3 Leadership Lessons for the Culinary Kitchen & Recipe
for 9-1-1 Chocolate Mousse Cake
By: Dolores Lee
A recent article I loved mentioned well-known phrases
used in the culinary industry.
One of my favorites is: “If you
have time to lean, you have
time to clean.” The writer goes
on to explain that you should
clean and not stand around
if you have free time on your
hands.
Be smart and use your time to
clean your workstation, organize and prepare for the next
service. Next, she correlated it
to leadership principles. After
reading the article it inspired
me to do the same. Below, I
explain some common phrases and share my the lessons I
learned from the experiences.
1. In the Weeds
In the kitchen, a calm day turns into a mess when a cook doesn’t show up
for work. For example, the prep cook is sick. Fifteen (15) cases of potatoes were not peeled and diced from the previous day’s work. It’s only one
hour until dinner service when you find out. But, the job usually takes 2
hours to complete. It is what we consider being, "In the weeds."
It’s the point of work overload when you fall behind and need help to get
out. Many cooks and chefs have quit because of one too many days of
being in the weeds.
I don’t know who made the mistake of saying – "If you want a job done
right, do it yourself." God never intended for us to do anything related to
our destinies on our own. We must learn the art of delegation and teamwork or we will always be in the weeds and end up quitting.
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