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What Hell's Kitchen tells me about business

Hell's Kitchen, by the celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, is into it's eleventh series. It is strangely compelling due to the blend of the volatile Ramsay and the car crash-worthy screw-ups of the contestants, who vie for a high-paying, high-profile job with the English chef. Hell's Kitchen also strangely tells a lot of things about how business works in general, even though seemingly the kitchen world has nothing in common with the business world. It does however, and it's this:

The importance of communication

Hell's Kitchen shows that communication is key for a successful kitchen brigade. Any member needs to  be able to tell the others how far out he or she is, versus the other elements of the order. The show also shows what happens if communication breaks down: dishes arrive at the pass too late, or too early. If meat station needs to rush, because fish is already up, you may end up with raw meat.

Same for the business world, communication is key. While the effects are not as immediate as inside a kitchen brigade, the process when doing a project, following-up a business operation are still applicable.

And it's not so much that communication is important - we figured that - but Hell's Kitchen shows a myriad of reasons and causes why communication breaks down, and which apply to business as well. People sometimes have personalities that are more sedate. Some people are tired. Some people turn inwards when confronted with errors. Some people play politics and stop talking to sabotage the process. And some people don't communicate because they are plain dumb.

Of course Gordon Ramsay always calls his contestants on it. Often very violently.

Preparation and knowledge

Prep work for each dinner service is often given less than a minute of air time on the show. And usually it is part of the show's punishment for losing. But the after effects when prep work is done incorrectly are highlighted on the show. It shows you that in business the old adage still applies, failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

Preparing also means picking up the knowledge to do your job. How often do you see on the show contestants running around clueless, or getting cursed at and then not knowing what to do. Or making stupid mistakes in the first place. And then Gordon takes their heads off, often followed by throwing them out of the kitchen.

Leadership and authority

Hell's Kitchen is about people, about groups and teams. Some people naturally take leadership, others follow. And everybody is supposed to listen to Chef Ramsay. However the show is at its most compelling when people don't accept the leadership of others.

"How's this guy telling me what to do?"

"Leave me alone and let me do my job."

"Stop whining and do what I say."

Of course contestants are not allowed to talk back to Chef Ramsay, and if they do it always ends badly for them.

In business too authority and leadership comes into play. We have seen businesses fail because leadership is not taken, or taken incorrectly. We have seen leadership not being accepted for various reasons: perceived capability or incompetence of the other; straight up dislike or even hate; genuine lack of leadership skills. All those reasons are on display in Hell's Kitchen.

Hell's Kitchen is a microcosm of human nature. It is an analogy for business life. It shows the importance of communication, preparation and leadership. It however doesn't show that while blowing up might work for Gordon Ramsay and his kitchen brigade - and it may in fact be the number one reason people watch Hell's Kitchen in the first place - it may work out differently in the office.

Just saying.

Estimating Projects

The way traditionalists play the project management game is based on one premise: being able to accurately predict the future. Don't matter that humankind is notoriously dreadful in predicting and estimating a full-on project, much the same as they are predicting the weather, sports events or the stock market.

Of course people can look at past experiences, statistics, and scientific insight to derive a project estimation. And sometimes people may be close to the actual outcome. Metrics derived from best practices, literature, science and the so-called subject matter experts are always degrees removed from the practice, the project and the job at hand. Therefore estimating your current job with this data is inaccurate. Not to say that you should ignore this data, but the true source of accurate estimation is the Team itself.

The experience built during a SCRUM project can be directly related to the people doing the work, the Team. And therefore it has a higher probability to be close to the actual outcomes. SCRUM will not help me estimate better or predict the future better. It's not even unique in using past data to estimate the work. But nothing changes the fact that - at best - a manager's estimation is an informed guess. It best be informed by the people who know about what they are doing.

Observations after watching Iron Man 3

I still don't get what can actually kill the bad guys.

No matter what, stay in your seat and wait for the credits to end of any Marvel movie you see

Truthfully seeing all the Iron Man suits in action at the same time, is the closest I have been to whooping in quite some time

Retaliation: Or the senseless act against London

Couple of random thoughts on the movie:

Sort of spoilers.

1) see? This is what happens if you actually understand the key success factors of your source material; you get a good movie. So no power suit shit, no snake eyes mask with lips, no token random black guy taking a part he has no business in, hitting on the hot girl in the group.

2) but was *that* the scene that caused it to get delayed by a year?! In what universe did the plot require to have this explained a little more? I am saying bull.

3) first Paris in part one, now almost Paris again after levelling London. What did the french do to GI Joe? And had the Eifeltower been rebuilt yet?

4) obviously The Bruce Willis ends up with the girl, because.Hey! father issues.....

Invisible or Unmissable

At some point in your career you'll find either nobody notices you around, or everybody notices when you are not. Neither situation is particularly good, but for different reasons. The former tend to get frustrated, get passed over, get ignored. The latter get overworked, burned out and overstretched.

Truly a case where the happy middle is indeed so.

How to handle an opinion different from yours

The outrage people express when a reviewer or journalist shares an opinion that apparently doesn't exactly match theirs, is getting out of control.

It is even from random people, who have nothing directly to do with the content, nothing to do with the event. The most vocal cases are from fans, who see every statement about their fandom as an attack on humanity.

Opinions are exactly that. I use opinions to gain some more insight into things, events that I don't know about, but I always use more than one - and more importantly I gather even more info to forge my own opinion. Now if I end up not agreeing with some vlogger, or columnist then it will always be with arguments. It certainly won't be with outrage.

Happy New Baktun!

So we're a few days into the new Mayan calendar, or a few days past the end of it, depending on how you view things. Nothing really happened, although some people who are now forced to live on through tragedies, wars, disasters, and famine would disagree. None of it however has to do with the calendar hitting a particular random date. It just happens as per the regular news cycle.

Do you prefer one big cataclysmic event that you know with certainty will happen? Or rather an end of days that you just don't know when it will hit and how long it will run?

Probably the road chosen most, will be the one where people just stop worrying about it, and get on with their lives, doing what they believe needs to be done.

2012 in Music

2012 in Music was dominated by basically one Korean man. Gangnam Style took the world by storm and didn't let up until it became the most watched Youtube video in history.

It was not the best Music had to offer this year, but for laughs and giggles it was good enough. Never thought it would get picked up outside Seoul though. Much the same as the K-Pop girl bands that seem to grasp hordes of Asian teen girls (and women... and men).

It was a great counteract for the foreign language wave that swept Dutch hit stations... especially the Brazilian  heartthrobs that speak in a language that few if any understand without proper training.

Moving on to my most ear-catching music of this year:

1. Handsome Poets - Sky On Fire (mostly because of the Olympics coverage in NL)
2. Jason Mraz - The Freedom Song
3. Ed Sheeran - Drunk 
4. Leah LaBelle - Sexify 
5. Clement Marfo - Champion (my new ringtone selection)

So no Passenger (just discovered a couple of days ago - otherwise would have made it), The Script, or Skyfall...

SPOILERS: 7 Things learned from the Expendables sequel

• Chain beats knife.
• Sly's team gets bailed out Deus Ex Machina-style not once but twice... actually it should be called CHUCK NORRIS Ex Machina
• Chuck Norris doesn't get to do his trademark roundhouse kick, but JCVD gets to do his shitty copy
• Sly must not like money from China: Jet Li is in the movie about 3 minutes total
• Script writers got lazy with naming their characters. JCVD’s antagonist character’s surname is Vilain. REALLY?!?
• Sly with his own little team < The Terminator, John McClain and Walker Texas Ranger
• A bit pathetic to see this movie trying to thumb its nose at this year's biggest movie by killing THOR's little brother

11 Learning points from the London Olympic Games

• It is a thing now to swap jerseys with your opponents in track & field - I want it to be a thing in Beach Volleyball.

• People want freedom of choice; corporations and broadcasters tend to agree, but only as long as the people choose whatever the corporations and broadcasters have chosen
• Some countries think too lightly about cheating. I mean, an athlete might want to think a little before serving a badminton shuttle into the net every single time. You could at least bribe a jury member or a referee. Although in that case, you might want to pay an official who doesn't blatantly ignore six knockdowns.
• You can get banned from the Games for a non-effort - and get reinstated with a doctor’s note... what are we, in junior high gym class?
• If you measure the greatest Olympian in terms of total medals, that person will never be a football player, or a basketball player, or any team sport player. The greatest Olympian will also never be a tennis player or a judoka or a boxer - unless you start to add all kinds of random skill based events to the sport: hardest tennis serve, mixed judo, 4 and 8 square meter ring boxing, tag team taekwondo etc.
• A white guy with a grill - even if he wins a gold medal - is still a douche.
• One does not simply throw a beer bottle at the 100m finals.
• Obviously McKayla is not impressed.
• It's not a good idea to try to catch 200 kg with your neck.
• Women can still get jealous at their prettier team mate.
• Not many countries have mastered the art of losing graciously. Even less the art of winning with dignity.

The worst predictor for success

Pretty much every piece of good advice about achieving success is set on putting the work in. And lots of it actually. It’s the motto of Team Bring It. Blood, sweat and tears. “They Sleep, We Grind”.

In their post-win interviews, winners may talk about paying off hard work. Everything they worked for, all the sacrifices they made, it all paid off with a victory.


The thing is, there is no 100% certainty that the losers have not worked as hard as the winners. Sometimes the people who lose have even worked harder, worked longer, worked more, than the winners. But other factors also come to play in deciding who wins and who loses. Pure natural skill. Gamesmanship. Luck of the draw. Circumstances. Of course there are losses caused by lack of work, effort and preparation - but definitely not all losses can be explained this way.

The fact is: when there are winners, there are also losers. And the vast majority in a competition will be a loser, no matter how many silver and bronze medals you ship. I’m not advocating everybody should be lazy instead. I'm sure there’s less correlation between losing and working hard opposed to winning and working hard. It’s just that working hard is a bad predictor for future success. Not all efforts will be paid off.

Striving to achieve your goals and win through hard work is not a bad motto, it’s a safe, admirable motto. It’s something we respect and understand. Maybe going so far as saying hard work is a prerequisite in winning in sports, and in life. 

But it is not the key success factor. And frankly it’s a bit disconcerting motivational speakers just keep saying the mantra over and over. “Work hard. Work harder. Work hardest.”. I’m sure you should not get caught in an excuse that you lost because you didn’t work your hardest or even the hardest. But working hardest is no guarantee. Like all investments, sometimes it just doesn’t pay off - and you need to be okay with that.

If you lose, you are allowed to get disappointed, even show a little frustration. But you better get over it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop blaming others. Learn and deal.


People say winners never accept “this losing thing”. But even the most successful people will attest: they have lost far more times than they won. But when they won, it was glorious. And when they lost, it was glorious as well. Another opportunity to learn and deal.

Apparently we don't really want freedom of opinion

Freedom of Speech, Expression and Opinion is something mankind seems too ill-equipped and too immature to have.

We will shout what we think, and pan widely all which does not agree, never opening up a fair discussion. We mistreat our freedom, by insulting, threatening others with different opinions, dismissing their arguments, basically taking away the freedom of opinion from our opponents. We actually are not interested in freedom of everyone’s speech, just our own. We want the certainty that other people hear us and do as we say accordingly.

We also apparently are not interested in taking responsibility for what we say. What we say is more important than what (bad) things might happen after. And if something bad does happen, suddenly we marginalize what we said in the first place: we didn’t expect things to escalate in such a way, or it wasn’t meant this way, or it was misinterpreted etc. 

We don’t take the time to form well-formed arguments. A tendency that grows, the more information we have to digest on a daily basis: there’s simply less time to think about and verbalize an argument. Some discussions touch real fundamental topics, which require a significant amount of time to fully constitute. However now we can hardly spend 140 english alphabet characters to form an argument. So the only thing people can do now is 1) make statements instead of arguments, and 2) make ‘em loud and controversial in order to stand out among the myriad other messages that are launched into the ether.


True freedom of opinion means having the opportunity to form your own opinion and continuously do so. The objective is not to convert as many people to follow your opinion, but to gather and exchange as much information, experience, and opinion as possible, arguing fairly, justly, with dignity and class to shape yours accordingly. 


True freedom means not being forced into having one or another opinion, but getting to one naturally through your own thought process and/or value system. True freedom is also growing, maturing, contributing, experiencing and living lives, and all the while having opportunities to change minds, yourself and others.


Until we understand freedom of speech, expression and opinion in this way, and remove ourselves from the damaging behaviours we exhibit (not taking responsibility, not opening discussions, not having good and fair discussions), I don't see we are mature enough as a species to have this at all. In fact, we probably don't want it in the first place.

Personalities I'm looking for in my team

The personality traits I seek (and gravitate towards) in people are very much the same as those that I seek in athletes: class, dignity, and sportsmanship; gratitude, humility, and the ability to display confidence without showing arrogance. I very much like athletes who understand their place in the big picture, appreciate it and embrace it. I like athletes  fighting back in the face in the face of adversity, I like scrappy.


Now of course there are athletes that are better than their peers by miles. The Michael Jordans, the Roger Federers, the Tiger Woods's, the Michael Schumachers, the Lance Armstrongs of the world. Superstars with laser-like focus on perfection, religious dedication to their craft, and supreme superhuman talent. In short, excellence and dominance beyond belief. 


I recognize this kind of excellence, but only the very elite few will ever reach it. These are the people whom you expect will succeed, and win all the time. These are the people who set the example, who blaze the trail, who take the lead. But these are not the people that make up the bulk of your team. 


Call me charitable, but I am a bigger supporter of the scrappy athlete, because the general population can relate more to him. And a victory seems to mean more to them than to the superstars (even though that might not be true), because they can only get so many opportunities to get one.


And in work and in life, I think it is the same. I know the people who are truly masters and zealots of their domain win more often than not, but I will never have a team consisting of only Steve Jobs's. These people are singular for a reason and therefore not hard to find. It's the dignified, quietly confident, humble, and scrappy people that you need in your team, but take the longest to find and the hardest to develop.

Excellence is boring

If you're a world class athlete it's hard to please everyone. You pride yourself on excelling, outperforming, dominating and winning. But people will deride you for it. Roger Federer for the longest time was the best tennis player in the world, and he was also - to me at least - extremely boring. Guys like Nadal, Roddick were more fun to see play, and root for.

The Spanish football team is without question the best football team in the world. They have the playing style that few if any can emulate. And by now their games are probably the most boring to watch. I'd rather watch England, Portugal, Brazil possibly. They are flawed, far from perfect, but much more entertaining to see.

LeBron James is arguably the best basketball player in the world, but after making some dubious decisions - the Decision for one - he's the basketball player everybody loves to hate... until this past week when he won the NBA title after several failed attempts.

Point is, excellence is boring. Domination is not entertaining. People root for people they can relate to, and - unless you're from the country or region a superstar or a team is from - athletes who are flawed are more recognizable to the general audience than the ones who are seemingly transcendent.

Musically Disconnected

There comes a point in every person's life when he or she loses his or her connection to what's popular music. People had this with Rock & Roll, Rap, Dance music, where the young sought to express themselves against their elders, their parents, against the establishment. But at some point, and through no fault of your own, youth becomes the establishment, and something else will come along that replaces youth.

Now this month it has happened to me. I am no longer part of the popular culture. I am now conventional. My music tastes have peaked. Dubstep defeated me. It just sounds like noise and flashy lights to me. I can't listen to it without going mad. It doesn't make sense to me, much like hardstyle and heavy metal didn't make sense to my parents. I can't move at the bpm without twisting my ankle.

I'm officially musically disconnected from a teenager or twenty-something, unlike a Simon Cowell who caters to the tastes of the youth well into his fifties. Then again he gets paid to do that kind of thing.

Committed to the High Street

I do feel sad if high street retail continues to decline. Always been a fan, wouldn't like to see it go, but it is increasingly becoming inevitable. I understand now a bit more why. 


Now when you, the consumer want to obtain a good or a service, you need to pay. There’s money involved which you need to commit to obtaining the good/service you want. There’s also a duration between the moment you commit money, and the moment you acquire, more accurately, consume the good/service. That duration is critical.


People like to keep the duration as short as possible. Instant consumption. Or even better, consume first, pay later - like in an up-scale restaurant. For various reasons some goods/services have a long money commitment, like furniture, a house, a car, health care. Even if you don’t pay a full amount of cash upfront, you still need to commit to the whole amount at some point.


High Street retail only works if that commitment remains short, or at least cannot be offered shorter. Restaurants - home deliveries notwithstanding - have a place there. Luxury goods, jewelry, artwork too. (Because when was the last time you were comfortable with paying $25.000 for a watch you have only seen a picture of.) 


High Street retail doesn't work for entertainment media anymore, like music, movies and video games. The digital route is increasingly a more viable alternative to consume the good, opposed to traveling all the way up to the high street and picking it up in person. Even ordering via a website and having the media delivered is a better alternative nowadays. Strangely enough clothing is also heading this way.



Also the mindset of people is changing. Rather than pay-to-own, people realize that owning a good makes no sense if you don't actually get to USE it. Especially in rough economic conditions, people are more conscious what they actually spend time on. And owning something for the sake of owning increasingly becomes the luxury of only the rich and famous. So too will be the visit to High Street retail.

The Death of the Walking Encyclopedia

A close friend of mine is best described as the "walking encyclopedia". He knows the weirdest, most exotic facts, its history, its etymology, and related terms at any time of the day. Also he has the ability to tell all this in the most engaging, compelling way.

Strangely enough this friend of mine and I don't share direct interests. We walk in different social circles, have different hobbies, different ways of enjoying our free time. We were colleagues once and through these stories he tells, we remained friends.

With all this social media and ever-present digital connectivity going on I fear people of his ilk will soon no longer have a place in the community. We don't need a person in our circle to be a "walking encyclopedia". We have a smart phone for that now. And we care enough to share some esoteric facts, we just tag, snapshot, post a link on our twitter. In fact we don't need people to tell us in conversation where they've been and what they've done. I can look that up on foursquare, instagram or facebook.

Forget these old fashioned friendships now... we will find out soon enough we already make public 70% of our conversation topics, and the other 30% is either embarrassing, or plain old boring.

Since when is a small house an inappropriate analogy

Multi-billion dollar companies in this market obviously need to be very conscious about their spending, their investments, their budgets. People get upset when banking executives for example get million dollar bonuses, while entire divisions get laid off. Companies should indeed pay due diligence what they are assigning money to.

But when deciding that, they should have apt and fitting arguments to do so. The next time I hear a budget owner (in a multi-billion dollar company remember) complain about a 150K budget, and drawing a parallel to the cost of a small house or a fairly expensive sports car, that person will catch a shit storm of angry home/car owners. Obviously 150.000 dollars in any shape or form is real money, but its weight is several orders of magnitude different for a single consumer, than for a DJ exchange listed Fortune 500 company.

150K for such a company is not the same as 150K for you and me personally. So don't dare compare the two by looking at a commodity at that price. 150K for such a company is chump change. It's navel lint. A company's creative bookkeeping can probably already net you that amount. I have to work VERY HARD to get to that kind of money. Don't insult my time and effort by making decisions based on analogies that simply don't hold a candle.

People ask companies to be careful with money, which is all well and good. They should also be careful with respecting that money, and not simply write it off with an inappropriate analogy.

Humbled

Just for some perspective, everybody should browse through Scale of the Universe 2 at least once.

If you don't come out of that experience humbled, you don't have your head screwed on correctly.