'The Bear': A Masterclass in Leadership
Why FX's 'The Bear’ Provides the Recipe for Success in Management, Leadership, and Team Dynamics.
'The Bear': A Masterclass in Leadership
Why FX's 'The Bear’ Provides the Recipe for Success in Management, Leadership, and Team Dynamics.
Author’s Note: This post has spoilers from the critically acclaimed and Emmy Award nominated series, The Bear, which is currently exclusively distributed by Hulu.
I recently finished watching season 2 of Hulu’s hit series, The Bear, and was impressed by how seemingly accurate the show depicts life is in the restaurant business. Too often we see glamorized versions of what its like to work in a fast-paced, hot, and dangerous kitchen environment. The show does an excellent job of painting a fairly accurate picture of the struggles and bright spots of running a restaurant and working in one in any capacity.
If you have not yet seen the series, I highly recommend for those that enjoy drama, food (cooking, fine dining, the restaurant business), and fast-paced team dynamics. The show is heralded as the best workplace drama since Mad Men. Season 2 was FX’s most-watched debut ever on Hulu. I won’t go too much into the plot nor character backstories and will instead assume that readers will have either seen or plan to watch the show. I will share a link to the trailer of The Bear here for those that want to learn more.
In short, The Bear is about a young chef, Carmy (played by Jeremy Allen White), who inherits his family’s Italian beef sandwich shop after the suicide of his older brother, Michael. He moves back home to Chicago to run the shop, leaving behind his world of working as a chef at the best Michelin star restaurant.
What struck me most while watching the series were the various lessons on general management that permeate throughout. Carmy leads an epic turnaround of a largely stagnant, unsexy sandwich shop with an underpaid, unprofessional, and largely inexperienced culinary team. He does so by exemplifying management styles including empowerment, servant leadership, and autonomy that I believe can and should be extrapolated to business leaders today.
In my view, Carmy’s version of servant leadership, where the leader is in the front lines leading by example, serving the team, and putting the team’s interests ahead of their own personal interests, is the type of direction that helps build, scale, and grow teams of all types: sports teams, business organizations – you name it. Servant leadership is seen throughout The Bear, and I believe is best captured in Season 2, Episode 7, titled Forks.
From the Kitchen to the (Basketball) Court
The episode opens with a quote from Hall of Fame basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K), talking about what it means to be a leader:
“In order to get better, you change limits. And, when you change limits, you’re going to look bad and you’re gonna fail. At West Point, I learned that failure was never a destination. In other words, when you’re knocked back, figure out why, then change. The other thing is that you’re not going to get there alone. Be on a team. Surround yourself with good people and learn how to listen. You’re not going to learn with you just talking. And, when you do talk, converse. Don’t make excuses. Figure out the solution. And you don’t have to figure it out yourself. I always wanted to be part of a team. And, obviously, I wanted to lead that team. What an interesting life it is to be a leader.”
In this post, I will break down Coach K’s quote, explore the parts of the Forks episode where the quote applies to, and unpack the takeaways of the quote to translate them to executive leadership.
Surround Yourself with Good People
The episode centers on Richie, the cousin of Carmy, taking a position as a stage at Ever, a three Michelin star restaurant, upon Carmy’s direction for one week. Carmy wants Richie to go through this unpaid internship to have Richie learn how to be a team player under the guidance of one of the best restaurants in the world.
Like learning how to play basketball from Coach K.
Richie’s only priority for that week is quite literally to polish forks – hence the name of the episode’s title. He wakes up at 5am, puts on his white coat, cleans forks at the restaurant, and counts down the minutes on the square clock in the kitchen for 9 hours straight. Every day.
While initially frustrated by the seemingly menial task, Richie comes to realize through the course of the episode that the place he loathes is actually the place he finds purpose.
To start, he learns from Garrett, his minder, that the staff treats each day like the Super Bowl – there is a constant 5,000-person waitlist, a team of 200 people running the restaurant, and no room for streaks on their forks. Next, he learns from the expeditor about the attention to detail required to serve dishes on time. Last, he sees first-hand the owner of Ever peeling mushrooms by herself, despite having the resources to have it be done for her.
He doesn’t, at first, understand why Carmy sent him to Ever to stage. In fact, he resents Carmy for sending him there, viewing this experience as punishment.
What ends up happening, though, is Carmy surrounding Richie with good people. Not only are the employees at the three-star restaurant good people, but they are also the best. Everyone at Ever wants to be at Ever. They love what they do. They push each other. And the results speak for themselves. They’re the winningest, upscale fine dining establishment in Chicago, and arguably the United States.
By surrounding Richie with an all-star cast, Carmy sets Richie up for success back at The Bear, Carmy’s new restaurant that he opens with his culinary sandwich team in Season 2.
In business, much like in restaurants, sports, and other team-based organizations, who you surround yourself with matters. Having a co-founder who pushes you to be better, employees who treat each day like the Super Bowl, customers who live and breathe the brand – I could go on – can be what separates the best from the mediocre.
Having highly motivated teammates who are driven by intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic motivation develops a dynamic that is exhibited by the best restaurant in The Bear and the Hall of Fame basketball team led by Coach K.
Learn How to Listen
During an all-hands meeting at Ever, Richie overhears the head chef tell the entire staff that they will not be charging two of their guests tonight, a couple (high school teachers). Without skipping a beat, the head chef says why: he saw an Instagram posted by the couple about how they’ve been saving up for their dream dinner at Ever.
The impact that this act of service has on Richie is profound. He realizes that a restaurant is more than a place that serves food – it’s an experience.
Richie turns the corner, for the first time in the series, and becomes curious. Rather than look down upon or neglect certain tasks, he begins to understand, empathize, and learn about why each detail matters. He learns how to listen.
Richie asks around at Ever, seeking to know why they love what they do, and listens intently. He discovers that Garrett kicked his alcohol addiction by performing acts of service as a minder; that Chef Terry, the owner, enjoys hand-peeling mushrooms despite not needing to; and that Carmy didn’t send Richie to stage as a favor, but to listen.
Much like in business, it is often diversity of opinion, open-mindedness, and curiosity that fuels growth. Send your team out to take internships (or stage), spend time with competitors, and listen to customers. Provide opportunities for your team to learn from experts – from the Coach K’s of the world.
Coach K emphasizes learning how to listen. There’s a reason or it. Listening requires putting our ego aside, understanding alternative points of view, and listening. It also requires not talking. It’s near impossible to listen while talking. However, when you do talk, Coach K urges us to converse. Have the dialogue be a conversation. Ask first-, second-, and third-layer questions to dig deep and understand why experts do what they do. Not how. Too often we focus on the how while glossing over the why.
Don’t Make Excuses, Figure Out Solutions
Towards the end of the week, Richie is faced with a dilemma. On his second to last day, after cleaning approximately three million forks, Richie finally gets promoted to shadow Garrett on the floor. While on the floor, Richie notices little notes used to communicate between servers, the timing of courses for bad versus good guests, the preparation of birthday balloons, and the double-checking of chocolate allergies. He also overhears a table talking about never having tried deep dish Chicago-style pizza despite living in Chicago their whole life. They are celebrating their move from Chicago at Ever.
Struck by this comment, Richie searches for a solution. He doesn’t want these guests to be disappointed. He takes matters into his own hands, sprinting, in a full suit, to Pequod’s to buy a deep dish pizza to serve as a surprise. Upon return to Ever, Richie eagerly requests to hand-deliver the pizza to the diners – another promotion that the expeditor gladly grants him.
As Richie delivers the modernized version of the pizza, the joy exhibited by the diners changes the trajectory of Richie’s character for the remainder of the episode, and arguably the season. From then on, he is seen as a team player, willing to learn, listen, and figure out solutions.
In business, we are often met with roadblocks, problems, and fires that need to be put out. What does a top performer do when faced with a problem? They first seek to understand the problem, and then, after careful diagnosis, find a solution. Even if the solution isn’t the right one, it’s the effort and willingness to put one’s ego aside that deserves praise.
Leaders are willing to go above and beyond to make things right – to peel the mushroom a little longer, to practice the cross-over dribble a little more, to show up five minutes earlier to every meeting.
Coach K, with decades of experience coaching the most elite basketball players around the globe, urges his players to not make excuses. Instead, he invests in players who are curious about improving their craft, studying their opponents, and doing the right thing on- and off- the court.
The desire to constantly improve – not because of external factors like making more money, getting a promotion, or becoming more famous, but because of internal factors like personal development, skill attainment, and internal achievement – is what often leads to hyperbolic outperformance.
In Order to Get Better, Change Limits
In the final scene, Richie meets Chef Terry, the owner of Ever, who Carmy worked with many years ago. She is seen peeling mushrooms by hand in the kitchen, alone. He asks her to teach her how to peel them, and she agrees. They begin peeling the mushrooms together before Richie asks her candidly, “So, why do you do this?”, referring to performing the tedious task. She responds, “Respect. Time well spent.”
She goes on, sharing a memory of opening her first restaurant, which was wildly successful, when she was younger. Although her first restaurant was initially successful, her arrogance led to its demise and subsequent public wipeout. Richie, curious about how she landed on her feet all these years later to run Ever, asks how she turned things around.
Chef Terry responds by telling another story, this time about her father. She tells him that after he passed away, she discovered while cleaning his house a stash of notebooks he journaled in while he served in the army. In them, she described how vividly he detailed his experiences: the color of the ocean he sailed on, the beauty of the palm trees he saw, and the taste of the escargot he ate. She then says that at the end of each entry, of which there were hundreds, he would sign each one off the same way.
As she is about to answer Richie’s question about how she recovered after her public failure, the lead expediter pulls Chef Terry for an emergency. Chef Terry exits, leaving Richie floored. Richie attempts a last-ditch effort to learn what her father’s sign off was, shouting for Chef Terry to tell him what he wrote.
However, it’s too late. Chef Terry is gone, and the episode begins playing “Love Story” by Taylor Swift in the background (honestly, not a Swiftie, but I suggest playing the song to read the remainder of this post).
Frustrated, and seeking answers, Richie looks up from peeling mushrooms and sees the square clock in the kitchen. The very same clock that he’d been agonizing over for the entire week as he polished forks for over 70 hours.
Underneath the clock, is the quote, “Every Second Counts.”
Conclusion
In basketball, the final two minutes of the game typically serve as the seemingly most important two minutes of the game. Timeouts are used. Fouls run amok to stop the clock. And each possession becomes more important than the last.
The final two minutes of the game, or the result that people see on the stat sheet only tell a fraction of the story.
A much more accurate version of the story is to see the full game from start to finish.
Here’s what really matters:
The amount of preparation that went into the game: time spent dribbling, peeling mushrooms, polishing forks.
The details of every play: who cuts to the basket, sets a backscreen, and takes the shot; who takes the order, cuts the vegetables, the entre, and delivers the plate.
The composition of the team: who plays power forward, shooting guard, and sixth man; who is the expediter, stage, minder, and chef.
And, last, the execution matters: does the shot go in, is the plate truly exceptional, and do we achieve the outcome we want?
To leaders like Coach K, Carmy of The Bear, and Chef Terry of Ever – they understand that the final two minutes of the game are not necessarily the most important part of a winning team.
They know that those who show up for every second are the ones you want on your team.