Gordon Ramsay's ultimate recipe for business

Gordon Ramsay's ultimate recipe for business

Written by Chris Seper for Linkedin.com

I'd never watched Gordon Ramsay's shows until three weeks ago. But I'm suddenly addicted to early-run, British versions of his infamous "Kitchen Nightmares" series. All these episodes essentially feature entrepreneurs in peril. Amid the bad food, slow service and angry customers, there's a universal lesson Ramsay is sharing. Entrepreneurs, business leaders and ambitious employees need to heed the underlying advice.

The nightmarish restaurants all have their own unique problems. But one thing typically vexes them all: things are just way too complicated. Often it's a menu with too many entrees. Other times, it's recipes with too many ingredients. The complexity of these restaurants keep owners and employees from fulfilling their core mission: to create great food efficiently enough to feed a lot of people which, in turn, lets them feed themselves with the with money they make.

In one episode, Ramsay challenges a stubborn chef to a competition to make broccoli soup (6:44). The chef pours 16 ingredients into his version, it takes forever to make, has a sewage color and, worst of all, you can barely taste the broccoli.

Ramsay's version? Broccoli, water and salt. It was a lush forest green. The other chef admitted it tasted much better. Best of all, it was quick and inexpensive. It is a dish that can be done better, faster and cheaper.

So much of what we do in business is broccoli soup. Once the company has identified the need and built its plan, it's time to make the soup. But so many of us are well educated, ambitious, academically curious and eager to show it. So we wind up tossing all of our mental ingredients into every broccoli soup we make. It's the ultimate trap. We recreate the wheel instead of relying on our systems. We wind up feeding fewer customers and, as a result, struggle to feed ourselves.

There's another downside, too. When it does come time to make your company's version of a soufflé, you can't pull it off because you've spent so much energy complicating the simpler products.
Some are turned off at the simplicity. But there is also a magnificence in executing a plan with such focus and efficiency and "feeding" so many people.


Call it the KISS principle. Call it good systems. But in the end, we're making broccoli soup. Find the need, create a recipe, and keep serving.