Yesterday night, while having dinner I was flipping through
channels on the television. Suddenly I stopped. This is what I heard!
“You are the worst general manager I have ever seen. You are
such a fake.” Gordon Ramsay to the general manager of a restaurant in New York.
Students. Gordon Ramsay. Why are you writing this post. How are they related?
First things first, a little background information
Who is Gordon Ramsay?
He is a Scottish celebrity chef, restaurateur and television
personality. His television shows on cooking and restaurants are quite popular.
What is the show
about?
In each episode, of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, he
visits one failing restaurant, finds out what the problem is and tries to make
things better for them in one week’s time. There is lots of drama in each show.
Lots and lots of drama.
“I've had a phenomenal 10 years making
123 episodes, 12 seasons, shot across 2 continents, watched by tens of millions
of people and sold to over 150 countries.” Gordon Ramsay on his experience filming the show. So what in the world,
can you learn about learning and education from a television show? It seems
like you can learn a lot, at least from this show.
________
The episode that I got a chance to view was about an Indian restaurant in New York called Dillon’s. Watch the episode here
Problems
with the restaurant
There were a
variety of problems with the restaurant. The food was not good and the menu was
not great. The staff was not well trained, and the restaurant did not have good
interiors. The kitchen was unhygienic and the cooks and waitresses had a
communication problem.
Solutions
to the problem
So Gordon comes in, he is shocked to
see the lack of professionalism in the restaurant So he brings in one of New
York’s top Indian chefs, Mr Vikas Khanna to help re design the menu. They
change the menu, change the interiors, give the employees a pep talk, do the
right promotion around town and are now ready for a new start.
At the end of the episode, the
restaurant is shown with a full house of customers, Vikas in control of the
kitchen and the owner and employees ready for change and a new start.
Then I come across this article in the
dailymail.co.uk website, with this headline,
___________________
How
were Vikas Khanna and Gordon Ramsay different?
Because Vikas Khanna and Gordon Ramsay
were thorough world class professionals. The restaurant did well, until they
were in charge of it.
But once they were gone, even with the
superior facilities and new menu, the team at Purnima Dillon’s did not fare
well. Over time they were one of the restaurants that had to close down.
They had a better menu, better
ambiance, better interiors, better promotion. They seemed to have it all. What
was missing?
_______________
The
people…
The People that were truly world class at their art. The People that
were genuinely passionate about the Indian cuisine they wanted to serve. The
people that were crazily and madly in love with what they were trying to do
there. There are very few of these kind of people in the world. And the world
is in dire need of more of these kind of people.
_______________
Why did I
write this post?
I am a student. Certain things troubled me about the way I was being educated.
I started thinking about the several
thousand graduates that pass out of the colleges of our country every year. We pass out of undergraduate and post graduate courses in a variety of
different fields like engineering, hotel management, commerce, fashion
designing, media and more.
How many of us are really passionate about the courses we are studying? How many of us want to become the Vikas Khanna or Gordon
Ramsay of our fields? How many of us really want to make a world class
contribution to the evolution of the industry we work in over time?
This was a question Gordon Ramsey was going to ask me?
What was I studying
for, if I was not studying it to become world class in a field I was really
passionate about?
I did not want to answer this question till I got to
college, because it was not important as long as you scored a good grade
in class. But you can come out first in a school exam, without understanding
anything at all and just fake learning all of it. But you cannot follow the
same approach in the real world
If you want to fake your way through a job, you will always
bump into a Vikas Khanna or Gordon Ramsay in your industry or in your company.
These people have put in years to master and develop the skills for that job.
The big difference between them and most other individuals
in that industry, is that they are not
only trained academically or technically, but they are also Crazy Passionate
about the field. They would not mind working in a restaurant when they are
bored or when they have some free time.
Their work is their
leisure.
For Vikas Khanna and Gordon Ramsay the real joy is not only
the money they receive. The real joy is also the magic they create around
cooking good food. They take this very seriously. The time they spend with customers, the time they spend
mastering a new dish, the time they spend understanding a new cuisine, the
years they spend training for their job. This is the real joy for them.
The employees at the restaurant in New York were in it, only
for the economic rewards. They did not love what they were doing. So every customer
that came to the restaurant, could understand that the employees of that restaurant
were not really passionate about the craft. It is not too hard to see through a fake.
They respected the
craft enough to understand and become better at it.
Ramsay is good at what he does. He is world class at what he does. The idea is not to copy Gordon Ramsay, but to learn from the high degree of professionalism and standards of quality that he has for his work.
The restaurant employees on the other hand were very different. Their lack of professionalism showed that they did not
respect the craft of cooking and creating an ambiance around it. They did not
want to take it seriously, they did not want to develop the skills to become
world class at it.
This post included some of the reflections that went through
my mind as I saw the show that night. Here
is a short summary:-
There are two kinds of people in the world. There are people
that madly and crazily love the work they have committed their life to. Then
there are people that do the job, for money, acceptance and other external
factors.
Which one is more
likely to do better over time?
Robert Frost once wrote, “Two roads diverged in the woods,
and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
You are a student in school or college. You have the chance
to choose sides today.
Which side are you part of? Which path will you walk down? I made a decision. I decided to finally
ask myself these questions
Abhishek, What do you
love doing? Abhishek, How can you become world class at it?
Now stop wasting time and start doing it!
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