Leadership Lessons from the Kitchen
They seem to have underestimated Anthony Bourdain's appeal considering the throngs of people lining the walls around the packed-out room. Bourdain himself seems somewhat surprised at his new role of management guru; he opened by saying that after he wrote an "obnoxious, testosterone-filled" memoir he was amazed to see it used as the basis for an article in the Harvard Business Review. And now here he is, speaking on management to an SRO crowd of association executives.
He starts off talking about employees. In the high-pressure, dysfunctional world of restaurants, Bourdain says that when he hires an employee, he looks for character. "I can teach them the skills," he says. "I can teach them to make hollandaise sauce later. But are they worth the investment?" (Of course he also admits that "young, fresh, naive and totally moldable" makes for a good candidate.)
"I don't care if you were up late last night worshipping Satan," Bourdain says, "as long as you're on time for work. You show up on time every day, almost everything else is negotiable."