Top Chef Masters: The Good, The Bad and The Guilty

I noticed on a recent episode of “Top Chef: Masters” that there is a significant difference between the way these seasoned, successful chefs treat failure and the way the normal reality show contestant acts when faced with the judges’ panel. It’s a good lesson for most executives, (whether they watch reality TV or not).

In most cases when someone goes before the judges on a reality show they do one of four things. They claim it wasn’t really a problem, they provide reasons why they really aren't unhappy with the outcome, they blame something or someone else, or they act like what we know happened didn’t really happen. We can call these the Justify, Rationalize, Excuse and Deny strategies. The trouble is, trying to Justify, Rationalize, Excuse or Deny when we know something went wrong just makes things worse. It makes people want to argue with you so that you “get it”, or it makes them want to punish you so that you “get what’s coming to you”.

A key issue that many executives don’t know how to deal with well is the presence of regret. Regret is when you think something like “how much better this would have been if it had turned out another way.” It's OK to feel and express regret. Regret isn’t the same as guilt. Guilt is when you not only regret something, but feel morally responsible or worthy of punishment. For example, if you hit a child who runs out from between parked cars you would naturally feel regret…but if you were speeding or driving under the influence you should probably feel guilty as well.

When people feel guilty they should ‘fess up and face the consequences. When people feel guilty and don’t want to take responsibility, or feel the consequences exceed what they are prepared to face, they Justify, Rationalize, Excuse and Deny.

The Top Chef Masters certainly made mistakes and did things the judges might have found questionable. One very well known chef cooked his pasta in the bathroom, (you have to see the episode). Another froze all his fresh produce before the contest started. However, although both chefs expressed regret, in the sense that they would have preferred things to have happened differently, neither acted guilty. Consequently, the judges didn’t feel the need to argue with them, or punish them.

Most of us make mistakes, and when we do we should be prepared to face consequences without attracting undue argument or punishment. We should regret what happened, and accept the consequences without acting guilty. The way the master chefs acted was exactly the way to do this.

First, they acknowledged what happened without shrugging it off. Again, think of our driver who has hit a child in the road. We would be shocked and angry if the driver’s response was too glib, or didn’t appropriately acknowledge that we all would rather the child weren’t hit. Imagine if the driver said something like “well it’s really too bad but it’s not my fault…it’s not like it was my responsibility not to drive in the road rather than that negligent child or parents’ fault.” Ouch! Instead, our top chefs admitted what they had done and definitely didn’t downplay what happened or shrug it off.

Secondly, they agreed it would have been better otherwise, and expressed appropriate regret. In Top Chef Masters the chefs come before a panel of judges who have eaten their food and sat among their customers. If something the chefs have done affected the judges personally, they apologize, and express regret. A simple “I’m sorry about that” goes a long way to disarm the Argue/Punish response.

Finally, if you watch the episode carefully you see the third element of the chefs’ way of handling their mistakes. They remain quietly optimistic about the future. Either they say they learned from their mistake, (that chef will check the fridge again before he risks freezing his produce), or they put the mistake in context, (obviously the chef who cooked in the bathroom did so because of the extreme circumstances of the setting, not because he thought it was a good place to cook).

I have often seen successful executives take this one step further if they are going to have an ongoing relationship with the “judge”. Sometimes we make a mistake and the person we end up discussing it with is our boss, our colleague or our customer. When that happens it’s good to take the approach of “how can we make this better”. This ONLY works once you’ve gone through the first three steps, (Acknowledge, Express Regret and Behave Optimistically), otherwise you just set off the Argue/Punish response. Note also the “we”. I describe it as mentally getting you both on the same side of the table. Adopt the attitude that you’re going to sit side-by-side with this person and figure out what will improve the situation.

Good executives make mistakes. If they don’t they’re probably not trying hard enough. When they do it’s important they NEVER resort to one of the guilty behaviors, (Justify, Rationalize, Excuse and Deny). Instead, it’s OK to express what's appropriate in the circumstances, (Acknowledge the situation without shrugging it off; Express regret with an apology where appropriate; Be quietly optimistic about the future). Where an ongoing relationship is involved, the good executive knows the importance of engaging the other in making the situation better.

Aristotle and corporate coaching: An unlikely mix?

I’m often asked at parties and business gatherings what it is exactly that I do. My work has a broad scope that makes it difficult to summarize. I trained for six years to become a psychologist, and had a career after that as a corporate executive for over fifteen years before striking out on my own. It’s hard to summarize my work for my clients in a simple sentence. The hardest thing to describe is the leadership coaching work I do. I have tried different formulations: at the end of this article is what I think is a neat sentence summarizing the work of the corporate coach.

I was reading one of my journals recently and came across some material on Aristotle and his philosophy. I’m going to suggest that Aristotle fits the bill as the first example of the work of a corporate coach. He was a simple man who served as teacher and guide to three kings, including Alexander The Great. He had to make his advice straightforward, serve it up with humility, and make sure it worked. That sounds a lot like the work of a corporate coach. So how might Aristotle sum up his role?

Let’s start with this idea: The role of the leader is to create the environment in which everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential. This is not some new age philosophy. You want people to do their best, and to do their best they have to reach their full potential.

Aristotle isn’t talking about businesses or corporate organizations, he’s talking about the role of the leader to develop the citizens in their state, but the basic idea is the same. “Help people reach their full potential”. The bottom line is that this is as good a formulation of the role of the leader as you’re likely to see anywhere. It’s simple, it’s timeless, and it beats “people are our most important asset”.

Ok…so here’s the second big idea. Aristotle’s “clients” were the leaders and future kings of Athens and ancient Greece. He saw his role as helping them reach their full potential. What’s more, he wanted them to be able to do the same for their people. So Aristotle had a simple “three step program” to help someone reach their potential.

Step one: Help them become a person of practical wisdom. Aristotle called practical wisdom “the happy medium between two extremes”. A simple example can illustrate what he meant. I occasionally have clients who have become quite senior, but who still have time management issues. They struggle to maintain a good calendar, projects can be derailed because significant milestones are missed, and it’s harder for them than it should be to keep track of their various obligations.

To begin to correct this I help them learn about the extremes of time management, understanding what happens when too little effort is made, and the consequences of becoming overly burdened by an inflexible set of obligations. In the middle is a happy medium. Between being completely locked into a calendar or totally out of control there is a happy place where you have a simple system to prioritize obligations with enough flexibility to meet every day circumstances. If you study the fundamentals it’s easier to see the pay-offs for just the right amount of effort.

Step two: Find a good role model. Aristotle called these people phronemos. They’re not the same as a coach or teacher or mentor. They are people who have achieved success in a particular field, or practice a skill well. They provide an opportunity to study practical wisdom in practice by observing their success.
For my time management challenged clients good role models often include many of their peers and colleagues, and even some of their clients. They could certainly just passively observe how these people juggle their obligations successfully. More often I suggest they kill two birds with one stone. I recommend they approach these role models directly and asks them how they do it. My clients learn something valuable and build stronger relationships at the same time.

Step three: Learn from experience. Aristotle is no armchair philosopher. He completely believed in observation, evidence, and the role of experience. I often tell clients that “people don’t learn from experience”. What I go on to add is that people only learn from reflecting on their experience. To do anything well you need to practice, reflect on what happened, and build your learning into your next trial so that you continuously improve.

In a nutshell, these three steps are 90% of the work of the corporate coach: Help your clients see the fundamentals in a situation, point them in the direction of good role models, and get them to practice, practice, practice.

60 Second Guide to Performance Agreement Meetings

Organizations are emphasizing the importance of multiple sources of information when doing performance reviews and giving performance ratings to your employees. A great source of information that will help you understand your team’s performance and help them to improve is an open discussion about your employees' performance with your manager and peers. Over the next 60 seconds, we'll bring you up to speed with the latest way to help your employees reach their maximum potential.

0:60: What is a Performance Agreement meeting?

A Performance Agreement Meeting is the formal name for a discussion between a manager and one or more of their supervisors where they come to an agreement about performance ratings before the supervisor meets with their employees. They are also called One-Up Meetings, Performance Calibration Meetings and Performance Consensus Meetings.

0:54: Why bother?

We know that one of the things that is most important to employees is a sense they are being treated equally and fairly in the workplace. Performance ratings have such a huge impact on career development, job opportunities and work distribution. It’s important that every employee feels they are being judged by the same standards.

0:48: You mean it’s like diversity?

Exactly. We’re used to diversity requirements that ensure we treat employees equally and without fear or favor based on their race, gender or age. Ensuring performance ratings are applied equally by different supervisors is just an extension of the same principle.

0:42: Don’t I already have enough information?

Perhaps. The truth is supervisors don’t always get it right. There are at least three reasons why you might not have the right information to rate your employee alone. Sometimes other people see different things you do…we all know employees who behave differently around their boss, for better and worse. Sometimes you have a different “yardstick” to everyone else…what you call unreasonable may be OK by the rest of the group, and vice versa. Finally, sometimes supervisors are just wrong. Our own judgments aren’t always right and it’s wise to have a second, or even a third and fourth opinion to take into account.
0:36: Won’t it take too long? It doesn’t sound very practical…
The key is to focus on short, practical discussions without lengthy procedures and processes.

0:30: Does this mean my managers don’t trust me? Don’t I know my employees best?

The process works best when there is openness and trust. It’s about helping, supporting and developing supervisors so they can do their job more easily and develop their careers. Managers know supervisors have the best knowledge of their employees’ performance. That’s why they want to be involved through the process. They don’t just want to know when there is a problem, they also want to know when people do well.

0:24: OK, but how do we get the conversations going?

First, the ground rules: there has to be confidentiality and trust. Be open to hearing what others say about your employees, and be prepared to share your view of their performance. Use the discussion as an opportunity to get more input and prepare better feedback for your employees.

0:18: So what are some good discussion starters?

Use these simple starting points for your discussions:

1. The Start-Up Test: Who would you take with you to start up a new role, department, or company.
2. Riding, or Pulling the Wagon: Talk about who you think the employees would judge is pulling their fair share, and who is “riding in the wagon”.
3. The Incredible Shrinking Job: Some people seem like perfectly good performers, but we make allowances for them so that their job shrinks each year. Maybe they don’t know how to use the latest technology, or they’ve been here a long time and no-one wants to rock the boat by asking them to stretch themselves. Which of our employees has an Incredible Shrinking Job?

These three exercises give an opportunity to explore the manager’s view, the peer view and the market view respectively. With the first test, really look closely at identifying the top two or three. With the wagon test review 360 feedback where available and other data to support the “riding or pulling” decision. Finally, really look at your employees and decide if they are still as valuable as we thought they were when we hired them, and how would the market value them today.

0:12: What happens next?

At the end of the day the final rating the employee gets is still the responsibility of the supervisor. After an open One-Up Meeting with your manager and your peers you will have good feedback to know that your ratings are fair and consistent with how others in your group are evaluated.

0:01: How do I arrange a Performance Agreement meeting to help me rate my employees?

Performance Agreement Meetings should be just a normal part of managing your staff. You can probably arrange discussions for a couple of hours two or three times a year with your manager to make sure your evaluations of your staff are fair and consistent. Get in touch with your manager, or if you would like to arrange meetings with your peers contact them or anyone in your Human Resources Department.


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Change Management Milestones

"We are embarking on a major change management project. Our implementation consultants are helping us with all the technical aspects of getting this done. We have project milestones for each of the major decision points. Are there some specific change management milestones we should build into our project plan?"

Yes! Many times the implementation team will focus on Go/No Go decisions that give special emphasis to executing the change in a way as technically efficiently as possible, without necessarily considering the effects on the people involved.

We know that people generally follow a predictable path when dealing with change and transitions. You can see the path in the diagram here, (click on the picture for a larger version). The stages are Denial, Anger, Self-Concern, Search For Meaning, Testing and Internalization. With small variations depending on methodology and circumstances we see these same stages in studies of people dealing with death and dying, dealing with workplace change, and dealing with divorce and marriage.

From corporate mergers to IT software implementations, it is often quoted that around 70% of change initiatives fail to meet their stated objectives. The top three reasons: Resistance to Change; Inadequate Sponsorship; and Unrealistic Expectations. A good change management or project implementation plan builds in milestones that specifically address the stages of change and reasons for failure.

Here are six milestones that help the Change Management team ensure that people make the transitions that will make the change easier and more likely to succeed.

1. We have adequately communicated the reasons for the project so that everyone is AWARE of the need for change.
2. We have created and communicated an engaging vision of the future so that people DESIRE the change.
3. We have identified legitimate concerns from everyone involved, and provided everyone with the KNOWLEDGE to address their concerns and contribute to project.
4. We have given people the ABILITY to participate, test and explore the options in the project and maximize its potential.
5. We have provided REINFORCEMENT and rewards so that people can own, internalize and celebrate the success of the project.

Think of these as Go/No Go statements where the team should only move on to the next step in the project if they can comfortably agree with the milestone statement.

The model known as ADKAR, (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement), is well researched and has been around for a long time. You can see from the diagram how the milestones fit in with the different stages of peoples’ reactions to change.

The vast majority of projects inadequately deal with resistance, lack of support and poor expectations. I worked on an HR project where we successfully changed the way 22,000 employees worldwide were given performance appraisals, and another where an Enterprise Requirements Planning system was implemented so successfully it became a case study at the vendors’ customer council. The milestones are practical, and provide structure to the planning team. Planning for the people side of change enables the technical side of change to occur effectively.

(Incidentally, the Return On Investment for engaging a change management expert and putting these milestones into place is enormous. Apart from minimizing the risk that the project will go wrong, you will maximize the speed and success of the project far in excess of the cost of any reasonable person you bring in to help.)

Feel free to download a copy to keep or distribute here. You can email me here with comments or leave a question or reaction below.