- 17:09mind, and I've played the scenario out in my mind, but I
- 17:11would also ask them to see if there was something that I
- 17:15hadn't thought of, right? So a lot of the things that they
- 17:17would say everything. You already thought of that you
- 17:19already thought of that but every now and again someone
- 17:22would say something that I hadn't thought of and I was like
- 17:24great so it was it would be completely worth it when I would
- 17:27plan things out I would always think about what what is the end
- 17:31result that we're trying to achieve here.
- 17:32What are we trying to accomplish by putting this on the menu?
- 17:35Is that it? Is it an ego?
- 17:36Stroke? Is it a flex?
- 17:38Is it to grab attention? At one point?
- 17:40I wanted to put caviar on the menu and be the most expensive
- 17:44restaurant in the city and I was doing so I had What we call the
- 17:49Luxe menu which had white truffles on it.
- 17:52And you know, you got your white truffles with risotto.
- 17:55You get your white truffle, shaved over an omelette ahead of
- 17:57caviar and add different tiers of caviar that you could get.
- 18:01I don't remember what else was on.
- 18:02I think had foie, gras whatever. Anyway the point being is it was
- 18:04very expensive and I wanted people to say that it was the
- 18:09most expensive menu and the city and I was doing that on purpose
- 18:12because what we're struggling with at the time was that
- 18:15everyone was celebrating the small and the Dependent right?
- 18:19Everyone is celebrating the small and the independent and
- 18:22here we're coming out and people were looking at us like oh
- 18:24you're you're fancy this that and the other and I would say,
- 18:27okay well, let's double down on that.
- 18:29We're not getting any media attention by trying to fit in
- 18:33with everyone else and doing, you know, really simple food
- 18:37because at that time, if we were doing this we're just going to
- 18:40get lost with all the other chefs that were all kind of
- 18:42doing the same thing I said. So let's go to an extreme
- 18:44example while everyone's trying to be humble.
- 18:46Let's go Ultra Luxe. And what ended up happening is,
- 18:49people would write about it. We grabbed everyone's attention,
- 18:51everyone just start to do your the the caviar and truffles guy,
- 18:54right? And what the reason we did that
- 18:56is because if we had done what everyone else was doing, we
- 18:59would have gotten zero attention.
- 19:01But by doing the opposite of what everyone was doing, we got
- 19:04everyone to stop and pause and look at what we're doing.
- 19:07So this was a strategic thing that I did is like what is the
- 19:10end result of that? I'm trying to accomplish.
- 19:11I'm trying to get that attention for the restaurant and if you
- 19:14keep doing what everyone else is doing, what's going to make you
- 19:18different from everyone else. So whenever you're planning
- 19:20something have Good Counsel around you and think about what
- 19:23the end result is that you're trying to accomplish and then
- 19:26work your way backwards. So, you know, a lot of a lot of
- 19:29chess players when they learn how to play chess, they'll focus
- 19:32on understanding checkmate. Finishing the game, more
- 19:37importantly than the openings in the middle game and everything
- 19:41else that goes with with chess. So understand that the end goal
- 19:45is Checkmate. That's it, period?
- 19:46The end goal is Checkmate and that is for you to win and that
- 19:49is the way that you need a plan law number, 30, make your
- 19:52accomplishments seem effortless. Now, when people talk to me now,
- 19:59they're like, oh, you do this. You make it look so easy, it's
- 20:02not easy. Anything that I do is not easy.
- 20:04Anything that any chef does is not easy, it takes time, it took
- 20:08them years of understanding how to do something practice honing,
- 20:13their craft experience. So when someone says, oh, you
- 20:16could do this release is like, no, it was 27 years to get to
- 20:21this point, it didn't happen overnight.
- 20:23People just see the end, the end result of what where you're at.
- 20:27And they think that, you know, it's easy.
- 20:29Now, here's a story, I was working for this company and I
- 20:33was the regional Corporate. Chef, at the time and we were
- 20:37doing these videos. Now this was pre Tick-Tock pre
- 20:40Instagram reals where there wasn't a video based platform to
- 20:44educate people. If you wanted to watch videos,
- 20:46the only place you're going to watch, it was YouTube and I had
- 20:48started creating the short little videos for technique to
- 20:51train my cooks and I downloaded the app.
- 20:54And I learned how to I think it was Cameo was the app I was
- 20:57using. We could put text and you can
- 20:59always learn how to edit videos, you know what everyone does now
- 21:02but imagine that Almost 10 years ago before people really
- 21:06understood it. And I remember I took it to my
- 21:09boss and I said, look, I've made these training videos for my
- 21:12cook so they understand how I want things done.
- 21:14Butchering salmon, cutting up chicken, making green oil,
- 21:17whatever the case may be, and he's like, oh, his mind was
- 21:20blown. He's like, how long did it take
- 21:22you to do? This is that's easy.
- 21:23It took me like 10 minutes. He's like stop right there.
- 21:26He's like when we present this to our bosses, do not tell
- 21:29anyone. It took you ten minutes to do
- 21:31this. Tell them, it's very long, it's
- 21:33very complicated. It's a very Aber intensive
- 21:35process he says, because if they know it's easy and anyone could
- 21:37do it then all of a sudden you lose value.
- 21:40And what he explained to me is that a lot of Corporations,
- 21:42especially places that have like a corporate Chef for our vice
- 21:45president food and beverage, you know, you're bigger
- 21:48organizations. The way the way I would explain
- 21:50it is like this, a lot of those people in those offices are
- 21:54fighting to keep their job and fighting to remain relevant.
- 21:57But a lot of them don't have the same power as people do in the
- 22:00field because they bring value the people in the field bring
- 22:03value because they're doing it. The other people that aren't in
- 22:05the field, they have to justify their job, right?
- 22:09And so what he was saying, is, if you make it seem easy, that
- 22:11anyone could do it than anyone could do it, but if you make it
- 22:14seem difficult, it brings more value into what you're doing in
- 22:17the field. So there is there is a time and
- 22:19place to conceal, your emotions. Keep some things that you do
- 22:24regardless of the complexity of how difficult it is.
- 22:26Keep it secret, right? Have some things in your pocket,
- 22:28don't tell everyone every single one of your moves and how you
- 22:31did it. Lot number 31, control the
- 22:34options, get others to play with the cards you deal.
- 22:38And, you know, you see this in politics and I'm not going to
- 22:41get into politics. But you see this all the time as
- 22:43it's a usually, a two party system in most places is a
- 22:46choose from this one, or choose from that one, and it gives the
- 22:49illusion of choice, but the reality is, we've narrowed down
- 22:53the candidates and you see this in kitchens, you'll say
- 22:57someone's going to be the new sous chef, and it's going to be
- 22:59this person or it's going to be that person and you start asking
- 23:02a bunch of people on the team. What do you think about this?
- 23:04Or what do you think about that? And the reality is is now
- 23:07everyone thinks that they're invested in the decision.
- 23:09But they're not, because you've limited it to two choices.
- 23:12Both of which are competent candidates, right.
- 23:16Or you stack one, that is a very good candidate versus someone.
- 23:20That's not a very good candidate.
- 23:22So it's a no-brainer, you have to go with this person.
- 23:24Of course, this is, this is the strategy of, you know,
- 23:27controlling all the variables. Making sure that if these are
- 23:31the two choices, Then this is what you got to do.
- 23:33I would do this with dishes to when I would present dishes
- 23:36which one's going to go on the menu, right?
- 23:39Teach my Sous chefs to do this, create one exceptional dish and
- 23:42create one bad dish make the one that you want on the menu.
- 23:46Obviously the exceptional dish because when they try it it runs
- 23:49and say yeah I really don't like this dish.
- 23:51Let's go with this one, right? And it might not be the best
- 23:53dish in the world but that might be the dish that you want to get
- 23:55on. So having something to compare
- 24:00it against creates the illusion. In of other people making the
- 24:03choice but you are controlling the choices that they have, it's
- 24:06important to understand that this happens.
- 24:08It's important to understand that, you're almost everyone
- 24:11listing, has has been susceptible to this in the past.
- 24:14I have, you think you have a choice, you think?
- 24:17But the reality is, if someone's controlling it on the other end
- 24:20and making it the illusion of choice, which a lot of times its
- 24:24predetermined that hey, this is the one that we want on the menu
- 24:27or this is the person that we want to be the candidate.
- 24:30Don't fall for it. Fall for the tricks.
- 24:33This is this is what chefs BSA is all about.
- 24:35It's about teaching you how to think, like a chef so law.
- 24:39Number 32, play to people's fantasies.
- 24:41Now, I'm thinking about these and sometimes I'm reluctant to
- 24:45give really hardcore examples because it sounds like, if I'm
- 24:48giving the advice, but I, as I'm thinking about it, I could tell
- 24:51you what to watch out for, and I can tell you how this may be
- 24:53used against you. When people play to your
- 24:56fantasies and maybe your fantasy is, you want to become the sous
- 24:59chef or maybe your fantasy as you want to get promoted or you
- 25:01want to make more money. People will promise you things
- 25:06later on down the road that will never come to fruition.
- 25:09They sometimes may be dangling, a carrot in front of you, of
- 25:12you'll get the title after you do this, then the other or
- 25:15you'll one when you're ready, we'll let you know.
- 25:17But we have big plans for you and they'll say General things
- 25:20like that to you that may not be true.
- 25:23They may just be saying that to you because they're in a tough
- 25:25spot and they can't lose cooks or they can't lose a chef right
- 25:28and they'll promise you owe your reviews coming up and it's going
- 25:30to be great and you're gonna get a lot of money and it's only
- 25:32three percent or nothing, right? It's important that you arm
- 25:35yourself with that knowledge, that that could be used against
- 25:38you, Bad actors out there. We'll play to your insecurities.
- 25:42They'll play to your wants and desires and maybe your want is
- 25:47the chef title and they'll tell you everything that you need to
- 25:49know the opportunities of growth and promotion and does that and
- 25:52the other and then you're in position for two years and
- 25:55they'll say, oh it's because you still need to learn this that
- 25:56and the other and they just keep kicking the can down the road.
- 26:00So it's important to be able to recognize that that is Probably
- 26:04happening to you. And as we're having this
- 26:06conversation, you maybe even be thinking of a moment where
- 26:09that's happened to you, or maybe it's happening to you right now.
- 26:12It's important that you arm yourself with this knowledge,
- 26:13that there are people out there that play to your fantasies to
- 26:17take advantage of the situation law, number 33, discover each
- 26:21man's thumb screw And that really ties into the last one.
- 26:26It's identifying your team members motivations and
- 26:29leveraging this knowledge to encourage their growth.
- 26:32So we talked about how that could be used against you but
- 26:34now let's talk about how you could use it to your advantage.
- 26:36If you're a chef is knowing if someone wants something is
- 26:40giving them the opportunities to succeed in those things.
- 26:44So if you know, someone's really interested in charcuterie
- 26:46letting them know that. Hey, there's a course, right?
- 26:48Or hey, we're going to create a charcuterie program for you.
- 26:51Give them the opportunities to Entice them to stay but follow
- 26:55through on what you're saying, right?
- 26:57Don't, don't be like the example, I had mentioned
- 26:59earlier, don't make false promises and never come through
- 27:02be, the person that comes through and if, you know, your
- 27:04team and you know how Everyone likes to be managing, you know,
- 27:07how Everyone likes to be communicated with, you could use
- 27:09that to your advantage to communicate with people in the
- 27:12style, in which they like, I would manage every single person
- 27:17different because I knew I could be harder on this person or I
- 27:20have to be a little bit more sensitive with that person.
- 27:22Or this person is really motivated by this and that
- 27:26person is really motivated by that.
- 27:27Some people some I'm telling you there's chefs out there that
- 27:31respond better to the intensity of the kitchen and there's other
- 27:34chefs out there that don't respond to that at all.
- 27:37They need to be coddled and loved and told that they're
- 27:39doing a good job and everyone has a different response to how
- 27:44they like to be. Spoken to or what their
- 27:46incentive is, some people respond better to money.
- 27:48Some people respond better to a flexible schedule.
- 27:51Having that information is critical for any chef out there
- 27:55because when you know what your people need and you know what
- 27:58motivates them, you'll understand how to work with them
- 28:01better. And ultimately that's what you
- 28:02need to do as Leaders, you need to be a good leader.
- 28:04And the best way to be a good leader is to give them what they
- 28:07need. Anyway, That's going to wrap it
- 28:10up to them, trying to keep these under 30 minutes.
- 28:12Anyway, you know what to do Chef's, PSA 5 Stars?
- 28:17Nothing less than 5 Stars. This is a five-star podcast, I'm
- 28:20going to continue on with the kitchen Art of War.
- 28:22I might get a break episode in between these but I hope you
- 28:24like them. Thank you all very much go to
- 28:26Chef CPS a.com go get the books. Culinary leadership fundamentals
- 28:30kitchen Art of War. How not to be the biggest idiot
- 28:32in the kitchen line. Cook, survival manual.
- 28:34Go get some merch and we'll see you all next week.
- 28:37Hit the porno music.