Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Applying Universal Laws in the Kitchen Ep. 101

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Applying Universal Laws in the Kitchen Ep. 101 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs, This is Chefs PSA Podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host Andre and Terra. On today's episode, we're going
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  to talk about universal laws through a chef's lens.
• 0:07
  Stay tuned. Now before we get started,
• 0:21
  here's a brief update. I just completed my new book Bad
• 0:25
  Cooks Everywhere. It's going to be out June 8th on
• 0:27
  paperback. So if you want it, which I know
• 0:29
  you want it, go get it. It's good.
• 0:31
  It's fiction. For those of you that are
• 0:33
  unaware you haven't been following along, it's a
• 0:35
  fictional narrative about a culinary school student going
• 0:38
  into kitchens and what that is like.
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  I mean, it's not a true story, but it's your true story.
• 0:43
  It's every chef's true story. All the characters in there are
• 0:46
  going to remind you of someone, maybe you, maybe your boss,
• 0:50
  maybe your friend. Anyway, you get the point.
• 0:51
  You want to go get it? Bad Cooks Everywhere out June
• 0:55
  8th. It's going to be available on
• 0:56
  Amazon. Now for those of you that are
• 0:58
  premium subscribers to my sub stack, you get early access to
• 1:02
  the e-book before anyone else. So if you're a premium
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  subscriber on my sub stack, which I'll link in the show
• 1:08
  notes, you could go subscribe now and get access to the book
• 1:11
  now. So some instead of there.
• 1:12
  There's also a few podcast episodes that are exclusive to
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  buy sub stack premium subscribers, as well as other
• 1:19
  free ebooks and classes and things like that.
• 1:21
  So it's definitely worth it For $10 a month.
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  I would pay $10 a month. I'd I'd probably pay more, but
• 1:26
  it's only $10 a month. Anyway, we digress.
• 1:29
  We watch for the show. You know what to do.
• 1:31
  If you listen on Spotify, make sure you leave five stars,
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  nothing less than five stars. It's five star podcast.
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  If you're watching on YouTube, hit the like and subscribe
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  button. I appreciate it.
• 1:39
  For those of you that are following along, this is the new
• 1:43
  format. We're going to go one solo
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  episode, one guest centric episode.
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  So this is my solo episode with you.
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  And today's episode is about universal laws.
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  So what are universal laws? Universal laws are typically
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  laws that are inherently true. They're not always true.
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  There's always an exception to the rule and these universal
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  laws are acceptable across multiple situations.
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  In this case, we're taking some of the most common universal
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  laws. Maybe you'll learn something.
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  And how do they apply to a culinary or leadership setting
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  in the kitchen? You could think of this podcast
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  as a companion episode to another podcast that I did
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  earlier called The Mental Blocks, The Mental Blocks, which
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  is Chef's PFA episode 26. So think of this as a companion
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  to that. You should go back and listen to
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  that one if you enjoy this one. We're going to take some of
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  these universal laws and we're going to apply them to what
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  you're doing and we're going to learn.
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  We're going to learn how to think strategically.
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  This is the advantage that you get from listening to chef's PSA
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  is that I'm always thinking how you can be the exception to the
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  rule. And one of the biggest things
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  that I noticed in a lot of successful chefs, as well as
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  myself and my career, is that the chefs that think differently
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  are usually the ones that are the most successful.
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  When you think like everyone else, you end up like everyone
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  else. And what are those little things
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  that give a slight advantage to other chefs?
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  It's usually in how they think and how they approach
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  situations. And I'm not just talking about
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  food. Sometimes I'm talking about
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  management, leadership, marketing, all the things that
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  go into being a chef. They all play a part in making
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  sure that you're successful. So today, let's start with the
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  very first law that we're going to explain, Murphy's Law.
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  Everyone knows Murphy's Law. Anything that can go wrong will
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  go wrong. How does that apply to the
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  kitchen? Well, as a chef, you have to
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  constantly be thinking about what can go wrong in every
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  potential situation. If you're doing a catering, did
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  you count all the plates? Did you count all the gloves?
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  Did you count all the proteins? Did you schedule enough people?
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  Did you anticipate that this person may call off?
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  You always have to have a backup plan.
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  I was talking to a friend the other day and I told him to make
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  sure that he had his bases covered for a certain situation
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  and he said I'm pretty sure that situation won't happen.
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  I said we'll cover your bases anyway because you don't want to
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  be in a situation where it does happen.
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  And then you think, oh, I should have spent 5 minutes planning,
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  right? That's something that a lot of
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  chefs do is we think everything's going to go well.
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  So we don't think about all the things that could potentially go
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  wrong. When I was a chef, I used to sit
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  all my chefs in the room with me and I'll think about every
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  possible scenario from every potential angle.
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  I would go through everything in my mind and I would think of
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  what could go wrong in this situation, What where are my
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  blind spots? And as my other chefs would come
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  into the office, we'd sit around and say, did you think of this?
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  Did you think of that? What if this, what if that?
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  And it's like looking at the chess board.
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  You want to make sure that you think of all the potential moves
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  and what could be the potential outcome of those moves.
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  Sometimes the move looks good and then you do it and the
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  outcome is bad. So thinking about every possible
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  outcome with Murphy's Law in this case, you want to make sure
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  that you have a mitigation plan for whatever could potentially
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  happen. The next one is Parkinson's Law.
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  Work expands to fill the time available for completion.
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  What does that mean? It means that however long you
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  give someone to do something is how long it's going to take them
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  to do it. Putting timelines on things will
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  help you become more efficient. So I'm going to give you an
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  example. If you write a prep list that
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  has 20 items on it and someone has 8 hours to do that prep
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  list, they'll get it done. If you write a prep list with
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  half of the amount and they have 8 hours to do it, they'll still
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  get it done in eight hours. It's a really amazing thing.
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  For those of you that use lists and to do lists, it's amazing
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  when you write everything on your To Do List how you could
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  accomplish it. Whether that's one thing or 20
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  things, it always manages to get done.
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  If you go back and you listen to the last episode I did with
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  Aaron Bluedorn, we were talking about how when he was on the
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  chef's table, how he only had an hour to get the food up, and it
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  was a lot of food to prepare in one hour.
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  And I asked him the question. I said, you know, were you ever
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  surprised at how much you were able to do in one hour?
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  And he says, yeah, it blew my mind, which was reinforcing the
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  idea of how people underestimate how much work they could do in
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  an allotted time frame that they're working with.
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  That's Parkinson's Law, time management skills, putting
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  deadlines on things. When I was a chef, I used to
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  write prep lists for people that were just a little bit more than
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  I knew they could handle, and they always got it done.
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  If you want to improve your speed in your kitchen, write
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  longer prep lists. If you're a cook and you want to
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  improve your own speed, give yourself a longer prep list and
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  see how much more you could accomplish because for some
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  reason it always gets done. The next universal law that
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  we're going to talk about is the Pareto principle, otherwise
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  known as the 8020 rule. And what that means is usually
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  80% of the outcomes are affected by 20% of the input or 20% of
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  the 'cause you think about that as a, as a chef, about 80% of
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  the work gets done by 20% of the employees or 80% of the revenue
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  comes from about 20% of the menu items.
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  So a lot of times when I would go in and someone wanted me to
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  improve the menu, I would focus on the, the workhorses of the
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  menu and say if we're getting bad scores, you know, from Yelp
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  or OpenTable or comments, you don't need to focus on
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  everything on the menu. Focus on the items that are
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  selling because that's what's causing the most amount of
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  feedback. The 20% is usually affecting the
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  80%, so focus on the most important 20% and you'll make
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  big impact on the other 80%. Your food cost might be driven
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  by 20% of the items that you're buying, not the other 80%.
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  Sometimes if you're an executive chef and you're tasked with
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  lowering food cost and you pull up a spreadsheet with all the
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  items that you're buying and you start looking at everything, the
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  bottom items, the salt and how much you're spending on bread
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  and how much you're spending on this, that and the other, when
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  if you just look at the top 20% of the items, that's where
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  you're going to make the biggest amount of impact.
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  So don't worry about the bottom 80%.
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  Focus on the top 20%. Pareto Principle 8020 rule The
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  next one is the Peter Principle. Specifically in a hierarchy
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  situation, employees tend to rise to the level of
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  incompetence. And what that means is that
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  people usually get promoted to the point where they become
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  incompetent, then they stop getting promoted.
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  So sometimes you get stuck in a position and you don't move
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  further up, and it's usually because you've been promoted
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  quickly to the point where you may have skipped over some
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  things. There may have been some
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  learning opportunities that you missed.
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  And then you reach that position and then you're stagnant for
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  many years until a new injection of growth and learning comes in.
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  And this is a dangerous situation for a lot of chefs
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  because I noticed a lot of times we're really eager to get to the
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  position and to the title. So maybe you want to get to the
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  executive chef or the sous chef position.
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  And so you take the job that's going to give you the title, but
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  you don't grow as much there. And so you remain stagnant or
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  you get promoted too quick and you weren't fully prepared to go
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  into that job. So you're stagnant while you're
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  learning the job, while you're in it, and you may be stuck
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  there for quite some time. And a lot of times people that
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  may be promoted beyond their capabilities, it leads to
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  inefficiencies in the kitchen, into the operation.
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  They start causing more problems because they don't fully know
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  what they're doing. They haven't fully grown in the
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  position. So how do you correct that?
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  One is to make sure that you're very honest with yourself, that
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  you have a solid training plan in place for the people that
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  you're promoting, to make sure that you're not putting someone
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  in a position before they're ready, that you have continuing
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  education opportunities for people to learn.
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  If it's self driven learning, make sure that you as the chef
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  are using all the resources available to you.
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  Social media, YouTube, so on and so forth.
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  This podcast, other podcast that are not as good as this one, but
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  this one's pretty good. Anyway, we digress.
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  You get the point. Peter Principle.
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  The next one is the law of diminishing returns.
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  Now, Thomas Keller talks about this in his French Laundry
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  cookbook where he talks about the portion size and that just
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  making something bigger after several bites, diminishing
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  returns on the flavor. But there's also diminishing
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  returns in other aspects of the of the kitchen.
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  There's diminishing returns when you put too many cooks on the
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  line, they start bumping into each other.
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  So let's just say you have a full rail on the board and you
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  have 3 cooks on the line. 4 would make it better.
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  Five might make it worse, six will make it even worse.
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  So there's diminishing returns by adding more people to assist.
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  They start getting in each other's way.
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  Diminishing returns by adding more cooks to the situation.
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  Diminishing returns When you're creating a dish, putting more
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  doesn't necessarily make it better.
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  And as chefs, we fall into this category a lot.
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  You think, oh, it just needs one more thing.
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  Let's put one more garnish. Let's put one more step and you
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  keep adding to a specific dish, but you're but the more you add,
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  you actually subtract from the overall dish.
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  Less is more sometimes. That's the law of diminishing
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  returns. It applies in many different
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  aspects of the kitchen. The next one is Gilbert's law.
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  Every solution leads to a new problem in a kitchen.
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  If you're in a leadership position, you start solving
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  problems constantly. You become a problem solver,
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  whack a mole management, as they say.
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  One thing pops up, you knock it down, you go to the next.
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  But what you start to discover is sometimes when you solve
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  problems, this is especially true when you take over a new
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  place, is that you think you see the problem and you've solved
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  it, only to discover that that problem was created by three
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  other problems. So you solve those 3 problems
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  only to find out that there was eight more problems creating the
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  three. And the further down you go, the
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  more problems you find. The more you dig, the more you
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  get. So when you're placed in the
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  position of leadership, you have to understand that what you see
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  on the surface is just that. It's just the surface level
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  problems, they're typically being created by many layers
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  below that. So I often tell chefs that work
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  for me, this is when you start digging for problems.
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  You've got to be prepared for whatever else you're going to
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  uncover, right? You might start digging and you
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  might find a graveyard of skeletons.
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  So be prepared when you start solving problems, there's going
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  to be more problems that you find when you start solving
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  them. The next one is Wilson's Law,
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  and Wilson's Law is basically when you find a solution that
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  works, someone wants to change it.
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  This one's so true in kitchens, right?
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  The system works, everything's running smooth.
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  New manager comes in, new chef, new sous chef, new GM, whatever
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  new ownership, they're like, this is not working, let's
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  change it. I liked it better at my other
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  place and they throw a monkey wrench in the system and it
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  causes chaos and it doesn't necessarily work better.
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  It actually creates more work and more dysfunction.
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  That old expression, that's not how we did it at my last job,
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  can sometimes be the catalyst for invoking Wilson's Law.
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  You quickly want to implement change to the system that's
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  already working and functioning and then you start to realize
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  later on that maybe just because it worked at the last place
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  doesn't mean it works at this place.
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  I was talking with the chef about this the other day is the
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  way I cook in one kitchen isn't necessarily the same way I would
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  cook in another kitchen because your skill level adapts to the
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  circumstances. You have a kitchen with all the
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  toys and all the gadgets and everything functioning at a high
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  functioning team. You could cook at a pretty high
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  level. You go into another kitchen
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  where the stove is broken and the walk in doesn't work and you
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  didn't get a delivery and you're working with entry level cooks
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  in a very busy restaurant. Your style of food is going to
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  change. It's not a cookbook answer.
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  Not everything works universally across kitchens.
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  I would advise that you have some sort of negotiation process
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  or some sort of vetting process before you implement change.
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  My advice to new executive chefs, typically when they take
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  over a place is you have 30 days, don't change anything.
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  Write everything down so you don't forget, because after some
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  time it becomes wallpaper. But if you write down what you
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  want to change and you don't change it, you can go back and
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  slowly, strategically start implementing that change.
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  After 30 days, you usually understand the system.
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  And then you might go back and look at your list and say, thank
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  God I didn't change that. Now I understand why that is the
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  way it is, because a lot of times we're quick to want to
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  implement change because we think we have a better solution,
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  but we don't fully understand the problem.
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  The last one is Falklands law. When it's not necessary to
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  change, it's necessary to not change.
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  Constant change can be disruptive.
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  It makes people want to quit. Usually.
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  That's why there's high turnover when there's transition and
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  leadership or there's transition and staff, because the amount of
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  change that's going on, you're getting new leaders.
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  Those new leaders are bringing in new systems.
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  Everyone has new ideas. And this kind of ties into the
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  last law that we talked about is sometimes you don't need to
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  change it. You don't need to change it just
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  for the sake of changing it because for the team around you,
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  they need to get rhythm and repetition and what they're
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  currently doing and constantly introducing chaos leads to
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  things not being consistent, it leads to frustration, it leads
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  to mistakes. Yes it does lead to growth
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  because you're learning new things.
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  But change for the sake of change alone sometimes isn't a
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  smart decision. You have to be strategic, think
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  things through before you implement change.
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  Sometimes stability is good. When I usually take over an
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  operation, like I said, the 1st 30 days I understand.
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  I write everything down and then as I start implementing change,
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  I want to do so rapidly, make sure it sticks to the point
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  where we get to stability. And then once stability is
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  established, then I want to minimize the amount of changes
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  in the kitchen. We have discussions before we
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  change anything because I'm not saying that I have all the right
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  ideas. But what I am saying is before
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  we change the idea, we need to make sure that everyone
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  understands, everyone's on board, and it's not changed just
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  for the sake of change. It causes dissension, it causes
• 14:30
  confusion, and in the end, it's going to cause more work for
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  you. But anyway, that's the last one
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  for today. So I'm hoping that you picked up
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  some new understanding on some of these universal laws and how
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  you could apply them to your daily life in the kitchen and
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  how you could think more strategically and what you're
• 14:43
  doing. Think about the chess board.
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  What's the best possible move in the current situation?
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  Sometimes the best possible move might not be a great move, and
• 14:50
  sometimes the best possible move is to do nothing.
• 14:52
  Lao Tzu has a quote. Do nothing and leave nothing
• 14:54
  undone. Anyway, go read the Dao De Jane
• 14:56
  if you want to support the show, you know what to do.
• 14:59
  Make sure you leave five stars, nothing less than five stars.
• 15:02
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  notes. And June 8th, go get bad cooks
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