Leadership Lessons from a Chef ( Part 3)

Passion Can’t Be Faked

You can tell everybody how great your passion is, you can tell your boss how
special it is, you can tell your fellow chefs how great it is, but they will all see
through it if your own professional values are not as high as the ones you
are preaching. You can’t fake it! If you consider yourself a passionate chef,
but you are not, it will not take people very long to figure it out. So either
you believe or you don’t—either you live it or you don’t. It is up to you

1. Are you passionate about your work?
2. Does your passion for your work inspire others
among your coworkers and staff?
3. Does your passion for your work allow for you,
your coworkers, and your staff to try new
things and come up with new ideas?
4. Do you start thinking about your workday
before you get to work?
If you answered yes to all of these questions,
you are already a step ahead in establishing
yourself as a great leader!

Identifying Values

The first step is to identify your professional values. The foundation for your
professional life most likely includes the following:
Passion for Life
Culinary Passion
Passion to Build Great Teams
Commitment to Excellence
Determination
Follow-Through
An Honest, Caring Attention to Detail
Discipline
Dedication
Integrity

PASSION FOR LIFE

If you do not have passion for life it is difficult to have passion for anything
else. My friend Dwight Edwards talks about passion for life in his book, A
Tale of Three Ships (Charleston, SC: Booksurge LLC, 2005). Dwight lays out
three basic courses of life a person can take—for some, though, life’s greatest
goal is survival. Read his book, you will enjoy it. Passion for life is where we
all have to start.

CULINARY PASSION

Culinary passion is important and is hopefully the reason you are reading
this book. It is easy to slide into a role of pumping out food and going home.
Simply punching in and out is the way of life for many kitchens. It takes
culinary passion to step out of this habit.

PASSION TO BUILD GREAT TEAMS

Now that you have the passion for great food, it is time to take care of the
people who take care of you, the team that shares your passion. The whathave-
you-done-for-me-lately routine no longer floats. One of the biggest secrets
I can share with you here is that it feels good to help people, to make
a difference in someone’s life! Building great teams also means helping people
to achieve their goals while they help you to achieve yours. ‘‘What comes
around, goes around’’ is one of my favorite sayings.

COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE

This goes deep. Commitment to excellence means never, never, never sacrificing
quality. NEVER! Most often quality takes longer, costs more, and is
more difficult. It also takes research and requires never giving up until everyone
agrees that the results are the best they possibly can be—at that
moment. And the results can always be better the next time because we are
older, smarter, and more experienced. On the golf course someone hits a
drive into the woods—okay, usually me. But then I tee up my mulligan and
hit a perfect ball—well, maybe not perfect but better. As my dad always says,

‘‘Same guy, just a little older.’’
‘‘If you want to be successful, put your effort into
controlling the sail, not the wind.’’

DETERMINATION

As I said before, mean what you say and say what you mean. If you go around
telling everybody you are going to write a book and then you don’t, your
word does not mean anything. ‘‘A man of integrity’’ may not be in the same
sentence as your name. Be a strong person, have the determination to complete
projects you say you will. If you tell everyone you are going to lose
weight, do it! Make your word mean something. Don’t give up because one
of your goals is starting to become difficult or because it is no longer convenient.

FOLLOW-THROUGH

As you already know, follow-up is one of the most important qualities needed
for all of the ideas in this book to work. Schedule, Empower, and Follow Up,
or SEF, I discuss this concept in more detail in Chapter 4. Lacking followthrough
is like having the most beautiful stove and no gas with which to
cook. There is nothing more annoying than a weak follow-through. As a
young person and a new professional, if you want to make a tremendous
impression, if your boss asks something of you, follow through better than
he could imagine. I can’t tell you how many people don’t have the wherewithal
to follow through on tasks. These are the employees who constantly
get passed up for promotions. It is a simple idea that goes a long, long way.
‘‘SEF: Schedule, Empower, and Follow Up!’’

AN HONEST, CARING ATTENTION TO DETAIL

Being plain honest is great. Having an honest, caring attention to detail is
pretty special. The devil is in the details, as they say. If you don’t pay attention
to the details, it will show in the final results. When all of these values are
broken down, you might think: What is the big deal?, they all make sense?
What gets in the way of being a great person? Time, greed, heart, soul,
caring?

INTEGRITY

What a special word is integrity. It is not a word you can throw around lightly.
To know if someone has integrity it takes time to get to know them well and
see them in action. If someone describes you as a person of great integrity,
wouldn’t you be proud? It is one of the greatest compliments a person can
receive. To have great integrity is worth more than any culinary award you’ll
ever win. It is priceless.

These are all outstanding qualities and foundation-setting values everyone
should be proud of being associated with. You can add to this list every
day, based on what is important to you and what you find motivational.

ASK YOURSELF THE HARD QUESTIONS

I recommend that before starting any of the programs and concepts I am
going to share with you, you should sit down and spend some time evaluating
your values. Ask yourself very tough questions about each value. Be honest
in your answers, as this will only help you. For each value, give an example
of the times you have performed well in relation to this value and also an
example of a time your performance was not as stellar. I will dare to say we
all can use some help in some areas. We are not going to be 100 percent in
all categories all the time. It is very difficult to always perform at the highest
level. So what are your weakest values? Is this an area where you always have
problems or just some of the time? Identifying the problem areas will also
aid you in determining how you can raise your performance level to be more
successful.

indicate an area that needs to be improved: I saw a problem, but I did
not follow through. The hospitality business goes 150 miles per hour,
whether we are ready or not. If we have to feed 300 people at 8:00 P.M.,
there is only a certain amount of time we have to get the meal out. Many
times I walk around the dining rooms and kitchens and see things that may
be okay but not 100 percent. For example, I check on the dining-room lighting
before a function. Around 4:00 P.M. in the afternoon, I would see that
our buffet tables for that night were not properly lit. A thirty-foot ladder is
needed to move the lighting, so this is no easy fix. I would make a mental
note of it, and before the party started I realized that I had forgotten to have
the lights changed. Even though it is not my job to fix the lighting, the
lighting is part of the presentation of the meal, so it is important to have it
done correctly. I saw the issue but dropped the ball by not having it corrected.
I pride myself on my attention to detail, and I didn’t follow through
in this case. I have to be thorough; we all have to be thorough. If I see a
problem and fail to resolve it before a member or customer experiences it,
I have not done my job. Even though it was not my intention, the standards,
the values I expect for the club were lowered because I did not resolve the
problem. As managers, if we see a problem anywhere on the property,
whether or not it is our department, we own the problem until it is resolved.

To make sure that banquets run smoothly, I take
all the BEOs (banquet-event orders) for a onemeal
period, cut them to a size that fits in my
breast pocket. During any one-meal period, I
could have up to seven or eight BEOs in my
pocket. As I walk through all the dining rooms
and check station and buffet setups, I make note
of any needs or changes on the corresponding
menu. When I get back to my office, I double
check all issues and resolve them—thus, the
problems do not repeat themselves in future
banquets.

It is up to you to set the standards you want for yourself and your department.
No matter how busy we are, we have to be sure we keep our
standard as high as possible. If a problem does manage to slip by unresolved
to your satisfaction, hopefully your execution of other standards is so high
that the end product is still great.

As I keep saying, it all starts with you. Are you happy with yourself, your
job, and your kitchen? Because, if you are not, there is nothing I can say or
do that will help you make your kitchen better. ‘‘It all starts at the top,’’ as
the saying goes. Your staff will often do what you do, even without prompting.
In certain situations, they may act exactly as you act, simply because they are
learning from you. So, if you are throwing pots around the kitchen, they will
think it is an acceptable thing to do. Chances are you will work the way you
feel. If you are not feeling well, you need to ask yourself why. By discovering
the reasons behind the problem, you can turn it around to positive energy.
I know when I start getting a bad attitude around the kitchen, it is usually
because I am getting tired. You have to recognize this and do something
about it!

Don’t Carry Around Stress!

We all have a few things we enjoy doing for stress release. Hobbies or other
nonwork-related activities provide ‘‘refueling’’ time. Exercising gives me great
energy and a sense of release. I feel better about myself after doing it. I leave
the house around 7:30 A.M. and work until around 2:00 P.M., then I try to
go to the gym three days a week for a workout, return to the club around
4:00 P.M., and work until 9:00 or 10:00 P.M. Some of the employees or managers
who don’t really know my schedule will say, ‘‘he is always leaving,’’ or
‘‘he is never here.’’ I think it is a pretty honest schedule, as I am at the club
during all three meal periods. I also do not leave if it is not possible. However,
I can honestly tell you I am so much more productive in the first hour
when I get back from working out, than if I stayed and worked for two hours.
I have more energy, I am more focused, I am more productive, and I concentrate
better on the projects I need to do when I get back. I find myself
starting to crave these workouts, and the stress they relieve allows me to
better focus on my work.

‘‘Do something about it! Stop complaining and do
something about it!’’
—Torill Carroll

My wife Torill is now a fitness instructor. She inspires me to work out,
mostly because she is so fit herself. I admire her strength and personal discipline.
She will have coffee made, the kids’ breakfast and school lunches
made, a load of laundry going, and a thirty-minute workout completed before
I get out of bed at 6:00 A.M.! Don’t say you can’t find the time after
hearing that!

One morning before I made it a point to start working out, I was telling
my wife how I felt fat and how tired I always was. A few days later I repeated
the same story. After a few more days of bellyaching, she finally shouted to
me: ‘‘Do something about it! Stop complaining, and do something about it!’’
Pretty much the story in life, wouldn’t you agree? Nothing gets done by
complaining. Only you can make it happen! Most importantly, people who
feel good about themselves produce good results. It takes discipline to work
out because you don’t get results in just a day but gradually over time. You
can’t go to the gym and work out and lose five pounds in just a day. It takes
time, and discipline is a wonderful character trait to have.

‘‘Most importantly, think about this, people who
feel good about themselves produce good
results!’’

My point is that it is important for you to find something that works for
you, whether it is working out or something else. Make the effort to relieve
stress in your life. The more stress you carry with you, the less effective you
will be at work and at home. It will help you focus your attention on what
is important. I just love the feeling after a good workout. I hope I can inspire
you here, because this kind of stress relief does the body and mind good.

‘‘A little nonsense now and then is relished by
the wisest men.’’
—Willy Wonka

Take a Vacation Already

You know when you are the busiest at your establishment and when things
slow down. Early in the year or in advance, schedule your vacations. This was
a mistake it took me a few years to figure out. Early on in my career, with
all the traveling with the Culinary Olympic teams, culinary demonstrations,
presentations, dinners, or whatever, I always told myself I would take a vacation
when things slowed down or when there was an opening. The problem was, there is always something going on, always work to be done, always some
commitment. As a result, I never took time off. Now, I schedule my vacation
in advance: I plan on it, put it in the books, and look forward to it. We all
need to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the reward for working hard.
Look at it this way, there is ALWAYS going to be work on your desk! It is
not going anywhere, and it will be right there when you get back.
We have talked about our own attitude, our kitchen atmosphere, and
our professional values. Now let’s take that knowledge and start building our
program!