Wednesday, September 10, 2008

A few things done well

I'm a great fan of Gordon Ramsay, the celebrity chef, who is known for his Kitchen Nightmares TV program amongst other things. In the show he turns up at a failing restaurant and tries to turn it around, usually shouting repeated expletives in the process. Following his initial observations of the staff & management, he suggests ways they can improve the business and a create a decent product & service. This quite often does actually work, usually if the people concerned follow the advice Chef Ramsay has dispensed.

But what is this wonderful advice then? What wisdom is it that means that restaurants can: cut costs, provide a better product and contribute to a good overall service?

It is to stop producing bad, lazy and fussy dishes. In other words make up a menu of only a few good meals from decent quality ingredients.

Aside from creating great TV, it also dishes out (no pun intended) a sensible set of rules that many companies beyond the restaurant market would do well to follow.
  • Base your offering on the talent you have in your organisation
  • Simplify your product offering or risk confusing your customer
  • Listen to comments, then act quickly and accordingly
  • Don't be afraid to listen to the specialist
Now where's the f&£$*ing difficulty in that?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Totally agree - the most common fault you will find, and you will see it in his programmes and in general business is that the "owner" or "chef" listens to the expert but disagrees because it does not fit in with their own very myopic view of what they think people want - which actually ends up being what they want from something - and absolutely nothing to do with what their customers and potential customers want.

Now before I go - remember the website has to be blue!

Hayden Sutherland said...

Elliefy

Yes, that's exactly what I was referring to. A self-referential customer/stakeholder is the worst type to have.

Owner:
"I don't like X, I like Y instead"
Expert:
"But your customers like X and will buy more of it"

Its when the owner then starts saying things such as: "I don't care, do Y instead! And make it blue while you're at it".

A prime case of myopia indeed.
Hayden

Anonymous said...

*cough* Philips *cough*

Maybe us consultants occasionally need to communicate more in Ramsay style: "$%^& you", "$%^& me", "$%^& off" ;-)

Having said that, maybe that doesn't work so well come billing time.

Hayden Sutherland said...

Boudewijn

I would love to approach certain projects with this attitude, but feel it may hinder rather than help in most cases.

The more people focus on getting the basics working well first, before moving onto more complex stuff... the better the world would be.

Unfortuately this doesn't always happen and we have to deal with the resulting situation with smiles, suggestions and sometimes swearing (if it will help).