Not only Waiter, Chef should also get the “Tip”!

Customer leaves $5,000 tip for waitress, restaurant shares ‘thank you’ post. Post shared on Anthony’s At Paxon’s Facebook page, an Italian restaurant in Pennsylvania, US.

Reading the above posts and considering that in a restaurant waiter gets the tip with a definite back-end contribution of a Chef, is it fair that Chef does not get the “tip”. Knowing well that chefs are paid much more than the waiter, here the “tip” reference is more on the larger context of appreciation and recognition.

Chef does all the hard work behind the scene, in a relatively more hazardous environment, with knives and flames around, uses the best of skills and innovation to cook the best dishes in a consistent and tasteful manner. The customer enjoys the dish, shares all his appreciations of the dining experience with the waiter, and also happily pays him a tip, sometimes, quite handsomely. There are only very few customers, who go one step further and call the chef to share their appreciation with him. A similar phenomenon can be witnessed in many organizations as well.

In a three-member team of Mohan, Hari, and Adi, Mohan is an extrovert person hardly taking interest in hardcore project work, leaving all of it to other team members, and spends most of his time interacting with the team manager as well as external stakeholders, to share general happenings, project progress and gain visibility. Hari and Adi are highly talented employees, working hard on the project in a focused manner for long hours, and spending some time on learning new concepts, self-development and innovations. While Hari and Adi do most of the intricate part of the project and prepare all presentations, Mohan is always the first one to share project progress with the Manager and internal customers at regular intervals. He also takes extra initiative in delivering the presentation, already prepared by other team members.

In this process, Mohan grabs all the limelight and appreciation. During the annual performance review exercise, Mohan not only receives higher ratings than Hari and Adi but is also recommended for promotion.

Does that ring the bell – Waiter gets the “tip”?

This is definitely not an ideal situation and displays gaps in the assessment process from Team Manager’s end, but it can be witnessed in many organizations.

In an organizational situation in general, it has been observed that while content is the key and has to be of high quality, the packaging is also gaining importance and has become a critical aspect to be accompanied by solid content.

It has been noticed that many professionals strong in communication and presentation but with much less capability and contribution, end up taking advantage and move ahead of their peers who are actually making much higher contributions to the task and the organizational objectives. Have you experienced a situation where you did all the hard work and someone else walked away with the credit?

The organizations need to strengthen their systems to avoid such unfair rewards and recognition, as this weakens their overall team strength, thereby compromising long-term advantage.

At the same time, every individual also needs to realize that while content is important, the packaging is also very critical and they need to ensure developing skills in areas like effective communication, presentation delivery, inter-personal skills, stakeholder interactions, and networking.

Looking at the larger picture, in an organizational environment, it is critical to be both -- a Chef as well as a waiter, and of course, to BEWARE of Mohans in your team, while you are the real Chef!