I’d never seen the show before. It’s on at a time I’m typically not in front of the TV. Plus, it not the kind of thing I’d usually watch.
I’m talking about Kitchen Nightmares, a reality show where chef Gordon Ramsay spends a week in a failing restaurant in order to get it headed in the right direction.
The TV was on in the background as I was busy tapping away on my laptop. But I’m a sucker for good story, and got sucked into the show quickly. This particular episode had all the elements of a good story.
Chef Ramsay, in his no-nonsense style, had quickly figured out that the chef of this restaurant that he was called in to save was horrible. It was an Italian resto, and the chef couldn’t even make meatballs properly!
Ramsay advised the owner, Tatiana, to fire the chef, as he was a major cause of the restaurant’s failure. Tatiana was clearly in a quandary—she appeared to “idealize” her chef, an older man from the “old country”, and had put him on a pedestal, for whatever reason.
And, she’d become the chef’s friend over the last 10 years. Fire the chef?? You could see her disbelief at Ramsay’s words, stunned like the proverbial deer in the headlights. How could she possibly betray this dear man?
Yet, knowing that chef Ramsay was the expert who was seeing things that she couldn’t see, Tatiana eventually accepted the reality that this move needed to happen.
Keep the chef and see the restaurant die a certain death, or let him go and have a chance at a restaurant that thrives.
With chef Ramsay’s word’s still ringing in her ears, she went straight into the kitchen before she had a chance to talk herself out of it, and had perhaps the most difficult conversation of her life.
Tearfully, and with a broken heart, she regretfully dismissed the old chef.
What about you? Is there something that you need to let go of?
By letting the chef go, Tatiana saved her restaurant. She executed the hard choice and saw her business flourish as never before.
This is the skill of letting go. Yes, it is a skill—a crucial life skill. It’s an ability, and as such, can be learned and developed.
The skill of letting go is just as relevant in our professional lives as it is in our personal lives.
Many leaders are not as effective as they could be simply because they have difficulty letting go of things: people, pet projects, or philosophies that don’t work are just a few examples.
In fact, anytime you see your company or organization stuck and struggling, I’m willing to bet there is something some decision-maker is not letting go of that really needs to be released.
If we aren’t able to let go of things that are destroying us or our business, or are toxic to us in some way, or just aren’t working anymore, then we are causing our ship to sink.
Maybe the sinking occurs little by little, as with a slow leak. Or maybe all at once, like the Titanic.
Either way, we need to get good at letting go of those things that keep us stuck, drain us unnecessarily, move us away from our goals, or perhaps even destroy us.
Otherwise, we need to be prepared to suffer the consequences.
So once again, what do you need to let go of?
--Sean Cox, Chicago