Tip, Already!
The roar you heard a few minutes ago was the ovation for Anthony Bourdain, a thoroughly enjoyable keynoter, if a little unusual for this sort of meeting. He had us all in hysterics and managed to make a few salient points, as well (Amy Smith summarized them nicely). At the end he took a number of questions from the audience -- in fact, it may be the first time I've been in a session like this where the audience loudly said "awwww" when someone indicated the questions were coming to an end.
The questions covered a wide range, from the Lebanon story Amy described, to an audience member's question as to what Bourdain has against vegetarians ("I like vegetables," he said, "especially when they're cooked in duck fat"), to immigration reform ("I think we need to be honest," Bourdain said, "we're talking about between 17 and 70 percent of the restaurant and hospitality workforce, depending on what region of the country we're talking about. Amnesty, at least. Or we don't eat.").
A couple of the points he made in reference to leadership lessons from the kitchen:
Bad decisions are better than no decisions. A chef needs to be decisive because in the high-pressure world of the kitchen, there is no time to dither. Better to make a decision and stick to it. If it's wrong, you can analyze it later. This ties into a lot of research lately that shows that being decisive -- being able to see a path, make a decision, and stick to it -- can actually be more valuable to an organization's performance than whether or not the decision was objectively "the right one" to make.
To inspire loyalty, the team members have to see the leader work hard. Nobody wants to be led by a dilettante who wanders in and out of the workplace. Bourdain had to make the tough decision to give up his chef position to handle his new media duties, because he didn't be one of those chefs who sort of shows up once in a while -- refusing to give up the chef title but not really doing any of the work. Team members want to know that they're being asked to work hard by someone who's working even harder.
And finally during the q&a session, Bourdain made clear his opinions on his former employer, the Food Network, and their current uber-star Rachael Ray. "$40 a day," he snorted. "Tip, already!"