The best cook often gets promoted, yet they are frequently ill-prepared for the managerial skills required.
How often have we witnessed the best cook promoted to sous chef or chef? How frequently have we seen the sauté or broil cook become the next sous chef simply because their specials excel and their station is immaculate? Are we genuinely considering the skills necessary to excel as a chef or sous chef? How are these skills taught and assessed? Do they possess the organizational, managerial, financial acumen, planning, forecasting, and other essential skills required for the role?
Cooking is the easier part of the job, and I often find myself reiterating this during our chef’s meetings. I recognize how fortunate I am due to my background. I began college for mechanical engineering and worked in a corporate job for several years before becoming a chef. These experiences taught me proper managerial etiquette, from responding to an email or drafting an agenda to maintaining the appropriate presence in board or committee meetings.
We are actively working on developing our team at the club, meeting every week. Our team is substantial, and attendance at these meetings is mandatory. They include the executive sous chef, banquet chef, sous chef, pastry chef, pastry assistant, and all chefs de partie.
These meetings serve as a platform to discuss management principles, expectations, and the transformation required from thinking like a cook to thinking like a manager. We address the issues we are currently facing and how to tackle them. We allocate time for everyone to share their experiences and challenges, encouraging questions and prodding to encourage openness. The meeting provides a safe space where all questions are valid, seeking different perspectives and challenging assumptions.
Nevertheless, we still need to reinforce basic rules, such as setting phones to silent mode, not responding to text messages, and leaving the room to take calls. These are skills that many chefs lack. How often have you attended a conference or presentation only for it to be interrupted by a ping or ringing phone? Such behavior is profoundly disrespectful. Imagine doing this during a job interview, a committee meeting, or with a board of governors.
These meetings have become the training grounds for addressing many of the common challenges chefs are never taught or prepared to handle, imparting the managerial skills necessary to become organized and think like managers.
We discuss how to handle staff discipline, what to say, what’s appropriate, and what’s not. We provide guidance on managing difficult interactions without losing emotional balance and sticking to the facts. We teach how to document conversations and determine when a conversation should be private or have a witness. Do you know how to address a team member with body odor? Inappropriate attire, such as improper shoes or lack of underwear? We present case studies and challenge their thinking, guiding them through finding answers and coaching them along the way.
We analyze food costs and financials, reviewing the previous month’s numbers, discussing the current month’s food costs and labor expenses, and examining year-to-date data to assess performance and identify areas for focus in the coming weeks and months. Using this data, we educate them about appropriate purchasing, yield, and waste reduction to determine how to manage procurement effectively. Many young cooks (myself included) tend to order in increments of 10 pounds, regardless of the required portions.
We delve into the concept of time costs, exploring how to create schedules and determining the necessary overlap. We’ve recently experimented with a 4-day workweek and the challenges of covering all shifts. We discuss the impact of one hour of overtime per day or arriving 15 minutes early for each shift, calculating the costs over days and months. This often leads them to pull out their phones and calculate the significant cost accrued by a cook making $17 an hour working four hours of overtime per week over a year.
We address planning and organization for menu changes and updates. When should the process commence? What does it entail, and who is responsible for what and when? We even create calendars and set up appointments with defined goals and tasks to complete. At the club, we email features to members every Tuesday. The communications director must have this information complete and on time; otherwise, we spend Mondays searching for details from each other.
We also discuss expected role and activities in the kitchen. How do you manage when running a station or immersed in a complex project that demands all your attention? How can you effectively lead when taking on too much, and what constitutes “too much”? What tasks should they handle, and how much time should they spend on the floor versus behind the stove? When should they schedule computer time and step away from the line?
Many cooks and sous chefs, whether promoted internally or hired externally, lack these skills and are often unaware of how their behavior affects the rest of the team. As managers, we are responsible for training the upcoming generation, molding them into the professionals our profession demands.
Finding time for these meetings can be challenging, especially when we are running at full capacity and struggling to keep up. Nevertheless, we must carve out this time to ensure they are prepared to run the kitchen in our absence, lead the team effectively, and possess the tools necessary for proper management.
