8 skills that make you a chef (or any other business leader)

Original author: Chris Hill
  • Transfer
image

It is rather difficult to explain how a well-functioning, well-functioning kitchen functions - there are too many moving elements. To become a chef, you need to be able to cook superbly. But this ability alone will not make you a leader. To create your own leadership style, which will say for you: “That's who I am!”, You will have to spend time and effort mastering the skill. How to do it?

From far away, probably, an ordinary restaurant kitchen looks like a lot of people busy creating the same thing, and is very similar to a conveyor belt. But if you take a closer look, you will see that all components are combined in a certain way and are aimed at fulfilling a specific goal. Note that turning into a chef does not free you from cooking, on the contrary, these responsibilities complement each other and are part of the same set of skills.

So the real question is: how does a great chef turn into a chef?


A chef is a person who knows how to cook perfectly and at the same time has the ability to manage , manage and create a successful production process in the kitchen in a restaurant or somewhere else.

One of the main problems is that the list of skills necessary to perform the practical, technical part of the work that the lion's share of us loves the most is significantly different from the requirements of the other vital components of the post. Therefore, yes, you need to have not only obvious practical skills and techniques, but also many other skills.

Chefs differ on each other, as well as representatives of other creative professions, because in order to express their creative intent, they have to use many different factors. They differ from other creators, whose activities directly depend on what they create: the author writes, the artist draws, and the actor plays. In the hands of the culinary experts, there is a mass of constantly changing parameters that affect the result, and they must be managed accordingly. Given all of the above, there are several talents and skills necessary to be a chef.

1. The ability to cook.

You must be the best cook in the building at any given time. If your line cooks or sous-chefs have questions, or are unsure of the technique, you should be there to help them. This does not mean that you need to know the answers to all questions, but, of course, the more time you spend in the kitchen honing your skills, the less secrets will remain for you. Until you master the technical side of cooking in acute, tense and stressful situations, no one, not even your staff, will take you seriously.

2. The idea.

One of the main abilities of the creator is the ability to see things that still do not exist and to find ways to put them into practice. However, a plan can cause fear, because you yourself need to intervene in the process and implement it. This is scary because we don’t know how customers, bosses and employees will react. In any case, this is what makes you creators, and is part of what makes people believe you. To achieve the result, you need to be able to accurately formulate your ideas, because the team must clearly understand where it is moving.

3. Knowledge of numbers.

If you cannot in your mind calculate the cost of a dish in 15-20 seconds, you are not a chef. This suggests that you spent too little time evaluating the menu, compiling recipes and laying out dishes on plates. You need to know how much each serving costs in order to later calculate the menu. But this is only part of the figures: you must be able to ration recipes, evaluate work, take an inventory, reduce its duration when time is running out, and this list can be continued indefinitely.

4. Systematic.

Most cooks by nature are not so organized and terribly fussy, often allowing attention deficit disorder to prevail over themselves. But over time, we understand: to become the best culinary specialists, we need to learn how to organize our own time and workplace. You need to create recipes and processes that will help teams succeed. You must constantly strive to increase efficiency and productivity, without sacrificing quality.

5. The ability to develop emotional responsiveness.

We are all familiar with the opinion that chefs are ordinary bastards in the kitchen, and, of course, such characters are sometimes found. But the more the culinary industry and profession turn into a popular option for self-expression, the faster the number of such persons disappears. Really, that's great. As chefs and leaders, you must be able to manage people, create a sense of demand for them, and, most importantly, prove to them that you are on their side and support them. To be a successful chef, you need to learn how to connect with people around you — those you rely on. After all, if you fail to do this, they will never sincerely sympathize with you and will not feel part of what you are building - and this is a key point.

Lead your team forward, at any opportunity, be interested in employees, discipline them if necessary. Allow them to make mistakes and analyze shortcomings so that they can learn and grow above themselves as cooks and as individuals, and not exactly the opposite (as is often the case). The chef may have anything at his disposal, but if he / she does not have a cohesive group of people focused on the daily fulfillment of his mission, then he / she has nothing.

6. Discipline (an indicator of outstanding skill).

It all starts from above. Most cooks are not ready to become chefs because they do not know how to set a standard. Corporate culture, cleanliness, customer service, food serving - it all starts with the chef.

Why are the standards for food sold in many restaurants so low? This may have been the case from the very beginning or formed over time, but, in any case, every single day many people allow dishes with unappetizing dishes to leave their kitchen. As trainer John Woodan says: “If you don’t have time to do well, where will the time for correction come from?”

7. The most diligent person in the building.

There is only one way to prove that you want to achieve something : do your best to rush to do something that matters to you. This is what great chefs all over the world do. They are the first to enter the door in the morning, and often leave the workplace one of the last. Everything is simple and clear: if you want something, you need to give all your best.

8. Point of view.

To create your own style, which will say for you: “Here, who I am!”, You will have to spend time and effort mastering the skill. And as chefs, you should be able to achieve this. To find out which cuisines, seasonings and styles inspire and talk about who we are and who we want to be, we need to learn from others and work for others. You just need to pay attention to the work that you are doing, from time to time try to distance yourself from it, carefully listen to your heart and say to yourself:

“I want to do this - it means that this is me!”

So, at what stage of transformation you are in the chef?

PS We recommend one more article on the topic - Forget setting goals and focus on It .

The author of the translation is Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of the companyMBA Consult .

Also popular now: