It Starts With Soap
by Rebekah Goldman
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It’s funny how it all starts with soap. How being in the thick of it all, scrubbing, cleaning, and sanitizing can lead to mastering the art of effectively managing teams.
Even as the Executive Chef, I always signed myself up to help with Sunday clean up. Truthfully, I liked Sundays. There was something humbling and rewarding about rocking out that many dishes and equipment that kept me grounded and reminded me of where I came from.
You could always tell when shit hit the fan the night before immediately after walking in. There were always stacks of sheet trays black as night with food crusted on them and smashed into hot boxes. There were endless amounts of plates and glassware and hundreds of 200 pans everywhere. On top of that, you had serving platters thrown into milk crates deliberately with a no f***s given attitude. It was apparent they couldn't get the oven to light; sheet trays were turned into rondos, and the hot box into an oven.
It was pretty impressive to see this messy mountain of chaos and how efficiently tackling it became like a science unto itself. First unload everything, stack it, and spread it out. Then put a crew on scrubbing the hot boxes, cambros, and unloading the trucks. Then another crew would scrub sheet trays while someone else soaks every item in every sink in the house. I didn’t understand in that moment how I was able to read people’s strengths and weaknesses so quickly and find them the right task. But now I understand it. When you spend a day with someone in the dishroom you learn a lot about them.
The biggest qualification I ever had in building my team was that you must care. Everything else can be taught. My attitude was “We start together, we finish together in the kitchen.” If the bakery needed help then we went to scoop cookies. If the hot side was in the weeds then we helped make skewers. I always made it clear that every job in the kitchen belonged to everyone. We are all capable of taking out the trash, sweeping, mopping the floor, peeling potatoes, and doing the dishes. Nobody clocked out until all the dishes were done and the entire kitchen was spotless.
It was everyone's responsibility to make sure this happened everyday. It was my job to lead by that example. Respect isn’t given, it's earned. But if you know how to earn it, you’ll have teams that will ride and die with you.
It’s amazing how these simple ‘rules” led to building a team of rockstars. There's real value in making everyone's job everyone's responsibility by cross training everyone on your team. Not only did that create strong teams, it also created opportunity. Opportunity to climb the ladder and create a better life for staff and their family. The opportunity to work towards an amazing career that they could love without having to sacrifice their personal life to get there.
It’s funny how it all starts with soap.
Rebekah Goldman is the founder of Taking The Wheel Consulting. She is a Hospitality Consultant and Business Coach that specializes in leadership, management, and team development.
She was born and raised in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Rebekah did the majority of the cooking for her family and her dad taught her to cook with the essentials and turn it into a dinner for a family of 5. Take a little bit of this, mix it with a little bit of that, and dinner is served!
Looking back, mastering the art of being able to see what something could become would shape her into a future leader and manager.
Rebekah went to culinary school in Pennsylvania and got her degree in Patisserie and Baking.
After graduating from there she worked her way up in various bakeries, restaurants, and country clubs. She then decided to move to Arizona where the sun always shines.
She found work in various restaurants and eventually landed a job as Executive Pastry Chef, which put her on a short path to become Executive Chef of a highly successful catering company. She was hungry to succeed and determined to build teams that could handle anything that came their way. She witnessed the industry take over so many lives and knew the solution to this problem was investing in teams and effective leadership.
She launched her business, Taking The Wheel, to help coach business owners and leaders on how to “Take the Wheel” of their life and their business by investing in team development using a “Leave Your Ego at the Door” training method. She also provides business services such as recipe development, menu execution, inventory management, and cost control to name a few.
“True Success Lies in the Success of Your Team” and we are an industry made up of people...so it's time to start focusing on our people again!
