Communication

I haven’t written about Hell’s Kitchen in a bit and since we’re a good way into this season, I’ll take advantage of Foodie Fun Friday to do so. As you know, I think there are lots of business lessons we can learn from Gordon Ramsay‘s rants, but I was reminded of a big one this week. I also saw a clip this morning I want to share with you on the same theme.

A constant theme in the kitchen is communication.  Each station needs to talk to the others to be sure the proteins, garnishes, and other parts of the order are done at the same time.  Each order ticket needs to be confirmed among the team so nothing falls into the cracks.  We saw an incident of it this week – one cook’s fish was done too early, she pushed the teammate on the meat station to get her order done, it was raw, and Gordon threw it (literally!) back at them.  Great TV, great business advice, although I wouldn’t encourage anyone to communicate with subordinates as Gordon does.

Communicating in a civil, thought out way can solve problems more quickly than screaming one’s point of view.  An old sales trick I learned was to lower my voice almost to a whisper to make people really listen – screaming has the opposite effect.  Sometimes a 10 minute discussion, where each side listens, thinks about what the other person has said, and responds can be way more productive than a 2 hour screaming match where each side is dug in.  It may not feel as good, but it gets more done.

Here is an example of that to end the week.  Once again, this isn’t a political blog but there is no more political issue these days than the health care debate.  Way too much screaming, not enough listening.  Watch this video and notice how in just under 10 minutes, an intelligent discussion, using facts instead of emotions, and good communication move the discussion forward.  Great way for us all to do business no mater where we come out on the issue!