Analog Leader
Helping Supervisors and Managers become true People Leaders through human-centered, Analog skills.
Analog Leader
Jeremy Garcia
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In this episode of Analog Leader, Fritz Black sits down with Jeremy Garcia, Executive Pastry Chef at Stein Collection, to talk about what leadership looks like inside a high-pressure, five-star kitchen.
From last-minute guest requests to high turnover, demanding standards, and the pressure of creating unforgettable experiences, Jeremy gives a behind-the-scenes look at the human side of hospitality leadership.
And one thing I always tell my team members is like, you know what we don't do is we don't make excuses for things. Like we just we own it and we figure out how we're gonna solve the problem. If somebody you know didn't like the dessert, well, our goal is to figure out how do we provide what they want.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Analog Leader. Our guest today is Executive Chef Jeremy Garcia. Jeremy, welcome. Pledge to meet you. So tell me a little bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_01So uh as you said, I'm the executive pastry chef at the Stein Erickson Lodge in Park City, Utah. Um I've been in the field of pastry for about 20 years. I've been cooking for about 23. I've been uh up in Park City for about 10 years. Before that, I was in Colorado. Um I've spent most of my career in hotels. Um I've always loved the pastries that we can do in hotels because we're involved in so many different aspects of pastry. There's individual bakeries and restaurants, but I find hotels are very exciting because we get to do banquets and weddings and show pieces and chocolate work and fine dining desserts. So every part of pastry is present in a hotel, and that's kind of what's always driven me to hotels is that uh ability to make delightful, sweet uh creations for all of our guests.
SPEAKER_00We're gonna talk a lot about uh about that here as we go along. One of the things that fascinates me about your job is the fact that you you do work in a very high-end restaurant uh resort here in Utah. In fact, it was it was ranked uh number one ski resort in the world in 2025. And the quality is is an expectation of all the guests who come there. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that. But let's start off with how did you get into pastry? Tell me about your your training, your schooling, tell me a little bit about how did you start on this path.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So originally when I was in um high school, I never really had an interest in cooking. I actually really wanted to get into uh computer game design. And so I ended up pursuing a degree uh in computer science and really enjoyed that for the first couple of years. But I think it was the senior year that I was in uh college where we were wrapping up one of our senior projects that I realized I really liked working with my hands a lot more and that I was spending a lot of time kind of like just creating things and actually like cooking a lot on the side, and I got this interest in going to culinary school and kind of pursuing that as a path. I went to the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco for a year, and I got a degree originally in uh savory cooking. And so I took maybe two baking and pastry classes and did that for about a year, and then after I graduated, uh started working in some small hotels and quickly realized that pastry was really exciting to me because there was a lot of artistry and science and math of, I guess, of all things involved in it. And that creative uh part of pastry really interested me. And, you know, got a side job uh while I was working at the hotel, got a side job at a small bakery, learned how to make wedding cakes, and then kind of took over as pastry chef and then stuck with pastries for the last 20 years. And every year I'm always trying to learn new things, had the chance to work under some fantastic chefs, uh, you know, taught me a lot through the years. And after all these years of you know learning and growing and developing, I feel I'm at a point now where I've got you know a really great team, learned how to train team members and how to build people up. And what's exciting to me now is bringing in uh new employees and teaching them how to do amazing skills so that they can also pursue their passions in uh in making PGs.
SPEAKER_00So would you say that the people that you worked for had a lot to do with where you're at right now?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, there's there's a lot that you can uh teach yourself. I think for the first maybe eight, ten years of my career, a lot of my knowledge is coming about through kind of just self-discovery and reading books and you know, trying to watch videos and going out and seeing things. But it really wasn't until I got like a great mentor uh that I could work under that really was able to kind of like take me to that next level. And um working for a couple chefs uh specifically in pastry, and then after them working for a couple uh executive chefs who have you know very clear visions and goals. I think having those mentors that can help take some of the skills you've got and then give you a focus and direction um can really take you to places you never thought you could you could get to. So I think it's those mentors that really, really help you uh get to the next level.
SPEAKER_00So those mentors you speak of, tell me some of the qualities that they had, some of the uh profound differences that they made for you in the way that they dealt with you as an individual.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think maybe uh three areas, I guess I could think of. I think the not the first one would be a different perspective. I think perspective is something that is really important to have in, I mean, not just in the cooking industry, but probably in every industry, to be able to see things from and how to solve problems from multiple viewpoints. Because you can have plenty of experience in your career and figure out, okay, this is how we solve this problem. But then having someone new that comes in that's kind of done not just that, but a couple other ways, and showing you, oh, we can also do it this other way, can really like rapidly accelerate your ability to problem solve. Uh, having someone that can give you kind of like clear guides, guidelines, and kind of use you a bit as a tool and say, here's the challenge that we're gonna take care of, someone that can look at you with an objective lens and say, hey, here's your strengths and here's your weaknesses, and here's how we can focus on those strengths and help them grow and then kind of push that. But then also someone who can like set an example of what you could become with the right uh focus. It's easy to think like, oh, I'm assuming someday I want to be this amazing um pastry chef, but unless you actually know how to get to those steps or have someone that can kind of lay out the guideline or the framework to do that, it can be really challenging to do that on your own. So having having a mentor who can kind of do those three things, whether it's setting an example, giving you a unique perspective on things, and then kind of like challenging you and pushing you with that objective lens, I think all three of those are are the what I've been lucky to have with uh the mentors in my in my past.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell So a lot of trust given to you in those kind of situations.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00I think that pastry is a very unique. Yeah, I mean, you said it's it's part mathematics and chemistry and everything else. It's it's very unique to be a pastry chef. You know, like I I like to cook, but I can't do pastry. It's just way too exact, it's way too much chemistry for me. I you know, when you're when you're started out in that, there's a certain amount of if I mess this up in the early stages, I've lost a whole batch of whatever it is I'm working on.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. There there's a lot of uh understanding that has to go into knowing what's what's happening. And like you said, it's it's it's funny that there is a lot of science involved in in pastry, because I think it's it's not just like chemistry, but it's like physics. And if you get into like yeast, it's like biology too. So like I've always been like super fascinated in in science. It's kind of been one of the things that's been really kind of pushed a lot of my uh uh interest throughout my life is learning about things. Um and having um those uh challenges um through these different industries, uh, like physics and chemistry and and biology, those can help you better understand what we're working with. I think for a large part of the history of cooking, I think a lot of chefs and bakers really had no idea what was happening. They kind of had some lucky accidents and then they figured some things out. And then over time, I think you start to build this kind of lore about oh, if we put this bread on top of this oven on a Saturday at the certain time, it's gonna proof up just correctly. Once we start to understand how the science is actually working, then it helps us understand, like, oh, that's why that their bread was proofing so well in that specific location or why this specific type of water works. So being able to use uh the advances of science to understand what the recipes are doing can like unlock this understanding of what of what's happening. And that's one of the big things I'm always working with with our team members is get them to understand why this temperature works, why does you have to mix the bread in this way, why do we have to bake it in such a way, why do we have to make a ganache or chocolate in a specific way? And getting them to understand the why is super helpful to get them to make that perfect product. Because I can I can give somebody a very detailed list and recipe, but unless they understand like why they're doing all those steps, it might not come out the same way all the time. And I think it it's it's great to speak to people who are amateur bakers, people that bake at home, um, because a lot of the problems that they face, once they understand like what's happening, then that helps them adapt whatever they're doing to their home environment so that you know things can can work out correctly.
SPEAKER_00So, how much trial and error did you go through in your young career?
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh, so much. It's just like constant like errors and mistakes. And I think that's one of the things about being a leader is you have to like mess up a lot of things, um, not deliberately, but just you got to see how many different ways you can mess something up to understand when a team member has a problem, you know the solution to that. I think a there's probably two great examples. I think the first one is macaroons, and the second one is bonbons. They're both these things that look really simple, but macaroons are incredibly uh finicky. And if you don't have the right temperature, the right humidity, if you don't have the right flour, you don't have the right handling technique, you can easily mess them up in tons of different ways. And most people, when they see a macaroon, they see a perfect macaroon. They see one that was, you know, made in a shop that looks great. They just assume, oh, this is going to be so easy, not realizing how many ways you can mess it up. And until you, as a chef, mess it up all those different ways and understand why it's getting messed up. If you have an employee who's doing it and they keep having problems and you can't figure out why, well, that you need to make those mistakes so that you get it. And so I think mistakes can be disheartening, but like having that ability to keep moving through them, it's gonna help teach you so that down the road, you're gonna be able to help someone else overcome that problem. So if someone has a problem where, oh, these backgrounds aren't working or the bomb belts aren't coming out right. It's like, oh, I I know why I did that mistake myself. And this is this is what you do. So it ends up becoming a great like teaching tool to like help you have those consistent results that you need.
SPEAKER_00I like to tell people they don't learn anything from success. Success teaches us nothing. Right. It's the lack of success, the mistakes that we make. That's where the learning is, right?
SPEAKER_01Right. I would totally agree with that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So as you're as you're coming up through the ranks and learning your skill and getting better at it, what moved you into a position where you were then starting to lead people?
SPEAKER_01So I think um so one of my first jobs, I was kind of uh the pastry chef. I didn't really have a full department. It was like I was the pastry cook and the pastry chef and the baker and all of the roles in one. I was responsible for all the pastries, um, which is is fun. You have a lot of freedom, you have uh ability to do things, but there are limits on that, um, that career and like what you can do with that. And being able to take your knowledge and then teach other people to do that, so then you can take that program, take it to other places, requires you to go to a larger property or a more successful property. And so moving up through properties and moving up through positions has given me the chance to develop my skill set and then take the things that I've learned and be able to share that with people and watch them grow. And and that has unlocked this great joy in like watching people learn things and then achieve amazing things on their own. Um, at the Stein uh Erickson Lodge, we have a pretty comprehensive program with the Colmar Institute of America. We bring out a lot of uh externs that come with us and they'll be with us for three to four months at a time. We do about three rotations a year, and we'll bring in uh, and at least at the pastry shop, anywhere between two and four students at a time. And every time we bring them in, we're training them and coaching them and helping them kind of start their career and teaching them what to do. And watching them grow in that short time can be incredibly rewarding to watch people who come in who've maybe never even worked in a kitchen before. And then by the time they leave, they're making, you know, amazing pastries and they can go back to school and do amazing things. And we've had a number of those team members have come back afterwards and been full-time team members. And I've got uh a great friend who's also become an executive pastry chef at a uh another hotel here in Utah. And originally she started out as one of our externs and like helping her kind of grow and develop her career and being there and becoming great friends with her has just been this amazing experience and a lot of fun and like helping watch people grow and helping kind of build the future of the industry. I think there's lots of chefs who want to have their name out there attached to some neat pastry. I want to I try to be someone who's helping kind of build the team members that are out there kind of fueling the industry and like making the stuff and keeping people excited about it. And I think that's kind of become my my main driver over the last like five years.
SPEAKER_00I think that's really insightful because you you know, you you you make beautiful pastry uh and you you delight your customers in that, but that's just one thing you do today. But when you really look back on your career, it's going to be who did I develop? Who are the people that I remember? I remember uh early on in my career, I was a I was a young supervisor, and a woman came to me and told me that she needed Friday off because she was her and her husband were buying their first home, and she said, This job has provided me with enough money that we can buy our first home. We're gonna be homeowners. And the pride that she had that she spoke with there, that's something I'll never forget. I don't remember what we ran on the production line that day, but I sure remember that day.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. There's um there was a uh lady who was working with me, she was a sous-chef of mine for a while, and during uh COVID, we had, of course, crazy times. I think everybody understood like how difficult it was for so many different industries to deal with COVID. And during the COVID months, we really wanted to try pushing for incorporating more uh handmade croissants into our production. And uh one of the ladies I was working with, close friend, she had never done it before, like ever. And so it was really fun to like do that process with her, show her what to do, teach her how to do it. And I've got this phone, the uh the this picture that I bring up on my phone all the time of her just like beaming. And of course, she's wearing a mask because it's COVID, and she's got this like beautiful croissant in her hands. And uh, and every time I see that, it just makes me so happy. And it's like it's not something that I made, but it's something that I helped someone else like make through giving them the time to learn that and train that and then and then make that happen. And every time one of the team members brings out a new set of you know seasonal chocolates or a new set of seasonal macaroons, or we're doing uh just yesterday, we were doing uh uh a new special for the month for our one of our amenities for our VIP guests, and watching the team members bring those together and seeing the finished product and seeing how proud they are of it, and then sharing that with their family is always like that's super exciting to me. Like I would much rather see that all day long than have someone come up and tell me, like, oh, this is so good that you made it. It's like, I want to see what the team's doing. Like, let them get the recognition. That makes me really happy.
SPEAKER_00So I I'm uh far removed from the from the pastry chef business or even the executive chef type uh industry. I've been working on food production lines most of my career. So we we'd make frozen food that we'd put into packages and and literally make 300 packages a minute on some of the production lines we went on. So it's it's a it's a big difference. One of the things that I believe, and and tell me if I'm wrong, people who get into chef work, uh especially pastry chef work, seem to be people who are very focused on a finished product, very focused on what they do and how the product looks, how the product tastes, how the product performs for the client, and their main goal is the finished product.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, that's that's definitely true. And I think like having that that finished product that goes to the guest, uh, that that plate that comes out to kind of the culmination of the meal, and being that, for lack of a better term, that cherry on top. That like finishing element can be um, it can be challenging, it can be daunting, but also can be so extremely rewarding to have someone walk away and say, Oh my gosh, that meal was so amazing. That dessert was fantastic, or or they see our spread for Easter or for Mother's Day, we do a giant buffet spread, and hearing all the comments we get from that can be great. And I think a lot of people do get drawn into pastry because they want to create that visual part of it. I have so many team members that get into pastry because maybe their grandmother, you know, baked with them in the kitchen when they were younger and they really like doing it, and then they start seeing what's present on Instagram or TikTok, or or they've got a Pinterest board with so many different pictures of desserts and and so many of those pictures are just these like beautiful uh visual elements. And and finding a way to make it not just beautiful and visual, but then also having that like that that taste and the flavor to combine with it as well. It makes it such a unique um uh industry and field that we do because like you said, it's it's it's the end of the meal, it's the it's the last touch, and we're gonna focus on making something that's beautiful, but it also better be really, really tasty. And I think there are some chefs that get drawn into it because they do, they want to make these artistic creations that you know look look gorgeous, and that's what they're drawn to, the the technical aspects of it. Um, but I also think that you have to want to provide this like taste experience as well. We're we're making food, it's for people to like to enjoy and uh and to give them something that's not just gonna look really neat, but also is gonna have this like uh have this amazing flavor.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell So I think a lot of the people that get into that kind of work have a very type A personality. They're very focused on on the job and not so focused on the people who help them to get the task done. Have you experienced that where you've had someone who was really not very kind?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah. I've had I've I'm I've had the pleasure of working with dozens and dozens of team members over the year. Our our current team size right now is about 12. But um the food and beverage industry has pretty high turnover. We go through a lot of team members, it's a difficult industry. A lot of people go into it thinking they know what it's gonna be like, and when they see how challenging and physical it is and how it's it's hot and it's kind of dangerous and it's just demanding and it's stressful. Um, where you get people that you know can hang and keep doing and people that that can't. And um, while they might be really, really interested in making great food, or they might have a really great technical skill set, a lot of them might not have um uh really outgoing personalities, or maybe their personalities are too strong and then they can't get along with other people in the kitchen. So you kind of attract a wide range of people that come into the kitchens. And and as a as a chef, it's our job to to wrangle all those people and then put them all towards one focus. And I think having that focus of it's gonna be an amazing experience for the guests, we're gonna provide this great thing. That focus really helps bring people together that you wouldn't think would be able to get along and really go for that that big goal. And I think that's one of the really fun things about kitchens is it really does draw like a lot of different interesting people. And it's I wouldn't trade it for anything else because it's just so exciting. Um, but it's fun to like have everybody focus on that that one goal, even if like in another environment or setting they might uh not be able to get along. There's something about a kitchen and having that drive be the pleasure of the guest that can get people to focus on on that.
SPEAKER_00So I want to talk a little bit about pressure that you feel at work and that uh and that kind of permeates uh a kitchen setting quite often. Stein is known for being the European experience here in Utah. We don't have a lot of high-end restaurants in Utah. And uh Stein is at the is at the top of the heap of any of the restaurants that we have here. The entire experience at the Stein Erickson properties is that I I when I was young, Deer Valley came to fruition, and it was it was the first resort that was built from the ground up to be a European feel and really to bring some class and some high-end experience to the ski communities here in Utah. And I believe that we never would have gotten the Olympics had we not had the Stein Erickson experience here in in Utah. I think that it was what really elevated us to the next level. And that puts a lot of pressure on the people who work at the Stein Collection because it's expected that when I show up there, I'm gonna be paying a lot to stay at any of the Stein properties and to dine at the Stein properties. I'm gonna put some money out there, and in doing that, I want my experience to be fantastic. Stein is fantastic at delivering that experience. I believe that it's one of the most beautiful plot properties in the in the country. I it's one of I I spent a fair amount of time in Europe, and it is truly a European feel at Stein's, and the food is a big part of the experience there. And the pastry is like that's the last part of the meal. You know, the very end of the meal. You have a great meal, the very last thing you get is your dessert. And if it looks fantastic and it tastes fantastic, then it is that, as you said, the cherry on top. That puts a lot of pressure on you and your staff, does it not?
SPEAKER_01It does, it does. And it requires us to have a lot of flexibility and ability to uh pivot and to solve problems. Um when we have guests that are coming in during the busiest times of the year for us. Of course, it's the winter season, everyone wants to go skiing. Uh life always gets in the way, whether it's delayed flights or delayed vehicles or winter weather. I mean, we just had some great winter weather in May a month ago. And so, like, life finds some way to like get in the way and like take even the best light plans and like kind of throw a wrench and everything. And we will have guests that come in and you know, maybe they got this great suite, but for some reason the fireplace isn't working there, and we got to figure out, okay, can we put them in another unit? And we're gonna have the hotel coming to us and asking, hey, can we help make this guest experience better? And is that gonna be through you know, complimentary blocks of chocolates, or can we make a cake for uh someone's birthday that you know just came up or for a last-minute celebration, or we get a lot of last-minute requests. And those patrons that we make for them have to be just as great as when we have all the time in the world to finish them. And so it requires myself as a manager to put plans in motion and have resources available that we can take care of those requests, but also to train the team members on being willing to do that. If we're in the middle of a really busy Sunday brunch rush and we're feeding 400 to 500 people on our brunch, it can be really challenging to try to maintain a brunch and then have a guest come up and ask for specific pastries that take care of an allergy for their kid. It can be really challenging to take care of that. But getting the team members to understand like that's the most important thing for you to do right now. And you are empowered to do whatever you can to make this kid happy. And then showing them actually how easy it can be sometimes. We get a lot of guests who are gluten-free or have nut allergies or allergic to soy or sesame. And a lot of times just narrowing down, like, you know, was there anything on here you're really, really interested in and finding those things and then knowing what kind of alternatives we can provide, and then teaching the team members to do the same thing can help them provide that amazing experience. Because it's those little things that people are going to remember. If they can get that, you know, scoop of ice cream that we made for them in the back that was fresh and that's not offered on the menu, and they get to try it, they're going to feel like they're the most important person in the room. And giving them that feeling is amazing to us. And it doesn't take that much effort on our part to make that happen. It just requires the will to do so. And getting the team to understand that we need to be able to take care of these last-minute requests, even when we're really busy, because that's what can really change the entire experience of someone's uh time with us if they can walk away knowing, oh, they took care of us here. And even though you know our reservations somehow got double booked or we were running a little bit late, or we couldn't make it to this, or so-and-so got sick, that we were able to provide something else that could then kind of make up for it. And so, yeah, there is a there is a lot of pressure, not just because there's only three five-star-rated hotels in in Utah, and we're one of them. But also, like you said, we've got this unique standing that we want to live up to. We want to embody the the excellence that Stein Erickson himself embodied. Um, but also that we want to provide that exemplary uh experience for all of our guests. And and pastry does get tapped pretty frequently to help out with that. And I think it's fantastic. I think it's a lot of fun. Um, some of our junior team members can think it's really challenging. It's like, hey, we gotta make a cake like right now and just drop what you're doing, let's take care of this. That can be hard. But in but once you learn like what to do and you know who it's going to, and then you also get the team to experience what it's like to take that out to the guest and then see the reaction on the guest's face, and they realize, oh wow, this is really cool. I just I just made somebody's day by doing that. Like that is so rewarding, and getting the team members to share that can really like unlock this great ability in them to want to continue to do that on their own without me having to tell them to do it all the time.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell That can't be easy to do when they go in with the expectations that I'm going to one of the most expensive places in Utah, uh highly rated. You know, it's it's the expectations are clear up here. And then you have to at least meet those, preferably exceed those expectations. That's that's difficult.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell It's it is difficult. And I think it's it's getting uh more difficult as days go by, as more uh of the public have access to Instagram and internet, and you know, high-end pastries have are becoming much more commonplace uh and more people are aware of what's kind of available out there and what people can be done, the expectation does rise. The great thing is that technology and skill sets are increasing at the same level as long as the managers are engaged and they're interested in learning those new techniques and we're able to kind of meet those demands. Um, over the last couple of years, it's been fun to watch one specific flavor combination of pastry kind of really take off. When it first started, uh, Dubai chocolate was seen as like this crazy thing. You can only get it in the Middle East. It's a chocolate bar with pistachio inside. A lot of the other pastry chefs I know when we first saw it, we're just like, really? Like, it's like, okay, like we've we've been using this flavor for a while, but like there's times where we have to kind of set aside our ego and think, like, oh, you know what, the guest wants us, we're gonna, we're gonna take care of it. We just started a Dubai uh milkshake in our we have we have a restaurant called the Champions Club, and we provide pizzas and milkshakes for them. And we started doing a Dubai milkshake down there, and of course, it's immediately the the best seller down there. And for a long time, it was kind of s'mores, was the other flavor combination that everybody wanted. And you'll get a number of chefs who are just like, I don't want to deal with that. But if if I th I feel like we need to be able to take our skills and then use those to help take care of the guests, and in an environment where the guests are going to see these things and they want to have that experience, I think we need to provide that for them. It's not gonna be everything that we do, but we I think we are obligated to kind of help take care of that responsibility for them. On our Sunday brunch, we've had creme brûle on the menu for you know as long as I've been there, and I think it's been on there for long before. And because it was one of uh Stein's favorite desserts, and he always wants it very simple. There's no extra flavor, so it's just plain creme brulee. So we always have it on brunch every Sunday, and then the ski season, we have it out there every day. And after you've baked off the you know 100,000 creme brulee, which I feel like I have, uh, you get you feel like this is really tiring. But for a lot of people, it's like they only have that, you know, once a year, once every couple of years. And remembering that the perspective of the guests is like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Well, we're gonna make sure that it's the best experience for them every time that they can have it, and get the team to understand like that's that's your goal. Your goal is not to like try to wow them with whatever crazy creations you've got completely across the board, but also to have these unique experiences that might be boring to you, but to the guests, they're amazing, and you're gonna make it amazing for them.
SPEAKER_00So pardon the pun here, but we've set the table well. Okay. There's a lot of pressure in your industry. There's a a lot of people that uh come into your industry that don't have a lot of training, that uh they're they're fresh out of school, maybe, or they're or they really don't even have any schooling. What's the turnover like in your kitchen? What kind tell me a little bit about the workforce that reports to you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, of course. So um the team, I've got uh currently about 12 team members. I've got two supervisors with me. One of those is my sous chef, or kind of my assistant manager. And then the rest of the team is composed of uh seasonal employees. We we have, like I said, our relationship with the CIA gives us externs about three times a year. So we'll have team members that are with us for about three or four months. And then our other kind of full-time team members, they can be with us usually between one and three years. I think if they're there for more than four or five, it's starting to get pretty unique. But turnover can be pretty fast. We have some team members that can't even make it a year, whereas others will be with us for maybe, you know, two or three. So you do have a lot of turnover. And so you're constantly training. I feel like every day we're training, whether it's you know, the new extra started last week or it's the new hire that we just got in, or I'm trying to develop someone to take over the position for someone else that just left. There's constant turnover, there's constant training. And that can be really daunting and really challenging when you're trying to run the operation that we're doing because we're very busy and we've got a lot going on, and it can be hard to get everything that we need done with the team that you've got when a lot of them are learning the skills that they need right now. And so um we've learned that having clear guidelines on what to do, making our program work with the skill set that we have while not sacrificing any of our um uh standards. Um, that's kind of been the most successful way forward for us. There's, I think, lots of hotels out there that will use, you know, pre-made products or very easy products to make things happen just because they recognize that, you know, if you've got people who've never really worked in the kitchen before, we'll just have them pull stuff out of a box and they can put it out in the buffet and it'll be fine. We want to make stuff from scratch and do as much of that as we can. And so we've figured out how do we create a program where we can train people on these things, recognize the people that are learning that stuff, and then get them to also help in that process. So everybody in the kitchen is involved in the training process. It's not just myself and my assistants who are doing all the coaching. I'm gonna have my uh low and mid-level team members also involved, and not as well. And empowering them and enabling them to do that, that's really helped us uh ensure that we got a great guest experience, but also helping all those team members grow so they're constantly learning.
SPEAKER_00So, what is what is the main reason for the turnover? Is it the seasonality or is it the pay, or what is the main reason for the turnover?
SPEAKER_01So I think there's I think there's a lot of factors. I think it can be uh the stress of the job. Um, I think the cooking is a unique industry in that you're working weekends, you're working holidays. Every time that someone else is on vacation, you're working. And all the time that your family is out having a great time, you're working. And that's kind of what we are. We're the service industry. We help people during Christmas. You know, where everyone's at home having open presence, we're getting ready to do our buffet for the day. So that can be challenging. The hours can be difficult, and you're on your feet for eight to 12 hours a day taking care of things. You're it's a very physically demanding job. It needs some technical skill, and it can be uh stressful because of the demands of the guests. Uh, if you have last-minute requests or changes on things, or just the normal things that happen, the oven went down for the day, and we got to figure out what we're gonna do about that, or the shipment that came in and didn't come in, and now what are we gonna do? So there's a lot of stress that you have to pivot and navigate. And it can it be a physically challenging job that requires like your focus and your technical expertise all the time to get it done. So it it can be a difficult job. Uh, I think for a long time the compensation within the culinary field was was pretty low, but thankfully we've watched kind of really ever since COVID that kind of like constantly grow. And what I like about hotels is that hotels in general have, you know, a little bit more resources. We're very busy with banquets. We can we can afford to pay our team members kind of a higher wage so that way they can take their passion and they can actually make a good career and a good living out of it. And I think we've seen that turnover slightly reduce over the last couple of years as we've been able to, you know, provide better compensation, but then also find better ways to provide that, to reduce stress and provide more of that balance so that people aren't constantly working, you know, 12-hour days over and over and over again. We want to give them more, more balance so they have that time to get off. And also finding ways in which we can get to people to um still be able to live their lives outside of work, so they're not always having to work, you know, every Saturday or every holiday. Can I give them the holiday off, you know, once a year so that they can go enjoy it? Or are there other times of the year where we can take care of that for them? Um, and I think there's a lot of uh chefs and uh junior chefs who um haven't necessarily learned exactly how to be uh great managers and how to create an environment in which people want to stay. I think that's probably another part of the turnover is that it can be stressful. And if you have a boss who doesn't know how to manage their emotions or handle that stress, that's gonna pass on to the team members. They're not gonna like it and they're gonna want to leave and they're gonna take the next opportunity to go somewhere else. But if you can learn how to handle that stress, help your team members through that and create an environment where people want to come to work and they want to be there, they're being compensated well, they get to do new things, they get to grow and develop, then I think you can really start to see that that turnover uh reduce, which I think we've been able to do, and I'm you know pretty proud of that.
SPEAKER_00I think stress is one of the things that's necessary in our life for us to achieve a certain level of performance, you know. So I think the stress can be a good thing. But stress not metered out correctly can really be a negative thing. It's it would be difficult for you to go out to a client a client who had a dessert that they didn't like, that just didn't meet their needs, and you'd tell them, well, it's only this person's second day and they're learning. Uh be patient with us. That doesn't work too well, does it?
SPEAKER_01No, it does not. It does not. And and there's lots of times where you know you you want to be tempted to do that. And one thing I always tell my team members is like, you know what we don't do is we don't make excuses for things. Like we just we own it, we figure out how we're gonna solve the problem. If somebody you know didn't like the dessert, well, our goal is to figure out how do we provide what they want. The guest doesn't always know exactly what they want. Sometimes it's up to us to figure it out. And one of the examples that you know one of my other older uh mentors, chefs had told me once was that there's kind of like two types of cooks. If you have a guy on the line who's cooking hamburgers and uh someone brings a hamburger rack from the kitchen and says, like, hey, this the the guest ordered medium and and this one's medium rare, you know, make it again. You're gonna have a cook that's gonna say, that's a perfect medium rare, take it right back out. Or you're gonna have the cook who's just gonna put another burger on the grill and make it the way the guest wants. Even if the guest, their perception of a medium might be different than yours, it doesn't matter. You're gonna figure it out, you're gonna take care of the guest because that's what we're that's what we're there to do, is to help take care of them. And so there's I think there are some chefs who have let their, I think, ego get in the way, like this is my food and I'm not gonna change it. And I think the other chefs who realize, like, no, I'm a vehicle to food feed someone and provide them a unique experience and to see the see the plate through their eyes and figure out what they want and then make that happen. I've got the skills, I can make it happen. I don't need to let my ego get in the way to to prevent taking care of someone. And I think using that has really helped us uh take care of our guests, even when things can go sideways, like you said, with a new team member, like accidents do happen. And it's up to us as managers to know, okay, well, how do we how do we pivot in the moment? How do we fix that? How do we help the team member learn from the experience and not feel too embarrassed and not just want to like run out of the kitchen and never come back? And how do we also get the guests to realize, hey, we're gonna take care of you and you're gonna come back as well? And that can be really hard to do, but I think we've been able to be successful at it just by making it a key focus and putting systems in place that allow us to quickly fix those problems.
SPEAKER_00I think the strategy of educating your client, your customer, uh to why you are correct is never a good strategy.
SPEAKER_01It's not. You're not gonna be able to convince someone that, like, no, this is the way it should be, uh, because they're you know they're not gonna agree with you. So it's more about like figure out what they want and then and then take care of it that way.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell So we we talk about analog skills on this on this podcast quite a bit and how how we use the the skills that require human connection, human interaction uh to make the work experience better and therefore serve the client better. What are some of the analog skills that you use on a regular basis that help you to be able to lead a team in this very challenging environment that you've discussed?
SPEAKER_01I think it's how it's it's it's recognizing where every team member is at and learning how to interact with them differently. Um the last five to ten years, I've really tried to make a focus of mind to really try to develop some of these managerial skills. I've tried to read a bunch of books on different subject matters and trying to analyze how to do that and learning different ways in which you can, you know, meet people on their level and coach them and grow them. I think the biggest thing I've walked away is that like everybody's different. It's a cliche to say that everyone's unique, but everybody needs to be kind of like coached and developed in a different way. And recognizing what works the best for each person is the best way to move forward with that, figuring out what do they need, what excites them, what makes them want to come to work, uh, taking time to let them feel like they're heard. Um, one thing we've tried to implement recently is really taking the time kind of in between seasons to do a touch base. Uh, for a long time we were doing, you know, annual reviews. I felt like one of the problems with annual reviews is halfway through a year you kind of forget what was on the review, and then it's just not really relevant anymore. Or the whole review is focused on what they were doing the last two weeks, which I just don't think is very fair for like, here's the year in review. You sucked last week. Like that's challenging. Um but to instead try to meet people like, you know, after the season and make it something where it's like, I'm not here to tell you what's going on, but also just I want to learn a little bit more about you. Like, what makes you passionate about work? What would be the one thing that would make you just not come back to work tomorrow? What's the one thing that really makes you come back and in hearing what they have to say? Because it's going to change for each person. I've got some people who they just want to learn all the time. And so it's on me to ensure that they have those uh opportunities to do that. If I've got something neat that we need to take care of, it could be really easy for me to say, well, I want to do that because that's fun. But instead, to take the time to let the team member do it, that's harder, but it's more stressful. But like it's more rewarding for them. And now I've built their skill set and now they're more engaged and they're more likely to stay. But that doesn't work for everybody. Some people are going to get really stressed out about being thrown some new giant responsibility or some new challenge they've never heard before. Maybe they want to do something that's just like simple and straightforward that they're good at and they're really, you know, they can excel at and do well. They just want to put their head down and work and letting them do that. And I think that's important is you can't treat everyone the the same, not every tool works the same with with each team member. Um, but make sure that they feel heard, that they have action, that they're part of the program, that they feel like they're making something worthwhile, but they can see how it affects the guests on the outside. I think those are all things that like keep people engaged and and keep them evolved, understanding that you know, people have lives outside of work and they're stressed, so they need some space, they need some extra time off. You know, if I would much rather work, you know, a six day, six or seventh day in a week if I can keep one of my team members happy because I know that I'm gonna get that back down the route. You know, there's a time where I'm gonna need to take some time off and I know that they're gonna have my back because I had their back then. And doing what I can to, you know, get them the time off that they need and uh helping them out, maybe with stuff outside of work if they need it. Um, I think those are all skills that we don't really think about. If you handed some manager, here's your responsibilities, you're not gonna have all those listed on there. But I think those are all, like you said, it's like soft skills that we have to develop. And then also, I think another major one is just like how we talk to people. I think it's really easy to forget like how uh we might come across when we're talking to people. So it can be useful if I've got, you know, a junior manager or if I've got a you know a new team member moving up to be a chef, or even just one of our line team members who's talking with someone else or training someone else, to have someone else kind of watch that interaction and then see like, hey, that was great, but uh some of this came across a little short. Or I think you probably could have explained this part a little bit more and being willing to like self-analyze and be critical of what we do, and not just for like the people below me, but also looking for that feedback from the people above myself, like, hey, how do you think I'm running this department? How what do you see that you think I could I could work on and grow in? I think that helps all of us uh uh make things better and just be more efficient and be kind of better leaders.
SPEAKER_00So you said so many insightful and really important things there. I want to drill into just a couple of them a little bit. Everybody needs to be treated differently, they need to be treated the way that they want to be treated. How do you how do you determine how it is that they want to be treated? And what is the what is the baseline that your relationship with that person starts with that you're on a level of trust where you can work with them the way that they want to be worked with?
SPEAKER_01Um I think that's a good question. I think I think it changes over the time of the employee because when we have like, you know, our externist come in uh first week, it's usually absolute chaos, especially for our winter ones. They they arrive like a couple days before Christmas, like right as we're in the middle of everything, and they walk into the kitchen, it's just like, oh my gosh, what's going on? And and I think having like just very clear structure and having really clear guidelines of like, don't worry about everything else. This is what you're gonna do right now. And then and being there to like help them in those moments to get them through in those first couple days so that they feel comfortable and they feel okay, they feel like they can accomplish something, giving them like an easy win. Like, you're gonna scoop these cookies. It's really easy, but like you're gonna do this. And then they can do it and they can feel like they accomplished something. And then we can start to kind of build over time and then watch them, watch how they interact with others, watch how they respond to what you know we asked them to do, uh, just really paying attention and noticing not just like how did I explain something to them, but then how did they respond to that? What did they do afterwards? Following up with them. Did they remember it the next time? And if they missed something, uh, really being critical, like, and not just putting the blame on, oh, well, they didn't listen to me. Well, did I really explain it enough? Did I explain why? Did I give them too much information at the time? I think a lot of times managers are very quick to try to shift the blame onto the team member of the individual without being willing to really critically analyze themselves and say, you know what, maybe I didn't explain it enough, or maybe I was trying to treat them like someone else and and learning from that moment and then keeping track of it. I think businesses, especially like in the hotels, there's so much information, so many things going on. Like we really have to like just write this stuff down. Like I so I try to make a file on each of the team members, and it can sound like nefarious, but like it really helps like keep it organized. Like, hey, this person likes this. This is something they want to do. Because if I think I'm gonna remember all that in three months, like, good luck. If I can refer to that and be like, oh yeah, okay, the team was really excited about this. And have I given that opportunity? Yes, I have. Okay, I know I haven't. What's coming up? How can I really plan this out and treating it that way and not just something like, oh, I'll do it eventually or I'll get around to it. It'll never happen. But if you treat it as just as important as anything else in the business, like I've got this upcoming event going on, I'm gonna have all sorts of information about it. I'm gonna have set menus and guidelines and plans and recipes. I should do the same thing for my team members and have that information available there for me so that I can remember it and then I can act on it and I can, you know, keep track of it. And I try to keep track of those interactions. I think it's important as a manager to know like if you do have a time where you're training someone or you're coaching someone on something, you you want to keep track of that stuff. And it's not because you're trying to get them into trouble, but you want to know, like, hey, when did it happen? How are they developing? Are they growing? If they are, sweet. Now I've got documentation that's gonna help me get them promoted. And if they are continuing to have a problem, well, now I've got documentation. To show, like maybe they need to go on a different coaching plan. So I think that's something that we just a lot of chefs just assume is that they don't want to get involved with the computer. Computers are scary, I guess. It takes too much time. But using that resource can be incredibly helpful as a manager because it can help us keep us focused to develop those people and keep track of those things. But I think it's a relationship that changes over time. And just by being aware, asking for feedback, asking for feedback in the moment, um doing you know a weekly touch base. If you can't spend five to ten minutes with your team members just like talking about like how the work's going every week, then maybe you got to reorganize your time. And that can be really hard to find that time, but um when you're really busy with a day, but like by deliberately saying, you know what, I'm gonna spend you know five minutes just kind of talking about how things are going, and then like really paying attention, and probably the most important is just listening. I think that can unlock uh a lot of that and give you that information that you need.
SPEAKER_00So listening is one of the key skills we talk about all the time, and I think it's something that's in some ways is kind of a lost art. Uh listening to understand what someone is talking about and what they're feeling is really a lot more important than getting your point across.
SPEAKER_01Right. No, I think that's absolutely true. Um, especially when you're dealing with people from different generations, they're all gonna respond differently, knowing like what they might be talking about. And I think listening can also just be like really, really useful when trying to explain something new. Like we're constantly trying to teach people how to do a new recipe, or Harry, all right, I'm gonna show you how to do uh croissants or a bonbons, I'm gonna walk you through this whole process. And they can be really long, convoluted processes. And I think so. At times, like explaining it and then stopping and then asking them, like, hey, just walk me through what I just told you, and then really paying attention. Did they catch everything that was necessary? And and then asking them key questions to try to get them to show you that they understand it. That's where uh listening is super important. Asking someone like, you got it, they're gonna say yes because they want to, because they want to feel like they're paying attention. But then asking them instead, like, okay, well, how would you do it? That's gonna give them the opportunity to explain to you. Maybe they do have it, maybe they don't. And then you as a manager can recognize, like, okay, they got you know, X, Y, Z, but we're still missing this other part. Let's just go over that again real quick, and making sure that they feel comfortable to tell you those things. I think some managers can be very demanding and they can be very critical. So then the team members don't want to open up and they don't want to say what they might not know, and they want to act like they know what they're doing because they don't want to look like they're not paying attention. But maybe they just forgot it. Maybe they maybe it's too much information at once, or maybe they just really don't understand what something is. Um, and if you've got a manager who's you know incredibly aggressive, the team member is gonna like they're gonna try to nod because they want to seem like they're their great employee, and then now you're gonna have a mistake. And so having that trust where the team member knows that like if they don't have it, you're gonna have their back and you're gonna take the time to coach them on it, then they open up more and then they're gonna be more willing to say what uh needs to be said as long as you're you're listening. So yeah, I think listening is a super important skill.
SPEAKER_00So how do you deal with failure? I mean, there's there's people who report to you that are gonna fail. How do you deal with that?
SPEAKER_01It's kind of like part of life. I think the the I think the main thing I have to remember is how many times like I failed in my own career, like how many times I made stupid mistakes and cut myself and set things on fire and like burn batches of stuff and like mix things incorrectly. Like it I think we can easily lose focus of that as we get later on in our our careers or in the middle of our career. We've been doing this for 10, 20, uh, 30 years. We can forget all the mistakes that we made at the beginning of our career. Like you just forget it with distance. And so I think taking the time to remember that and have the humility to say, you know what, I made these same mistakes. And uh it can be frustrating when you've got a lot of turnover because it can seem like all these people are making the mistakes all the time. Well, it's you're just feeling that way because you've got a lot of people you're showing. And so it's really not a matter of the same person making the same mistake over and over again. It's just you're just seeing it a lot. So having the patience and the recognition, like, okay, you know what, people have to make mistakes. They have to learn from this stuff. But then also having the knowledge and the resources to be able to quickly fix those mistakes when they do happen. I think it's our job as managers to have the understanding and the capacity to fix issues. If you don't make mistakes, you don't know how to fix them. If you make a lot of mistakes in the past, you're gonna have a pretty good toolkit of what to do. And then when those mistakes happen, you're gonna have a lot of resources you can pull on to fix those. And then if you can get the team member who made the mistake involved in fixing it, so now that they've learned how to problem solve it and now they've learned what not to do next time, but then also making sure that, okay, the next time they do this, I'm just gonna have a quick touch base just to make sure that they're not gonna do that same mistake as well. I think if you continue to do that with team members, they're gonna start to over time kind of trust you. I think a lot of team members, especially some of the younger generations now, they kind of have to learn these mistakes on their own. You know, you can sit there and explain everything that could possibly go wrong to people in the face. They probably still just need to learn it themselves. So giving the team members the space to make that mistake and not running, you know, your margins or your time so fast that there's no room for error. I think if there's no room for error, you're gonna have problems. If you've got that wiggle room where, like, okay, you know what, if this goes wrong, we can still fix it. That's where I think you can have that ideal growth where you're you're getting as much done as you can, but you're not trying to push yourself so hard that one small error can throw everything off. And then now people feel like they just destroyed everything. You've got to have built-in time for people to make mistakes, but then also have a chance for them to kind of learn from it in the moment and not feel embarrassed by it and for other people to help kind of have that eye out to watch, to help catch people on those things and have just people be engaged. That's one thing we always talk about is be aware in the kitchen. You can't just be looking at, you know, your cutting board with a mixer. You got to be aware of what's happening, who's behind you, what's going on behind you. Is there something on the stove that's about to boil over, or something in the oven that's about to burn, or somebody have to run out of the kitchen real quick and they forgot that they left their cookies in the oven? Like, can you help them with pulling that stuff out? And that's gonna help build our teamwork because we've all got each other's backs. And it's also gonna help them just kind of better get through their day. If somebody walks by the stove and they see, oh, this pot's about to burn, they can take steps to fix that, and we can all catch each other's mistakes. And in a stressful environment like we're in, it's like super important to be able to have that because if you get a lot of those mistakes, like you can throw the whole day off.
SPEAKER_00I think people underestimate the stress that is in a kitchen. I think that uh people don't really, you know, you see the food network and things like that, and you you see a little bit of the drama on some of the shows, but people think cooking is a fun thing. And when it comes to your level, it's not that fun all the time. There's a lot of stress, and I think people underestimate that. So you you brought up the word teamwork. I think it the the a good chef is an entrepreneur, is someone who looks at it and says, I am responsible for everything under my charge. And it's hard to engage the team because you've got a fair amount of people that work for you that are not entrepreneurial. They just want to do their job and go home.
SPEAKER_01Right. That that's totally correct. Um, I think there's a lot of chefs who you know open their own restaurants, open their own bakeries, or open their own shops because they want to create something unique and then sell that to the guest. Um, people always ask, like, hey, do you ever want to open your own place? And I always tell them, no, I'm good. Like, I'm more than happy to work in a hotel because we I I enjoy like being able to take care of the guests and not having to stress out about like the budget to make sure that I've got a roof over my head at the same time, but having the capacity to do that. But I think you're right. Like, it doesn't, not everyone that comes in is gonna have that spirit. I think some people do. And identifying the people that have the skill set and they really want to make a career out of it, and then helping them develop that entrepreneurial mindset where it's like, okay, well, we're gonna look at this as a business and we're not just gonna say, well, these are my responsibilities and that's it. It's instead, it's like, okay, how can we take this to the next level? Can we run this shop more efficiently? Can we run it more effectively? Can we get better deals on the product that we've got? Can we make our food costs match better? Can we be more efficient in our production? Can we help develop the team more and like and push for those things I think has been great? And that's something that I'm always pushing for, and my southefs are as well is how do we help like grow the program? How do we stay current and relevant? We're never gonna sit on our laurels and say, oh, last year's buffet was great, and then we'll just do that for the next 20 years. It's gonna be how do we make it even better next year? How do we pay attention to what's happening out there? How do we look at our competition? And in baking and pastry, we get a lot of uh uh new employees that come in. You know, they want to, I wanna open a cupcake shop someday. And it can be fun talking to them, like, okay, let's run through the logistics and the financials of running a cupcake shop, and here's what you're gonna have to do. And when they see some of the numbers, some of them can be pretty surprised. And I think um uh it can be uh a funny conversation, but it also can be enlightening to get them to realize, like, oh, okay, like I can you know go this path where I can make cupcakes, or if I want to, you know, get some financial success, I can learn these other skills and I can do not just cupcakes, but like all kinds of stuff, and then I can really build this nice uh bright career out of it and kind of really develop it into something.
SPEAKER_00You've you've brought up some great things, Jeremy, and I really appreciate having this conversation. I think that people uh will appreciate the fact that there's a lot of stress in your business and there's a lot of turnover, there's a lot of variables that come into it, and you've you've really outlined a lot of the skills that are needed that way. If if you were to give advice to a young supervisor who was just made, you know, was an hourly worker and was just promoted to a supervisor in a kitchen over a team, what's the advice you would give to that person as to how to make sure that they're successful at that supervisory level?
SPEAKER_01Uh that's a great question. It's something that I think about uh a lot. I've we've got um a lot of promotion from within in the hotel. We get a lot of cooks, um, and then a lot of them move up into you know junior supervisor roles and then supervisor roles and then assistant levels and so on. Um there's a lot of chefs uh there in every hotel that I've worked at that have kind of like I've watched people move up through every single possible positions, and some of them do really well. The ones that do really well are the ones that recognize that they have a lot to learn outside of just cooking. It's really easy to get promoted to a position because you're exceptionally good at the job that you've got, or you're so efficient at the job that you've got that you can actually have extra time to help out with other projects. I think those are the areas in which people like rapidly move up. It's you know, I'm exceptionally good at this one thing. Okay, I think you're gonna be great at the next level. Or, you know, you've learned so much about other areas that you've actually become a really strong part of the team because you're kind of doing multiple jobs at the same time. Um, I think one of the traps that supervisors can fall into is that as they move into this new role, there's a lot of skills that they have to learn. And a lot of managers, when they're promoting people, they want to give people space to kind of move them to that position and some time to kind of develop it. And that can kind of build this false sense of like, I've got everything under control. And it's like, well, you're doing half the job. So like you still got more to learn. So I think the supervisor, the junior supervisor needs to recognize that like you've got a lot to learn, you know, and really you you got to spend some time really developing that uh over the next, you know, 60, 90 days, the next year, two years, developing those uh new responsibilities. And when those new responsibilities start to kind of accumulate, when the new stresses of the job start to appear, I think one trap that we can easily fall into is moving back to our zone of comfort. And for comfort, that's gonna be doing your old job. And so if I've got someone in the pastry shop who's exceptionally good at taking care of production in the morning and now they're a supervisor, and all of a sudden we have something really stressful they got to deal with, whether it's a conversation with a team member who needs some coaching, or we've got to put together a menu for something coming up next week, or I've got, you know, a costing sheet that I've got to get done, or I've got to put together a proposal for some sort of capital expenditure, things that are stressful because they haven't navigated that stuff before. It's really easy to just say, like, I've got to work on all this prep today, and then they never actually do the new stuff they're supposed to do. Um, I think the inverse of that can be that they completely neglect their prior job because now they say, like, well, I'm a manager and I can't do anything else. And so I'm just gonna manage. And so they never lose sight of what they were doing before and they lose touch with what their uh you know, their reports are dealing with. So I you have to kind of walk this like pretty narrow tightrope of how much of the the new job am I doing and how much of my old job am I doing, because you've got to make sure you're still keeping your sleeves rolled up and you're involved in the work so you you know what the team was dealing with. You can identify where problems are, you can coach in the moment, you can you can build things, you can fix problems before they happen, but also that you're not so done with that that you would neglect all of your other responsibilities and and duties as a as a junior manager. Um it's something that like I know that I did a lot when in my my younger years, and I've watched a number of my other uh team members that I've kind of helped promote through the through the ranks there deal with it as well. And I think just recognizing that it happens is the first step, and then just being conscious of when you're stressed because something's happening. For me, like I've done hundreds and hundreds of wedding cakes. Every time we have a wedding cake come up, I always get stressed about it. And a lot of times it's subconscious, but I always know if I've got a week where I got a wedding cake, I got to give myself a little more grace because I just know my subconscious is freaking out. I just need to calm down and take a breath, and it's gonna be okay. And I think with the supervisors, it can be the same thing. Like you're gonna have these moments where it's like, you haven't really done this yet. Um, we you don't really have a lot of like training in a in a kitchen. And I think a lot of um uh industries are like that, where we would love to have you know these comprehensive training programs where I can sit someone down for two hours, you know, every day and you can just train for your next job, but we don't really have the luxury of doing that. And I think a lot of places don't, where it's just like, you're gonna learn another job, here we go. And so you have to make sure that you're you're taking the initiative as that junior supervisor to learn those things, to develop those skills, to find uh a mentor to help coach you, to find uh books that you can read on your own that are gonna help develop skill sets, whether it's learning how to become more efficient or how to have difficult conversations or how to like take care of our guests. I think all of those things are are super important. And then the the higher up you go, the harder it gets because the more things you've you've got to know. Um and yeah, I think that that would be like the probably one of the biggest things I'd say is just learn how to navigate those two things and be there to kind of like uh listen to your team, be willing to let them make mistakes so they can learn. That's how you learned yourself about making mistakes. So give them the opportunity to do that as well. And then make your focus now on how do I like keep this team and how do I build them and make them better? Because that's one of your new jobs, too.
SPEAKER_00Excellent advice. I appreciate everything you've talked to us about. Uh one last thing. If our listeners want to experience your good work, what's the best way for them to uh experience Stein?
SPEAKER_01Uh the best way, I think, is our uh Sunday brunch. So uh we do that every Sunday, and we're really proud of what we put out. Um for our pastry department, we do about 25 different desserts on our spread. And then all the savory chefs, of course, have like an enormous selection of uh delightful food. And uh what whichever time of the year you come, I think it's just beautiful up there. In the summertime, you can sit out on the deck. In the wintertime, it's snowing and it's gorgeous. You can go skiing before or afterwards. Uh in the fall, the colors are fantastic. Uh, the spring, it's just like it's it's I think it's just it's a beautiful place to come. The brunch, I think, is where we do some of our best work and it's the most fun. I think it's just it's a great environment, and I think you can really see like a lot of the amazing things that we do. There's a number of restaurants up there. We have a coffee shop, and of course, we do um a lot of things across the entire collection. But I think the brunch is where we are really proud of what we do. And I think you can really see like what our picture shop does.
SPEAKER_00So Sunday brunch, we should plan for how much time to be there.
SPEAKER_01Uh, I think an hour at least, if you can do like an hour and a half, it's probably really good. Depends on how hungry you are.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic. I really appreciate you coming on the show and talking with us about that. Anything else you want to leave us with before we part?
SPEAKER_01I think the the biggest thing to for me that I've been focusing on, um, and someone that's kind of been this guiding light for myself for the last couple of years, is this concept of um leadership and self-deception. There was a book put out by I think the Arbiter Institute that kind of talked about this about how as people we're really good at thinking that we're doing amazing things and thinking other people are doing terrible things. We're really good at like building ourselves up and kind of putting other people down, and then using that as an excuse to get away with poor behaviors, especially for managers. I think recognizing that and then learning how to keep that in mind, I think has been one of the best things that's helped me grow the most and to kind of put the team first is to try to see, okay, where are they at, what are their struggles, how do I help them with that? Being really truthful and critical and honest of myself. I think too many people just want to try to put the blame on somebody else. I think being willing to like really critically analyze what you're doing and challenge yourself to be a better person, and then giving your team members grace to kind of come through those times and recognize that they're people, they're human beings, like they need they need help, they need coaching. I think that can apply in any industry and not just like cooking. I think any industry whatsoever, I think any manager who keeps that in mind is gonna be incredibly successful and is gonna be able to like help develop their team and keep their team and keep their team engaged. Um so yeah, I think that'd be the last thing that I would say.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic advice. Thank you. Thank you. This has been Analog Leader. Our guest is Chef Jeremy Garcia, executive pastry chef at the Stein Collection.