Cooks and Bakers, SOP and improvement

I am afraid of baking. I am a great cook (no, it isn’t just me who says so; everyone who has dined at my home vouches for it). I am adept at most cuisines from East to West—pasta to pho, guacamole to puliyogare, rajma to mapo tofu, halwa to payasam. I make my own masalas and powders, research endlessly, and experiment with new recipes.

I love baked goodies. A decade ago, I equipped myself with a convection oven and a blender. Yet, I am yet to bake even a simple sponge.

I enjoy my time in the kitchen—it is a place where I unleash my creativity. And therein lies my challenge: baking demands discipline and adherence to measures and procedures.

For someone who preaches predictability and consistency in processes and stresses the importance of standardization and SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), I have a secret vice—I DON’T follow standard recipes. I have a strong tendency to ‘personalize’ every recipe, from traditional ones handed down by my mom and grandmom to exotic dishes I discover online.

So, whatever I make carries a unique ‘Usha’ flavor. Most people seem to love it, but when someone asks me to replicate a dish I made for them, I may not be able to. I haven’t documented the ‘twists’ I gave the recipe, and therefore, it may taste slightly different from the previous time—tasty and delicious, perhaps, but never exactly the same.

Add to this my native laziness and antipathy toward measuring ingredients, and what do you get? A miserable failure of a baker. I know this, and my ego doesn’t let me try and fail. So, I refrain.

That changed when I wanted to replicate a couple of my mother’s recipes—I was yearning for the taste of home. Fortunately, I had once asked her for the recipe and written it down. So, I followed it faithfully—measurements and method, no twists, no changes. Voila! I tasted my mom’s magic.

Seeing the upside, I tried the same approach with recipes I found online—no tweaks, no special ingredients, just following the instructions exactly. Again, I found that the taste reflected what I had enjoyed in that region.

I am yet to become disciplined enough to start baking. I still personalize and play with recipes because that gives me joy.

But I have made one big change—when I try a new recipe, I follow the exact method and ingredients without tweaking.

After experiencing the original, I ask myself if there is merit in making changes when I prepare it next time. Would it make the dish significantly better? A little better? Would it suit our taste buds more—less spicy or more spicy? If the answer is yes, then I tweak it. If not, I have taught myself to stay with the original.

In the process, I have learned to respect standard recipes, the expertise that went into creating them, and the consistent quality that some of these ageless recipes offer in the hands of different cooks. After all, my mother’s puliyogare tasted exactly like my grandmom’s.

In the Toyota Production System, there is a concept called ‘Standard Work.’ The idea is to design tasks, work procedures, and methods in a way that ensures that regardless of who performs the work, the outcome remains the same in terms of quality, time, and cost. Workers on the shop floor are trained from day one to adhere to Standard Work with zero deviation. Deviants are identified and trained to follow the process. Recommendations for improvement come after developing consistency. A skilled worker is one who can identify ways to do it better—not on day one.

The underlying principle is powerful: follow the Standardised Work Procedures consistently BEFORE identifying opportunities for improvement.

Unless you do that, you don’t even know which parts work well and which don’t. As everyone follows the laid-down Standard Work, there is a better understanding, and so when improvements are identified, they are significant and impactful. A skilled worker is one who can identify ways to do it better—not on day one.

Often, new managers are like me in the kitchen. They don’t respect standard work (SOPs, to you). They don’t pause to experience existing workflows and outcomes. They don’t seek to understand what works well and what has the potential to improve or transform.

They assume they know better and jump in to change things without appreciating why certain processes exist. If they come from a different Unit or Organization, they bring their own beliefs about what works—their ‘way of working’—without fully understanding the new environment. They assume and presume, often getting things ‘right’ but never knowing if their right is the best possible outcome. They sometimes throw out the baby with the bathwater too.

There is a mistaken belief that continuous improvement and transformation can happen without first understanding and appreciating what is already in place.

There are two practices that can help you, if you are that new manager.

First – Go to Gemba. Go to the Gemba, the workplace, observe and learn. See what is working, see where the gaps are. If possible (I highly recommend) Do it Yourself. Nothing can promote deep understanding of the work like hands-on experience.

Second – Understand the why, the what, the who and the when. Study data, speak to experts to understand the why and the what. Speak to the frontline; research, speak to industry and cross-industry peers. Speak to old-timers in the system to understand the why and when of the existing procedures and practices.

A good baker is consistent. So is a good chef. You can predict what you will get on a given day. I am slowly changing my ways in my kitchen and hope to put that convection oven to good use in the near future.

What about you?

#SOP #standardwork #consistencybeforeimprovement #transformation #continuousimprovement #kaizen #seektounderstand #discipline #managementlessons #leadership #Gemba