This is my ‘revolutionary’ new theory about the Strategic Management of Cooking and now extended to include ‘Resource Based Views’ on Cooking ‘Strategy’.
My qualifications: Since I don’t cook; have never been a chef; burn toast; and have trouble opening jars; I am the perfect ‘strategist’ to explain Cooking to the masses. I am simply, the Guru.
Part One of the Strategic Management of Cooking: The Five Forces
Obviously external stimuli will determine how you operate and how tasty your dishes will be. I call this the 5 Forces. I made them up, there could well be 4, 6, or 13, but 5 is my favourite number.
1) Quality of Ingredients
2) Attractiveness of Presentation
3) Threat of Overcooking
4) Threat of Undercooking
5) Rivalry among Recipes
These external stimuli ‘change everything’. Do not cook without considering these forces and how they affect your strategy.
Data: I discovered these ‘laws’ after years of watching my wife cook. Further, I discovered that her goal was usually ‘excessive protein’ meals. I therefore concluded from my small biased sample and fraudulent data manipulation; that the objective of cooking is indeed ‘excessive protein’ and the ‘avoidance of recipe rivalry’.
1.1 Academic media publishes the Five Forces:
Harvard Business Review published my 10 page article. I invented matrices, boxes, arrows and threw in a few case examples with made up data that no one bothered to check. Cooking schools and the Cooking media were ecstatic. Finally, they declared, someone has offered insight into the science and business management of cooking. It was a recipe that could be followed everywhere. It was universal, a set of laws. A dumbed down easy to follow version of life.
1.2 Data Fraud but no matter:
But some problems with my theology did arise. When the cooking academies I cited in my original study went bankrupt and when the analysis of my wife’s cooking proved that she never ‘maximized protein output’ and that she could care less about ‘recipe rivalry’ and was even engaged in competing recipes, using not only substitutes but untried ingredients, and when it was revealed that she never spent much time on preparation and that had no impact whatsoever on quality; I was already onto the next big thing ‘Open Frying Pan Innovation’.
Part 2: Open Frying Pan innovation:
In my limited contact with reality I discovered the following shocking and important insights which only furthered my status as the Guru of Cooking management:
-Some cooks avoid the ‘competition of boiling pots’ and use only frying pans
-Some cooks do not cover their frying pans and use only Open pans
-Uncovered frying pans were discovered to increase recipe innovation, reduce costs and produce more cooking innovation – by as much as 50% compared to boiling pots!
These were crucial insights into the science of cooking. I was flabbergasted.
I partnered with a researcher Dr. Ree Diculous. She had case examples which supported the Open Frying Pan theory. The fact that her data was manipulated and that her models predicted nothing of value; and that indeed most of her research subjects went bankrupt or were sued for poisoned food preparation, was unimportant.
What was important in my new discovery was the ‘insight’ of cooking innovation; and that competition was bad and that recipes were a zero-sum contest of survival-of-the-tastiest. Dr Diculous’ work only confirmed this.
2.1 Academic journals and schools go wild over Open Frying Pan / Survival of the Tastiest
Dr Diculous and I published an HBR super star article which revolutionzed the Science of Cooking Management: ‘The Scientific Management of Cooking: Open Frying Pan and the Five Forces; Survival of the Tastiest and How Random Chance Evolves Cooking’. It was a hit. Cooking academies the world over used it in their curriculum. Our Model was complex:
Closed Frying Pan: Limited Resources; Static; Isolated
Open Frying Pan: Dynamic, Additive, Integrated, Transparent
Five Forces: External stimuli impacting pans and pots. Open is more ‘iterative’. Closed is static.
Survival of the Tastiest: Random chance interactions between the forces, the pan, and ‘change’. Outcome: Presto! A new cooking and recipe design.
Diculous and I toured the world, giving speeches to students, demanding:
- They ‘adapt in order to survive in the world of tastiest competition’;
- They believe that open random chaos always leads to cooking structure and design
- That to survive you must ‘make hard choices’; ‘be fast but slow’;
- To create value you should, ‘use low heat but also high heat’;
- ‘Avoid being cut to pieces by recipe rivalry’;
Students were amazed.
The cooking media were delirious by this key insight:
‘strategically-thinking cooks and chefs avoid the boiling pots of competition and instead seek to use Open Frying Pan techniques to develop survival-of-the-tastiest recipes’.
2.2 Data Fraud:
When others proved that my data was fraudulent, my models not predictive, my case studies bankrupt; and that my wife never cooked with a goal to ‘maximize protein’ it did not matter. When some other cooking gurus criticized my lack of a control group; the fact that I don’t reveal my data sources; the biased samples of my data gathering; and that there is no real-world application of my models; I called them ‘deniers’ and ‘anti-science management’. It worked. Happily I moved on to the next big trend: ‘Resource Based’ Cooking.
Part 3: Resource Based Cooking:
I learned from the critics that I can’t remain ‘static’. My theories must ‘evolve’ [by random chance], and be more ‘dynamic’. They must show ‘loose-tight’ principles of management theology. They need to be ‘flexible’, yet ‘tough’. They should ‘cut costs’ while ‘inciting innovation in the kitchen’. It is hard work being a guru.
Resource Based strategy was therefore seized upon as the key reason a chef and cook succeed but – and this is the crucial insight – only after they have mastered the 5 Forces and the Open Frying Pan. It was a hit.
3.1. RBVs value chain
RBV was forced on me. The critics had a point. Calling them ‘deniers of scientific management’ did not lessen their vocal objections to my guru-ness. Reflecting on my limited experience with cooking and observing my vast numbers of ‘researched cooks and chefs’ [my wife mainly inflated to 27 different cooks and chefs]; I realized that managing the resources of a kitchen was not only vital, but complicated.
This was an important insight.
I thereby developed the RBV model of cooking, which sent Harvard Business Review into ecstasy.
–Personal: attitude, cleanliness, focus, a culture of greatness, being fast but slow, using dexterity but being inflexible, courageous and daring but careful and measured….
–Operations arena: availability of knives, forks, spoons, bowls, cutting boards, pots, pans, ovens
–Value-add raw materials: ingredients, flour, oil, spices, sauces, mayonnaise, ketchup, olives
–Secret Sauce: the key proprietary, immobile, immutable, heterogenous invention which makes it all great
POVS explained the use of resources and the differences between cooks and chefs. Bad personal hygiene impacts your cooking excellence I discovered. Improper ingredient allocation at the wrong time will lead you into the threat of over-under or inaccurate cooking. Not aligning raw materials with the recipe leads to dysfunction, and a loss of taste. Closed Frying Pan strategy negates quick innovation and R&D. Not having an immobile, immutable, heterogenous secret sauce means you are undifferentiated, prone to the threat of substitution and recipe rivalry.
This was an important insight.
3.2 ‘Integrative POVS’
I concocted complex matrices and plotted graphs showing the various correlated and intricate relationships between the POVS components.
HBR published my POVS research, noting in the foreword that:
‘POVS is based on meticulous, scientific research, garnered from dozens of cooks and chefs worldwide. It updates the Five Force and The Open Frying Pan models of Excellence in Cooking. It fundamentally changes everything.’
We titled the HBR article: ‘The Scientific Management of Cooking: The strategic importance of the Secret Sauce: Why this changes everything!’
Elizabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard was full of praise: ‘Finally an integrative-knowledge based post-structuralist explanation; of the post-industrial, post-modernist, post-reality view of cooking; scientifically based, with a clarity and power of vision which astonishes.’
3.3 Data Fraud
My critics however, only grew in number. Tom Peters the big daddy of guru hype, was sweaty and red-faced when he declared in an interview:
‘I have made up data for 30 years, I know this guy is a fraud. I am the expert at it. My ‘In Search of Excellence’ was based on a few McKinsey clients and Fortune magazine articles, though I said it comprised a detailed analysis of 43 firms. Restaurant owners and pizza makers should only listen to me, not this guy. I am the guru of management, I know that middle managers serving sushi and spaghetti need my models, not this guy’s.’
Tom does not like losing revenues or adulation.
Academics also howled to get access to my research. They were unimpressed with my attempts to integrate 3 different concepts. Many were suspicious that my detailed models were completely made up. These suspicions were somewhat alleviated after I joined the Harvard faculty and shared office space with Kanter. I gave Harvard a generous share of my book revenues in return.
Cheeky chefs and cooking students with degrees in computer programming or statistics, were quite persistent. Closed frying pans along with pots were leading to many innovative cooking outputs they maintained. They wanted to ftp my data sources and corroborate my claims on the Open Frying Pan and the RBV. The nerve of these people. Here I am trying to liberate them, and they whine about details. No matter, like Peter Drucker, I am already moving on to the next big idea in the Scientific Management of Cooking.
References:
Reality
Common Sense
The Kitchen
Imagination
In Search of Excellence [and made-up claims and research]
St. Augustine’s notes on training in rhetoric