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Chefs, Systems, and a Recipe for High Performance
I’ve always been inspired by witnessing great craftsmen in action. There’s something special about watching someone who is truly dedicated to their craft be in flow state and in their element. In fact, I’ve specifically been inspired by chefs. I don't claim to be a food expert, but I have a special appreciation for chefs like Anthony Bourdain, Dan Barber, Daniel Humm, and Mario Batali. I also appreciate the less famous chefs, like those who have served me fantastic home-cooked meals while I explored Greece, Italy, and Costa Rica.
To me, having an expertly prepared dish isn’t just about how good the meal tastes. It’s about all the work that went into getting that dish prepared. Quality chefs are high performers. As patrons, we get to enjoy their end product, but as we’ll get into this week, the preparation that chefs undergo to achieve that end result is both formulaic and can be universal – in other words, there is a “recipe” for high performance – one that we can learn from.
In my work with high performers, they often understand that hard work is fundamental. I have clients who are putting in 80+ hour weeks dedicated to their craft with no complaints. But these same clients lack something that I think is worthy of attention – they lack systems – and systems are one key ingredient in our recipe for high performance. Here are the top four system changes I work with high performers on developing:
System One – “Prepare Your Ingredients”
Whether you’re a high-performing athlete, coach, business owner, employee, or entrepreneur, you probably are overwhelmed with the amount of inputs that you get in a given week. It’s easy to get stuck in putting out fires, responding to emails as they come through, taking phone calls while you’re driving to the office, texting people on your team late at night.
The best high performers realize that approach is inefficient, and may even be ineffective. Before we head into a given week, I’ll work with high performers to look at their calendars not just one week in advance, but two, three, and maybe even four plus weeks in advance. We look at where we want things to go – on their time – not on everyone else's time. It’s a bit like taking all the ingredients you have for a meal and spreading them across a big kitchen table so you can see them. Chefs call this process “mise en place” or “everything in its place”.
So – before you head into December, I’d encourage everyone to find one hour on a Saturday or Sunday and put everything in its place for the upcoming month and into the New Year. Here are some key calendar holds you may want to think about using:
DNS: Do not schedule – these are blocks of times where you want to attend to your own personal matters before getting bogged down by work. Make sure you build these in well in advance of the week ahead. Also, build DNSs first, work everything else you need to do around your personal time, not the other way around.
Call or Email Holds: Rather than randomly responding to emails and phone calls, set aside time in your calendar where that task happens – of course, you can still pick up calls here and there, but this will allow your brain to know that if you miss a call or email, you’ll get back to them during these held spots on the calendar.
Meetings (Networking): If you’re an entrepreneur, or work in small teams, you want to find sacred times where meetings happen, preferably after the most important work you have to get done gets done. If you can, you should avoid having meetings as the first task of any day.
System Two – “Sequence Your Courses”
Timing matters. You wouldn’t want your entree to arrive at the same time the wait staff removes your appetizer plate. The same thing applies for high performance. I’m working with several high performers who have long term assignments, examinations, meetings, presentations, or deadlines. Many high performers thrive under pressure and could probably wait until the week of to prepare for these, but that’s not what I recommend.
We often work to sequence their approach in such a way where they’ll never be behind, they'll always be chipping away and most important, remain in control.
Here’s a key technique we use in our work together that you can use this week:
Time Estimate: It’s less important that we get the time allocation correct than it is that we actually have an estimate for how long certain tasks will take. For any major event, we estimate the amount of time it will take to prepare for it, and we usually plus it up by 10 to 15% to leave room for error. From there, we use our calendar from above to allocate time accordingly – never leaving our preparation up for chance, but sequencing it so that it builds towards the final product.
System Three – “Delegate”
Chefs don’t prepare all the meals, they have a host of supporting staff that help them accomplish the task. While high performers may not always have teams, they certainly don’t need to be doing everything, all the time, everyday. Using concepts like the Eisenhower Matrix, we work with high performers to sort what actually is a priority from what just feels like it would be important to get done.
Here’s how we actually do this in session:
Rank Order by Score & Time: some tasks take longer to complete than others, and some are just harder to complete than others. In our work together, we make sure we know which tasks you're most concerned about (we rank A to F on a confidence scale) AND which tasks are going to take the longest to complete (time estimate) – sometimes those are the same tasks, sometimes they’re not. We want the most attention and delegation for the longer and more difficult tasks.
System Four – “Do Less, but Better”
This one is more mental than it is anything else, but so many high performers I work with are all-out-effort individuals that it actually becomes a detriment to performance at times. Not only do high performers have a tendency to believe that more effort is better, they rarely have a second gear they can downshift to – if there’s a problem, it must be because they didn’t do enough – the solution? – more effort, of course! Not so fast. The most world-renowned restaurants that earn Michelin stars have mastered “harmony in flavor” – a recognition of chefs that are thoughtful about their pairing choices in each dish, not just perfect in their execution.
Here’s how we address this in sessions:
This is a mindset, not just a behavior: My team and I work with high performers to challenge their underlying belief that “more is better” and look to build in activities that are regenerative towards achieving outcomes. Additionally, we work with high performers to challenge their assumptions. Even the busiest high performers are probably not being as efficient with what they are choosing to work on as they could be. We are looking to cut just as much as we are looking to add by asking – is this really the most important thing you need to do today? Hint: what role are the relationships in your life playing towards allowing you to achieve your highest potential?
As we slowly creep closer to the New Year, it’s an important time for self-reflection. Have you been as focused as you’d like to be? Have you been as productive as you would have wished? Have you been able to maintain focus on the “main thing” and have kept it “the main thing”, or have you drifted and lost sight of what’s most important?
Now’s the time to learn from the best chefs in the world and develop your high-performance recipe. You can use what I’ve given you above, or come up with your own. If you would like my team and me to help you, just email me “RECIPE” and I’ll be in touch with you directly to chat!
Thanks for reading as always and if this resonates with you, share it with a friend!
Time to win the week 🏆
See you next week :)
– J
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