About Stories, Mistakes and a Pair of Shoes!
In this mini series I will share some of my leadership savvy which I have learned and successfully applied during the past 27 years in international kitchens around the world. If you want to know more then click here: Leadership skills can be learned, that’s the good news!
People love stories. They like to listen to them. Stories are the most effective tool to get your points across, share insights and persuade people. I always shared stories of my own past when I wanted to communicate something especially important to my team. If you share stories of your own past and experience than you automatically relate to each other much faster and better. People see that you are just a normal guy like them. That helps to build trust.
And here comes one of my greatest advise: When you tell stories, do not just play the hero, and tell everybody how successfully you have solved this or that problem. There is no need to show off and pretend to be “Alexander the Great” all the time.
“The real secret of connecting with people is when you admit your mistakes.”,
my American mentor Chef Garry taught me.
“You have messed something up? Share your blunders. You have made a big mistake? So, what, talk about it and share the lessons you have learned with your team. This will make you so much more human and trustworthy, believe me. People are not stupid anyway Marcel. You are just another human being; you are one of them. People make mistakes. People learn. People succeed and people celebrate. Life always goes the whole 9 yards. You are no exception. Be reminded and show humbleness. When you are down to earth you will have your support.”
I have remembered and practiced Chef Garry’s statement ever since.
Chef Garry always kept his office door open. I believe that he did not only do it for practical reasons. I think it was also kind of symbolic. He kept an open door. He wanted to be approachable. Nothing is worse than a leader who is closed off and distant. You need to be the opposite. Your people need to see that you are reachable and approachable.
I have not always been approachable, especially not in former times when I was a younger chef. I did mistakes. It depended on the situation. For example, when I am focusing on a certain task then I dedicate my energy to it. I do not like to be disturbed. That can be something I do in the office or in the kitchen. Sometimes you are in a bit of a hurry as well. If someone from your team approaches you in this situation and asks for your ear, hand, or other assistance, it can be challenging.
Over time I had to learn to lend my staff an ear, especially since I oversee kitchens. I had to practice pulling myself together. Even today it is a challenge sometimes. I have a little technique which helps me here: I always try to put myself into the other person’s shoes. I just imagine if I would be him or her, walking into my office, seeing the chef doing something at his desk and saying,
“Excuse me Chef, can I talk to you for a second?”
That is what I do to remind myself constantly and you have too.
Sometimes it is damn hard, especially with my hot temper and short patience to just stop what I am doing and to dedicate my attention to someone or something else because it disturbs my flow of focus. It just distracts me. It is annoying to me. Many times in the past, I let out my frustration at my staff. But as I said, when this situation occurs today, I try to imagine the whole situation from the other person’s point of view. How would I feel if the chef just dismisses me like an idiot? I would feel rejected. Maybe I would even feel guilty because I had disturbed him. Who knows? In any case I would not feel good.
If you want to make your staff to feel special, then do this simple but genius thing: remember their birthdays. I think I do not need to mention how everyone appreciates receiving greetings and wishes on their special day.
One of my largest kitchen teams consisted of over 120 employees. It is impossible to remember all their birthdays and you do not need to. There was a large notice board fixed against the wall in our staff cafeteria. Our human resources manager always posted a list of our “Birthday Babies” which were due during the month. So, what I did was, I went to study the list and wrote down all Birthday Babies which were in my team, sometimes even from other departments.
You will not believe how many times I surprised people by just suddenly popping up in front of them, extending my hand and say, “Happy Birthday!” The effect was enormous. Their faces lit up. Some of them even seemed to be shocked, in a positive way of course, because they never expected this to happen to them. I like to make people smile.
If you believe it or not…;-)
Thanks for reading my post and check out my book Slamming It Out! for more!
Marcel
This post was originally published on: https://www.marcelr.com/post/about-stories-mistakes-and-a-pair-of-shoes
