Leaderships lesson from chef ( Part 2)

Testing the Kitchen Atmosphere

Iam going to ask what is hopefully a stupid question for you: Do your
chefs taste everything before they serve it? It is crazy to me that once in
a while I still catch chefs putting out food without having tasted it first.
Mostly, because they are just pumping out the food, they don’t stop to taste.
One day I had a chef make fifteen gallons of spaghetti sauce for a children’s
luncheon to be held the following day. The next morning he heated
up the sauce and started serving the party. I came over and tasted the sauce;
it was scorched. I held the tasting spoon up and asked, ‘‘Did you taste this
sauce?’’ I was a little upset, because I always preach, ‘‘Taste everything.’’ In
fact, it is one of our guiding principles, which I am going to talk about later.

He said, ‘‘I tasted it yesterday, Chef.’’
‘‘Yeah, and you burnt it today!’’ I said.
We have to continue to cook, no matter how busy we are; but I insist
that everyone taste everything.
Stop and Smell the Roses (or the Roast)

I can just about tell when a prime rib is ready after slow roasting in the oven.
You can smell the caramelization in the air. You can smell the fat rendering
and self basting this beautiful piece of meat. We know we have to start out
roasting the prime rib at a high temperature until you can start to hear the
meat sizzle, lock in the juices, then turn down the temperature, and cook
the meat slowly on low heat. This perfect roasting technique allows the meat
to cook perfectly, end to end. There is nothing more beautiful than when
you slice a prime rib or a rack of lamb, after the meat has rested properly,
and it is perfectly done and consistent from the top of the slice to the bottom.
The reason I’m spending so much time on this is because I often find
that chefs and cooks, believe it or not, don’t cook. They are going through
motions, as they put the meat in the oven. They neither massage the temperature
nor monitor the meat and aroma during the process; then they
take the meat out of the oven, sometimes putting the roast in areas that are
too hot, so the meat overcooks. Or, they will not plan the timing of the roast
well enough, and end up slicing the meat immediately rather than letting it
rest, and all the juices come running out and the meat looks like a sponge.
At this point, you might as well serve me boiled barn owl. Cooking is an art,
cooking is passion, your passion is hard at work. The more passionate the
cook, the better the flavors. Be careful you don’t catch yourself just going
through the motions. It can happen to anybody, especially in a very busy
property when chefs don’t think they have time to use proper techniques.
Great cooks handle the beautifully roasted prime rib as if it is their firstborn.
Ahh, the smell of beautifully caramelized mirepoix—the carrots, celery, and
onion turning perfectly golden brown—that is a happy kitchen!

‘‘The more passionate the cook, the better the
flavors.’’
Know What You Are Serving
1. Taste the food.
2. Taste the food.
3. Taste the food.

Talking Food

Equally important to building a good team and making good food is talking
about food. What is the conversation like in your kitchen now? Cooks and
chefs like to talk about what happened last night and what they are doing
tonight or over the weekend, watercooler conversation, as they say. Inspire
them to talk about food. Ask them questions about classic foods. Deliberately
spark conversations about food. Now, I can see you sitting there reading this
saying: ‘‘Yeah that makes sense, yeah that sounds good, what else have you
got?’’ Imagine if all your cooks thrived on culinary conversation! What an
atmosphere! Inspire your team to talk about food.
One Thanksgiving we were very busy checking all
the turkeys, hams, prime ribs, and legs of lamb. We
were crazy busy, with roughly one hundred
complete to-go meals and 1,100 for lunch service.
The hustle around the kitchen was at a good level. I
saw one of the cooks checking the internal
temperature of one of the twelve prime ribs. He
took the probe out of the rib, wiped it, and placed
it in his pocket and then he started to take all the
ribs out. I asked him what he was doing?
‘‘Taking the ribs out, Chef,’’ he said with a sense
of urgency.
‘‘What was the internal temperature of the ribs?’’
‘‘120 F, Chef, on the dot, just like you wanted.’’
‘‘I trust the first one you checked was 120 F; but
what about the other eleven that you did not check
the temp of?’’
The chef stopped in his shoes with a look on his
face like, are you really going to make me put all
these roasting pans back in the oven? I explain to
him all the ribs do not weigh the same and not all
of the ovens keep the same heat, so each roast has
to be tested. At that point, I asked a younger
apprentice what temperature the lamb should be.
Then we started talking about the fact that the
bigger the piece of meat, the more the temperature
will carry over after you take the roast out of the
oven. Yet another chef chimed in with the fact that
a steamship roast of beef would have to come out
of the oven at 110 F internal temperature because
the size of the meat causes the steamship
temperature to carry over longer. At this point,
everyone started quizzing all temperatures of a
variety of meat, and everyone was learning.

One time I had a cook who was making some quiche; when he pulled
it out of the oven, it was caramelized but not set. You could not slice it. I
asked him what was his ratio. He looked at me like I had three heads. ‘‘What
do you mean?’’ he asked. ‘‘I mean, what is YOUR ratio?’’ I said.
I could not believe he did not have a ratio for the custard. Granted,
there are many different quiche recipes—some with milk, some with cream
and milk, some with whole eggs and yolks, and some with just eggs—but all
cooks should have a basic custard ratio in their head that they know works,
like 7 to 1: 7 eggs to 1 quart of milk is at least a good starting point.
1. Listen to other chefs in the kitchen.
2. Ask questions of other chefs in the kitchen.
3. Educate yourself by learning from the
experiences of those you work with.
Talk about food. You will be surprised how many cooks start listening in
on your conversation. You will be surprised how many join in the discussion.

Most of them want to learn. Next thing you know you’re having a whole
discussion on ratios. How important is this? I remember a chef at the CIA
(Culinary Institute of America) constantly giving us ratios, so by the end of
the three-week class we had pages of ratios. These are the special keys to
cooking. You can braise any piece of meat, as long as you understand the
art of braising. Ratios work on the same principle.

Challenge Your Team; Inspire Your Team

Challenge your team, and they will challenge you back. How about getting
everyone involved in an educational conversation about one of E´ scoffier’s
classic recipes? How about one of E´ scoffier’s famous consomme´s? It has to
start with YOU! How exciting is it to a young chef when you explain the
consomme´ concept and ratio and how it works. I will never need a cookbook
to make a consomme´. Sure, if I want to research some different flavor profiles
or garnish ideas, I can look in cookbooks for that; but my point is that
I will always have the perfect ratio in my head. How the acid works with the
albumen. How you have to stir the raft until it reaches 120 F, then stop stirring
because that is when egg whites start to coagulate. How the impurities that slowly rise
to the top have to be cleared away. How amazing is that concept? What about
the consomme´ ratio? How special is it when you give a young chef the ratio
of 3 egg whites, 1 pound of protein, 1 gallon of stock, and some acid? You
can make any consomme´ you want! This formula will work with any protein.
These are the conversations we should be hearing in the kitchen.
All of the lessons that follow in this book start with you. We have to
change in order to change others. If the executive chef uses bad language
in the kitchen, does not talk about food, and does not challenge the staff,
they will not challenge themselves! End of story!

1. Talk
2. Listen
3. Learn
4. Listen some more
The Days of Screaming Chefs Are Over
In years past, much of the kitchen turnover rate was accredited to the atmosphere
created by the head chef. There are still kitchens today with chefs
who have a reputation for screaming at their staff and working people eighty
and ninety hours or more a week. Many new cooks and chefs commit to this
environment for a short time just to get the incredible food experience, and
then they quit. They can only take the punishment for so long, getting burnt
out in the process. People do not want to work in an uncomfortable atmosphere.
They do not want to be yelled at, embarrassed, or humiliated.

‘‘We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and
gentlemen.’’
—Herman Rusch

I live by a three-strike rule. First strike: You make a mistake, I am going
to point it out to you. Second strike: I will give you a stern reminder that we
already talked about the problem. Third strike: I will lose it, but I rarely raise
my voice. Sometimes silence is deadly. More often than not, the good employees
will put pressure on themselves.

‘‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then,
is not an act but a habit.’’
—Aristotle

It is funny, I’ve had three executive chef jobs in seventeen years, and
each time my predecessor was a screamer. This made my entry to the new
job seem like a great breath of fresh air to the staff. I could almost feel the
positive energy coming from the staff. Many years of getting beaten up takes
its toll. I can’t remember the last time I raised my voice at an employee. Now
I didn’t say my temper, or my tempo, stayed level, but I did not raise my
voice. Usually, when we lose our tempers and raise our voices, it is because
we are frustrated, angry, and busy, and sometimes fatigue plays a role. Yelling
may make you feel better, get it off your chest, relieve ‘‘your’’ stress, but what
about all the stress you just caused in the kitchen? You may have corrected
the situation with the chef temporarily, but you haven’t solved it in the long
term if this is all you are going to do. Stopping the bleeding does not cure
the patient.

Body Language

Do you want to get a reality check on your
personal body language? Try asking one of your
outspoken, nonshy chefs his or her impression of
you. You will likely be surprised by what they
have to say (don’t ask for the impression if you
don’t have a sense of humor!). I don’t think any
of us think that we have mannerisms that can be
mimicked or enacted. It is kind of like a chef who
grew up in Vermont but now lives in Texas and
thinks everyone else talks funny while he sounds
normal. No one considers their own speech
accented, right? My point is that everyone in the
kitchen picks up on your body language all day
long. So just imagine how you look. One of our
guiding principles is a quote from Herman Rusch,

‘‘We are ladies and gentleman serving ladies and
gentleman.’’ Let’s get back to the screaming
thing.

Positive Body Language

Always make eye contact with your team
members.
Say what you mean and mean what you say.
Think before you answer.
Do not slouch. Walk tall.
Be conscious of your facial expressions; be sure
your message does not come across negative.
Your smile is the most powerful and positive
body signal you have.
Have a firm handshake.

‘‘You may have stopped the bleeding but you
have not cured the patient.’’

Speaking Softly Carries Great Weight

There may be times where your voice will rise or you make a situation personal,
causing you to lose your temper, but there are a few things you should
think about.

1. Make sure raising your voice or temper is absolutely necessary.
2. If you are addressing a particular employee, do it privately and not
on a grandstand in the middle of the kitchen.
3. If you lose your temper in the middle of the kitchen, blasting someone
in front of the rest of the staff, you are doing it for your own
ego and not for the good of the team.
4. If you ‘‘blast’’ someone, do it sparingly and effectively.
5. Address the issue immediately and not several weeks after the fact.
6. Carefully explain what the problem is and exactly what is expected
of the individual in the future.

Your expectations and directions have significant impact on the performance
of your staff. Most importantly, reinforce the correct behavior as soon
as it happens.

I recently had an instance where I got pretty upset. We had a new employee
start working without all the proper paperwork completed. Now, in
this day and age, this just cannot happen, does not happen, should not
happen...but it happened. This is a cardinal sin at our club.

One of my chefs, let us call him Norm, is in charge of all new employee paperwork. There
were several reasons this did happen, all very valid reasons: (1) it was a
holiday weekend, (2) there was a miscommunication about the appointment
with human resources (HR), and (3) Norm was off work the day the new
employee was scheduled to start. But, unfortunately, there is no excuse. I got
the call from HR and was told the employee was not fully processed. At the
same time, Chef Norm got an e-mail stating the same thing. By the time
Chef Norm got to my office, my body language must have been pretty clear
because before I could say a word, Chef Norm said: ‘‘Chef, I’m sorry. It was
my fault. It was a misunderstanding, and it will not happen again.’’ I felt like
saying, ‘‘You bet it won’t happen again,’’ but I didn’t. Chef Norm knew the
severity of the situation, all I needed to do was to run through a series of
questions to find out how it happened, review with Norm the expected behavior
of the hiring process, and let it go.

‘‘The most important single ingredient in the
formula of success is knowing how to get along
with people.’’
—Theodore Roosevelt

It used to be common practice that when your dog had an accident in
the house, you rubbed his nose in it and then put the dog outside. This was
supposed to teach him not to do it in the house again. Well, guess what, that
scares the dog more than anything and actually the opposite happens. You
rub the dog’s nose in the mess and then throw him outside, he’s thinking,
‘‘Every time I have an accident, they rub my nose in it. I better stop doing
my business.’’ The poor dog gets all backed up and constipated because he’s
scared to death. Anyway, the days of screaming and rubbing our staff’s noses
in their mistakes should be over. It is up to us to lead our staff to success.

We have to be careful how we talk to our staff so we don’t send the wrong
message.

Stay on Message

What is the message we give our staff? Do you lead by example? Do you set
clear and understandable directions, goals, and standards for them? Do they
have a clear understanding of what their jobs are? Do you make yourself
clear when addressing them? My point goes back to what happens to the
dog. He gets scared of the trainer and confused by the instructions.
What happens to those team members you scream at in the middle of
the kitchen? Yeah, you feel better; good for you. Are we getting the full
potential of that employee? My bet is that you have just shoved any confidence
that that person once had so deep into her or his being that you may
never see that employee’s full potential. Granted the production around this
person may have picked up because the staff is scared to death, afraid they
are next, but what kind of atmosphere is that to work in? The only sure bet
is that you will have a lot of turnover.

Instead, I hope you feel inspired every time one of your team members
moves on to the next job. Remember, every person who leaves you is like a
customer: They tell ten people, and those ten people each tell ten more,
and so on.

How about pulling the employee over to the side to talk. Put your arm
on his or her shoulder and say: ‘‘Chef, we have talked about this problem a
few times now, right?’’
‘‘Yes, Chef, we have.’’
‘‘You understand that I’m starting to get pretty upset by the fact that you
are continuing to ignore my instructions. Is there any particular reason we
are having a problem communicating?’’
‘‘No, Chef, I just dropped the ball. I’m sorry.’’
‘‘You understand that if this problem comes up again, I am going to have
to write you up, and it will go in your file. Do we understand each other? Is
there something else I can do to help you achieve this goal?’’
I will share with you one other saying I like that I think holds people
accountable.

‘‘If I don’t hear back from you, I will assume this job will be completed
100 percent. I don’t need to go behind you and check on it, do I?’’
Instilling a sense of ownership on the team takes a lot of the pressure
off and any added pressure is the positive kind. It inspires them to contribute
and to do good work. They own it! They are in charge. I trust them, and it
is now their reputation that depends on the success of this job not only being

completed but completed at a standard they are willing to put their name
on!

What Will Be Your Legacy?

Did you ever think about what your personal and culinary legacy would be?
I would guess that most of us don’t. What I mean by legacy is, how does your
last job, how will your current job and how will your next job all think of
you and your ability to lead a team. How do they all think of you as a mentor,
a disciplinarian or a leader? Will you be considered to be thoughtful, caring
and genuinely interested in the future and personal growth of your staff?
Will you be known for helping young people develop into great chefs? Will
you be known as a chef of great integrity? I love that word integrity, because
you can’t fake integrity. Either you have it or you don’t. Either you care about
people or you don’t. What will be your legacy? You have a choice to be great,
you have the choice to make a difference in someone’s life, what choice will
you make?