What do you do if your boss's expectations in the culinary field are unrealistic?

Be Confident: Telling your boss you're anticipating challenges meeting his or her expectations may feel like admission of failure, but it's not. Approach your conversation with your boss with confidence—but not cockiness—and your boss will see that your concerns are coming from experience, not insecurity.chef jihad khalife

Taking an inventory of your current position, equipment, staffing and even space, will give you a clear guidance on whether what is expected of you is unrealistic or if you need to make some adjustments to the way you work at present. Sometimes it can seem overwhelming when you are being tasked with additional jobs and expectations. Being able to take a step back will give you clarity and then you can decide on your approach with your boss.

By gaining clarity on what's needed, you can then approach your boss with clear ideas and suggestions that will be better received. It helps you to address their demands with a more open minded and measured attitude, showing your abilities at negotiation and discussion, rather than from a place of complaint. It's always important to have reasoning and explanation when there is change, and make practical solutions. This is about having a solutions and growth mindset.

It’s important to understand the other persons perspective. Repeat what you are hearing from them and ask follow up questions on what has brought them to their conclusion. Be respectful and try to open the dialogue by asking if you can share your experience and why you may have a different point of view. Engage in healthy dialogue before going in full force trying to make your point and show them why they are wrong. You will never persuade someone with brute force.

I agree that it's vital to prioritise tasks and reassess your own schedule, making adjustments where you can to fulfil expectation. However, if after a period of time this is not working and your boss' expectations are quite clearly unrealistic based on current circumstances, it's important to highlight this and welcome another discussion, armed with proof. Often the boss, because they are not on the ground, may not see some of the challenges faced by their team.

It's essential that your team are onboard with the changes and expectations. Furthermore, their support is vital in making things run smoothly. Be sure to communicate well with your team and again, do this without expressing judgement or dissatisfaction with what is expected of you all. It's important to remain positive with all of this.

This is more just a story of how I handled it. To start let me tell you I have perfectionist tendencies so this one hit with me. I had an EC that would tell us every night before service, "remember guys you do not have to do your best because Perfect Will Be Just Fine!" Even had it tatted on his arm. I never took it as I needed to be perfect but as a sign of the quality that was expected of us and we should expect of ourselves. The kitchen side of the culinary world has a lot of passion so things are said with said passion and should be taken with a grain of salt, excuse the pun as it was unintentional. Moral of the story is there are a lot of "unrealistic expectations" in any industry. Learn your job so well there is no room for ?'s.