Category Archives: food

February 15, 2013 · 12:18 pm

The Saying Vs. Doing Conundrum

Foodie Friday! Today I want to build on something discovered by the folks at The Hartman Group.

English: A common variety of gorp (trail mix) ...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They have a site called HartmanSalt (which is not a site about ways to increase your blood pressure). They conduct regular surveys about food and food consumption.  I was checking out something on snacking which triggered a business thought.

As the results show, Americans love to snack.  We consume 2.3 snacks per day on average.  This tends to happen later in the day and generally at home.  What triggered the business thought were the next two data points.  57% of the respondents in the survey said it is important or very important  for the food and/or beverages to be healthy.  However the two most often mentioned snack foods are chips and soda. What we say doesn’t always align with what we do and that’s an important thing to remember in business.

That dichotomy is one of the things we find in focus groups – the things in which people express interest are not necessarily the things they’ll buy. Having done a few of them as a part of designing and building web sites, how users tell you they’ll use something and what they actually do as you observe them can be very different.   It’s a point we see in management all the time.  How managers say they behave and how they actually do are often out of sync.  No manager, for example, will tell you that they mistreat employees and they say that they always are there for their staffs.  Ask the folks on the other end if that’s true.

I’ve had friends who couldn’t understand why they were fat.  They said they ate carefully and watched their portions.  When they started keeping a food log (and there are some great apps for that!) they found out that what they said vs. what they did was showing up in their larger pant size.  It’s something all of us in business need to think about – are we listening to what people say or are we verifying it against what they really do?  How are we handling the conundrum the difference between the two?  That solution is often the key to success.

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February 8, 2013 · 10:28 am

Finding Nemo

Foodie Friday Fun begins with a look out the window as Winter Storm Nemo approaches. That arrival seems to have spurred a rush to the supermarket by everyone in our town, at least according to my sister who found mostly bare shelves when she went this morning. I suppose we could talk today about what one can prepare when there might not be electricity to operate an oven, microwave or many stoves. We have a gas range but without electricity there is no range hood so we have to be careful about what we make. But that’s not really the food subject today.

Finding Nemo (video game)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Making sure that there’s ample food, water, and batteries is becoming a regular event in our area as we’ve been hit by massive storms a few times over the last two years.  The accuracy with which these events have been predicted, even down to the time when the storms arrive and depart, is pretty amazing.  What the forecasters can’t predict, however, is which trees will cause a power problem or block access to roads.  Even with much better tools, there are big uncertainties that will affect our specific situation.  That’s today’s business point.

The hardest part of your job as a leader to see over the horizon.  The next hardest part is convincing others that what you’re seeing is right and to take the appropriate action based on your forecast.  How angry would you be if you bought gallons of water and lots of food only to find out that the blizzard was a couple of inches of snow?  How dangerous is it when they predict a dusting of snow and you wake up to eighteen inches of heavy, wet slush?  Being able to assemble the known information into a cogent prediction of the future is a skill that comes only with time and experience (easy to say coming from an older guy, I know).  Take our friend Nemo, here.  There are a dozen computer models that disagreed a day or two ago about the storm’s impact.  A few even do so today.  Which of the models you choose to believe can have an impact, especially if you’re the person deciding to call in plow drivers or buy salt for the roads.

I think if I could wish for one thing in business it would be tomorrow’s newspaper.  I’d then have a perfect look over the horizon, at least for a day.  For now all we can do is to try to find the Nemos that will impact our business lives that are lurking out there.  Then we need to get to the store and make sure our team is prepared to hunker down and ride it out.

Now, where did I put the spare batteries?

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February 1, 2013 · 11:24 am

Chefs And Cooks

Ah, Foodie Friday!  The gateway to the weekend.  One of the things I like most about the weekend is that I can spend time in the kitchen and not feel as if I’m neglecting work.  I suppose for those folks for whom the kitchen is work – on both an amateur and professional basis – that’s not such a treat but it is to me.  There are, of course, an awful lot of differences between what I do in the kitchen and what a professional does.  The biggest difference, aside from the skill level, is that I’m usually there working by myself as both chef and cook.  If you’re not clear as to what the main difference is, read on – there’s a business point in it as well.

English: White House chefs, directed by Execut...

.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Running a business is similar to running a kitchen.  The key in both cases is for the person in charge – the chef – not to get too caught up in doing the grunt work but instead in spending their time and energy supervising and helping the line cooks.  Any great chef will tell you that the hardest part of their work isn’t  creating the dishes they serve.  Instead, it’s in taking those menu items  and putting them into a system that will work efficiently.  You must produce each dish in a timely manner and at a consistent level of quality.  Managing a business staff is the same – the art is in creating a system that produces consistent work in a timely, efficient manner.

Another point to consider is the complexity of those dishes or the projects you assign to your staff.  I used to play music with a lot of extremely talented musicians.  However, there were a few pieces that were just too difficult for us to pull off and in the interest of our audience we didn’t try to play them publicly.  Knowing the limitations of a staff or your business to produce something is an important part of the management mix and the creative process.

Most chefs have no problem stepping into a station on the line if need be.  Most great managers can step in and help with the grunt work as well.  The ones who aren’t worthy of their titles are the ones who think it’s beneath them or who don’t have the focus on the customer’s immediate need for the work.  Which are you – a chef or a cook?  Which role should you be playing?

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