8 skills that make you a chef (or any other business leader)

It is quite difficult to explain how a safe, well-functioning kitchen functions - there are too many moving elements. To become a chef, you need to be able to cook perfectly. But this ability alone will not make you a leader. To create your own leadership style that will say for you: “That's who I am!”, You have to spend time and energy mastering the skill. How to do it?

From a distance, probably the usual restaurant kitchen looks like a lot of people involved in creating the same thing, and is very similar to the conveyor. But if you look better, you will see that all the components are combined in a certain way and are aimed at fulfilling a specific goal. Notice, becoming the chef does not relieve you from cooking, on the contrary, these responsibilities complement each other and are part of the same skill set.
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So the real question is this: how does a great cook turn into a chef?

A chef is a person who knows how to cook perfectly and at the same time has the ability to manage , direct and create a successful production process in a kitchen in a restaurant or somewhere else.

One of the main problems is that the list of skills necessary to perform the practical, technical part of the work, which the lion's share of us loves most, differs significantly from the requirements of the other vital components of the position. Therefore, yes, you need to have not only obvious practical skills and techniques, but also many other skills.

Chefs differ on each other, as well as representatives of other creative professions, because in order to express their creative intent, they have to use many different factors. They differ from other creators, whose activities directly depend on what they create: the author writes, the artist draws, and the actor plays. In the hands of culinary specialists - the mass of constantly changing parameters that affect the result, and they must be managed accordingly. Given all this, there are several talents and skills needed to be a chef.

1. The ability to cook.

You must be the best chef in the building at any given time. If your line cooks or sous-chefs have questions, or they are not sure about the technique, you should be there and help them. This does not mean that you need to know the answers to all the questions, but, of course, the more time you spend in the kitchen honing your skills, the less secrets you will have. Until you master the technical side of cooking in acute, stressful and stressful situations, no one, not even your staff, will begin to take you seriously.

2. Plan.

One of the main abilities of the creator is the ability to see still non-existent things and find ways to put them into practice. However, the plan can cause fear, because you need to intervene in the process and implement it. This is scary because we don’t know how customers, bosses and employees will react. In any case, this is what makes you creators, and is part of what makes people believe you. To achieve a result, you need to be able to accurately formulate your ideas, because the team must be clear about where it is going.

3. Knowledge of numbers.

If you can't calculate the cost of a dish in 15-20 seconds, you are not the chef. This means that you spent too little time evaluating the menu, making recipes and laying out dishes on plates. You need to know how much each serving costs, then to calculate the menu. But this is only part of the numbers: you should be able to standardize recipes, evaluate labor, take inventory, shorten its duration when time is tight, and the list goes on and on.

4. Systematic.

Most cooks by nature are not so organized and terribly fussy, often allowing attention deficit disorder to take over. But over time, we understand: in order to become the best chefs, we need to learn how to organize our own time and workplace. You need to create recipes and processes that will help teams achieve success. You should constantly strive to increase efficiency and productivity without sacrificing quality.

5. Ability to develop emotional responsiveness.

We are all familiar with the opinion that the chefs are ordinary scum in the kitchen, and, of course, such characters sometimes occur. But the more the culinary industry and the profession turn into a sought-after version of self-expression, the sooner the number of such individuals diminishes. Indeed it is great. As chefs and leaders, you should be able to manage people, create a sense of demand among them and, most importantly, by proving to them that you are on their side and support them. To be a successful chef, you need to learn how to connect with people around you - with those you rely on. After all, if you fail to do this, they will never sincerely sympathize with you and will not feel part of what you are building - and this is the key point.

Lead your team forward, at any opportunity be interested in employees, discipline them, if necessary. Allow them to make mistakes and disassemble the shortcomings so that they can learn and grow over themselves, as cooks and as individuals, and not exactly the opposite (as is often the case). Anything may be available to the boss, but if he / she does not have a cohesive group of people focused on the daily fulfillment of their mission, then he / she has nothing.

6. Discipline (an indicator of outstanding skill).

It all starts on top. Most cooks are not ready to become chefs, because they do not know how to set the standard. Corporate culture, cleanliness, customer service, serving food - it all starts with the chef.

Why in many restaurants, the standards for products released from the kitchen, so low? Maybe it was like this from the very beginning or it was formed over time, but in any case, every single day a lot of people allow the plates with unappetizing dishes to leave their kitchen. As trainer John Wood says: “If you don’t have time to do well, where does the time for correction come from?”

7. The most diligent person in the building.

There is only one way to prove that you want to achieve something : with all your might, hurry to do something that matters to you. This is what the great bosses around the world are doing. They are the first to enter the door in the morning, and often leave the workplace one of the last. Everything is simple and clear: if you want something, you need to give all the best.

8. Point of view.

To create your own style, which says for you: “That's who I am!”, You have to spend time and energy mastering the skill. And as chefs, you should be able to achieve this. To find out which cuisines, seasonings and styles inspire and talk about who we are and who we want to be, we need to learn from others and work for others. You just need to pay attention to the work you do, from time to time try to distance yourself from it, listen carefully to your heart and tell yourself:

“I want to do this - it means I am!”

So, at what stage are you becoming the boss?

PS We recommend another article on the topic - Forget about setting goals and focus on it .

Translated by Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult .