What can cooking teach you ?

A Covid blessing is being forced to cook @ home. I was OK in this art and now I am goooood at it ;)

What am I serving today?

Some lessons I learnt from the art of cooking :)

What are we cooking? Let’s find out

Recipes of learning from cooking:

 -         Challenge your status quo

-         Sense of understanding – active listening skills

-         Research

-         Respect to guru (experts) – Learning from others mistake

-         Sanity

-         Knowing & choosing the key ingredients

-         Enlightenment to know the secret portion

-         Taking risk – experimentation

-         Humility – Respect for labor

-         Humanity – Respect to hunger

-         Reflection / Review

-         Get bold move ahead to next challenge

-         Taste before you serve - Contentment

Lets cook now – I like to keep it simple:

Step1: Challenge your status quo – Nothing new for a married men, we all know wife is a good boss to challenge your status quo in a polished way. Yes, I too got into this trap. Initially hesitated, then resisted with fear of failure then on being consistently push in nice way I accepted the challenge.

Knowing the strength of your team and being genuinely invested in them, keep your patience and pushing the bar high to help then stretch and own the challenges will define how good a leader you R.

Step 2: It’s the most important step to open the Pandora box of wishes list. I still remember when mom asks me what to cook and my response would be 4 to 5 instant choice of cuisines and now I take the pain. Since I am new and want to understand my customer better with their choice of dish to delight them, I ask them specific questions on their choice and know ingredients to edit in making to help create a customized service.

             Customer obsession is key, understand and help them define what they want and to deliver the best will surely be a delightful experience to create.

Step 3: Research – I know we all do this on YouTube before we cook anything new J

             It’s always go to sharpen your knife before you chop, else you will invest your time and energy in struggling to keep the basics in place than focusing on creating best experience.

             Know the Why, then what and how will help you be clear in your planning and execution.

Step 4: Respect to guru / expert – you will know the power of identifying the pain points and go for expert opinion parking your ego aside and asking for suggestions and help to create a tasty dish to delight and prove your muscle. I go to my mom and Dad then to my mentors, do you have a go to person? (Knowing who can be your guru and Identifying him/her is a deep topic in itself which we will cook it later)

Step 5: Sanity – Cleaning all the items first and attention to hygiene to ensure what is cooks is not just tasty but healthy too.

Similarly always give attention to details to values and principles in what action you opt to do.

Step 6: Knowing & choosing right ingredients – Opt a good carrot to make great halva not a rotten. Knowing what carrot you need – Ooty carrot which is orange or Bombay carrot which is red depends on what kind of halva is preferred by your son choice / wish list whom you want to delight.

             Likewise knowing what kind of people you need in your teams and evaluating the essence then add with their skill and attitude is key to success. Opt not just on skill but their attitude towards people in their life. Know more to care more.

Step 7: Enlightenment to know the secret portion – I understood in hard way to know the magical portion of taste in the dish you cook comes from the most silent contributor who near brags of his contribution but just adds value – SALT.

             It’s the quality of a good leader to listen to all levels and identify the SALT in the team and reward them to ensure the outcome drive is motivated and not shied out.

Step 8: Take risk / experiment – I always add my person touch to make the dish I cook stand part, sometimes with an additional lush cream on the curry / a little flavored ghee on the halva. Surplus is always a delighting factor, I ensure I add a small toy with the big when I gift J

             Know your customer well to take risk and deliver better every time to surprise with best.

Step 9: Humility & humanity       

             Humility - Respect for labor, respect your mom, dad and wife in the pain they have taken to feed us good all these years.

             Humanity – Respect to hunger. A covid lesson, cooking helped me to feed the need.

Step 10: Reflection / review: learning from your mistakes and sharpen the knife… Chop chop chop

             Honest review and feedback helps to improve. Be open and open to have constructive hard conversation to help understand the gap and put a plan of action in bridging it with a timeline to accomplish.

Step 11: Get bold move ahead to next challenge – stay hungry and work hard

Once you succeed in making halva, next to try your hands on braking a cake then to pastry. Plan for next challenge and keep taking new challenges to solve.

Step 12: Taste before your serve – Love to me loved, care to be cared.

Contentment comes from inside:Be self-motivated and self-driven and work hard in the day to sleep well. Hard working people die blissfully. Know your purpose and have end in mind clear in your heart :)

Cooking helped me to be a human again. What did your cook today ?