When you work in a restaurant, experiencing growth in your skills or knowledge is often a humbling but pretty neat experience.

Imagine for a minute you are a capable chef. You’ve been at it for awhile and a couple cooks reporting to you. You’re not in charge of the restaurant, but the executive chef trusts you to work their will and keep the team performing. You’ve got techniques in your hands and recipes/formulas you trust to get the job done.

One day, one of your cooks- younger or maybe just newer- looks at a method and recipe you just handed them and says, “Hey, why do we do it this way?”

In a moment, a wave of responses flash through your mind: “That’s my method. Who does this little shit think they are? Kids these days are so fucking lazy… that’s the way we’ve always done it…”

You might feel enraged, exasperated, or at the very least annoyed… but there’s something else behind it all. We don’t wanna look at it. We can’t always afford to honor or accept it, so we spend a lot of time pushing it down or numbing it.

Doubt. Doubt and Questions.

It can seriously suck to feel Doubt when you are so used to the meritocracy of the kitchen. Doubt is the mind killer. Doubt is the little death that brings total clusterfuckery. You can’t afford the time or space to doubt.

But, in a moment, you realize “I never asked that question… I just did as I was told.” You look at the cook and finally say “That’s the way we do it here… why? Do you know another way?”

Maybe that cook suggests a method you know (from your knowledge and experience) won’t get the result you need. “We roast the squash rather than steaming because we don’t want the added moisture in the recipe.” “We coddle the eggs so they won’t be so cold the butter seizes when we add them to the batter.”

Maybe they don’t and it’s an honest question. It seems like a wasted step. It seems redundant. In all your knowledge and experience, you can’t explain why that method is so important. “It’s the way we’ve always done it…” it made sense to someone some time ago and no one’s ever been bothered to check their work.

That’s where the growth happens. You either figure out the reason, or you figure out it HAS no reason and it’s a waste. In a meritocracy, you are judged by what you accomplish and are capable of- not what you were, who you know, or how long something as been done your way.

By choosing Curiosity and Humility over Hubris, the answer is found. Dispassionate and clear as a failed sauce or a botched bake. It’s either “this is why’ or “this is a waste.”

Curiosity weaponizes Doubt against itself. Curiosity is powered by Humility. We can’t know everything, or everyone’s experiences.

For me, Curiosity and Humilty are crucial to leading well. If my staff are watching me and hoping to see their future in the field, I need to show them that asking questions and having doubts are good.

They need to see that even the pastry chef, with knowledge and experience, still has a lot to learn and can even learn from them. It’s been a tenet of mine for a long time that if one of my apprentices comes up with a new way to do something that renders a better product, does a job more efficiently, or both, that’s how we do it now. My ego takes a backseat, and if it turns out there’s a problem with that new method, we all learn why.

Imagine what you will learn when you admit you don’t know everything.

Stay Classy,