Real-Life Decision Making
Busy kitchens are unpredictable places. Anything can happen.
It's Saturday night, and your restaurant is packed. The sous chef is sick
and the restaurant is two servers down because they're sick, too.
Then, the dishwasher backs up. Water is leaking all over the floor. With
servers trying to get past while balancing plates, it seems like the worst
thing that could possibly happen. As the chef, you need to find a solution,
and quick. Then, when you think nothing else could go wrong, the fire alarm
goes off for no reason.
Matt Rissling is an executive chef. He says this kind of thing happens.
Therefore, decision making skills are critical.
"If you can learn from your mistakes, good," he says. "If you can avoid
the mistakes in the first place, even better. There are so many variables
that you need to have good critical decision making skills, you need to be
able to adapt, and you need to be able to do it with often zero notice. You,
as a chef, are always making decisions based on your experience and best judgement."
What do you do?