I have a habit I am not proud of. When somebody on my team brings me their work, my first instinct is to change it. To make it better, I tell myself. Or more honestly, to make it more to my taste.

Arnon Oren runs Anaviv Culinary Family in the Bay Area, two restaurants plus a catering and events business. Tight margins, late nights, and an industry that loses people faster than almost any other. He came on the podcast a few weeks back and gave me three words that have been chipping away at that habit ever since.

Where it came from

Arnon did not grow up in food. He took a dishwashing job at twenty three to pay for engineering school, fell in love with the kitchen and never went back. By the time he got to Berkeley he had cooked in France, and he found work at Chez Panisse under Alice Waters.

What struck him there was not the food. It was that Alice walked into the kitchen, said hello and looked every person in the eye. Everybody, including the dishwashers. He had never seen that anywhere he had worked.

The second thing was how the menu got built. No recipes. The team looked at what had arrived from the farm that morning and designed the dishes for that day. Total freedom to create, inside the guidelines of what the restaurant was.

And every time Arnon carried a dish over to be tasted, he got the same three words back.

Make it delicious.

The question underneath it

Years later, running his own kitchen, Arnon found himself saying it to his own people. What makes it a leadership idea rather than a nice sentiment is what he did when somebody brought him a dish to taste.

He asked them two things. Did you taste it? And Is it delicious?

Most of the time they said they did not know. So he would tell them: when you think it is delicious and absolutely memorable, come back and I will give you my feedback.

It took people aback at first, and then they started working that way. Eventually, when a new hire would say they were off to ask Arnon to taste a dish, the other chefs would stop them. No, no. You make sure it is delicious before you take it to him.

The team had taken over the standard. Years on, Arnon got put on the schedule one busy night, cooked alongside a twenty year old, and heard that kid turn to someone else and say: just make it delicious.

Where I catch myself

I should own something here. Courtney produces our podcast. Annie writes our emails. Both of them are better at those jobs than I am, which is precisely why they do them. And I still feel the pull to change a title, rework a line, nudge the thing toward the version I would have made.

There is usually some value in what I add. That is exactly what makes it so hard to stop. But the cost is invisible and it compounds, because every time I redirect the work, I teach the person who made it to bring me the decision next time instead of making it themselves.

Michael Bungay Stanier calls this the advice monster, and he says it shows up in three guises: Tell It, Save It, and Control It. Mine is Control It. I recognise it by the feeling that the work is nearly right and I could just quickly finish it myself.

Which is why Arnon's question is really a coaching question. Somebody brings you a problem and, instead of solving it, you ask them what they would do. Did you taste it? Is it delicious? Same move, wearing an apron.

You already hired the expert

We spend enormous energy finding the right people. We interview, we check references, we agonise over fit and values. And then, having found somebody genuinely better at their craft than we are, we hover over their work and steer it toward our own taste.

If you hired a chef, let them cook. Your job was to find the person and to be clear about what the restaurant is. Their job is the dish. The moment you start making the dish yourself, you are paying expert wages for your own judgement.

Arnon framed his own role the other way round, and I prefer his version. His work now, he told me, is to find ways to keep his people growing and fulfilling their life goals through what the business does. Not to taste every plate.

This week's Rob & Deploy™

Next time someone brings you work to approve, before you look at it, ask Arnon's two questions.

Did you check it yourself? Is it good enough?

If the answer is anything other than yes, hand it back and tell them to return when they are sure. Then actually give them your feedback when they do, because the move only works if the second half happens. The first time it will feel like you are being difficult. By the fourth or fifth time, people stop bringing you work they have not already judged.

The harder half is the one I am still working on. When the work comes back good, but not the way you would have done it, you leave it alone.

What three words would your team repeat to each other when you are not in the room? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

Cheers,

Jean