Why You Should Think Like a Chef

Since quite a young age, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of The Chef. Everyone else in Junior & Senior Infants wanted to be a fireman, a policeman, drive a lorry, or was quite happy to just eat Play-Doh in the corner. I wanted to be a chef.

Around the time of the Junior Cert, when I was asked the question of what I wanted to do in life, a member of my family - who shall remain nameless, but knows who they are - was quick to inform me that becoming a chef offers low pay, unsociable hours, and immense pressure. It is, and I will never forget these words, “the hardest, most grueling, and thankless line of work you could possibly get into”. Although they weren't entirely wrong I was heartbroken and the dream was quickly put to bed.

Nonetheless, 18 years later I still find myself drawn to watching shows and documentaries about the unrelenting commitment and constant devotion to this craft - The Bear, Parts Unknown, Action Bronson's That’s Delicious, Chef’s Table, and - God help me - the heavily cutesy and overly sanitised BBC’s Saturday Kitchen. These are just a fraction of the TV shows I will happily watch again and again and again, constantly on repeat, and repeating forevermore.

What draws me to binge-watch these shows isn’t the food, it’s the outlook and it’s the attitude which comes along with the territory and an almost foolish devotion to the craft. Here’s a few ways I think anyone in a position of power can benefit from adopting the mindset of a chef and transferring those same behavioural skills to whatever job you may hold and wherever in the world that may be.

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Communication.

In a kitchen, it should come as no surprise that a breakdown in communication can screw things up entirely. It seems a pretty obvious point that communication, in any role, is of massive importance.

However, I have genuinely witnessed situations where people progress to more senior levels and, quite suddenly, their ability to communicate quickly and effectively flies out the window. They expect communication to run seamlessly below them and therefore feel relieved of that responsibility.

Similarly, I have witnessed instances where more junior team members are afraid to communicate news to senior members of staff, in the fear that they might be moving beyond their station, or that it may be taken the wrong way. This is clearly a problem that trickles down from the top.

Irrespective of whatever business you’re in, communication of information is the lifeblood of any organisation. I should clarify that "communication" in every sense of the word, should not be limited to just the use of written and verbal language but rather considered as a whole and therefore extend further to actions.

Here are a couple of tips from the kitchen in how to achieve better communication courtesy of the late, great Anthony Bourdain (link in the comments):

• Be clear on your standards and set realistic goals for your employees: if you want something done a certain way, outline the exact way you want it done. If you work in a team - no matter how large or small - start off every day by sharing what needs to be done, by who, and when.
• Oversee operations but trust others to complete a task and avoid constant micro-management.
• Be decisive and agile: it is infinitely better to be decisive and work through a mistake than let things fall by the wayside.
• Be prepared to admit being wrong and be unashamed in admitting it.

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Culture

Yeah, yeah, yeah… teamwork is dreamwork, and all that. If you’re a Head Chef, it’s imperative that the team you delegate to feels as though they’re contributing to something larger than their individual efforts. If they don’t, they will simply leave. If you're in a position of influence you should absolutely be devoting focus to the importance of culture. Culture, I should mention, does not equate to a couple of pizzas or a ping pong table. These things, although nice, are short-term fixes. What you're really aiming for here is giving your team the thanks and kudos owed to them on a human level that goes beyond their pay check.

• Be clear in your vision and the mission statement of the company/department - What do we do here that's different? What do we believe that our competitors may not? How do we achieve this collectively? - "collectively" being the optimal word there.
• Invest in training and upskilling - your employees should, by and large, want to improve and advance their career. Investing in tools or materials which allow them to do this is a symbiotic act.
• Socialise often, but not too often. I think most would agree that heading out for drinks late on a Friday afternoon is largely a good thing which relieves a lot of the stress of being in the trenches and should certainly be encouraged. However, oversaturating peoples' personal schedules with things like team-building weekends might be a step too far.
• More than anything, be fair: any professional environment should be a meritocracy. If someone does well, reward them.

Curiosity

I wish somebody had told me this - you can very easily fail at something you don’t like. I was told that becoming a chef was foolhardy but people neglected to mention that a Bachelors in Economics might lead to a less than steady, unpredictable, and equally bumpy career path. This, I feel, is an important distinction between what I see as the old-fashioned, pre-Celtic Tiger "do something sensible and get a job for life" attitude and the more modern and realistic "do something which genuinely interests you" approach.

If you are already interested and invested in what you do, great! But keeping your ear to the ground and your finger on the pulse is important and you would be surprised at how many people see this as a largely extra-curricular activity rather than an integral part of their jobs. Devote at least an hour a week in your calendar to reading industry insights, relevant publications associated with your line of work, and researching new techniques, tools, or platforms which could make you better at what you do.

It will pay dividends when your boss asks you if you saw "that article on how AI is affecting the lives of sheep in Patagonia" or asks "has anyone heard of GlipGlop, it's a new app that helps you go to the bathroom without having to leave the room?".

Conversely, if you're not interested in what you do, that's OK too! Now, more than ever, employers view a career change as a net positive and the expectation these days is that most people will naturally change careers at least twice. I certainly have and I'm all the happier for it. But I would devote the same hour per week, if not longer, to reflecting on where you want to go in your career and actively researching how to get there.