You're managing a busy kitchen. How can you ensure clear communication to avoid delays and misunderstandings?

Clear primary roles with vague secondary roles. When all is working in perfect harmony there’s no problem, but how often do perfect days arise? Almost never. Always have a secondary and tertiary plan ready. During challenges there is less chaos, and additionally you have time and opportunity to evaluate new performers. Business is a dynamic flow,embrace.

During service there is one voice. If there are too many people talking or calling for things in a kitchen then the station chefs may become confused and falter in execution of critical, time-sensitive whole-team tasks. Encouraging a kitchen staff to carry objectives of the EC, CDC, or Sous present at the expediting station is imperative to minimize cross-talk distractions. Requests can be made of this one person with clear and direct, "Chef Call," whereas reception of delegation should be echoed in a unanimous or specific "heard." Clear echoing of chain-of-command explicitly carries forth expectations of the team during busy hours, and the iteration of these goals can be emphasized during pre-shift round-ups.

While I love cooking & spending hours in my home kitchen the experience I draw from is 30 years transporting critically ill &/or injured patients to facilities where their issues can be appropriately treated. I have completed 25,000 missions by ground, helicopter, and airplane; and between East Coast -West Coast, and Central America up to Canada. Patient population varies from 5-6 year old children to octogenarian flirters. My style, ask me any question you want, personal or not. I have learned the more I know about someone, working together is easier if there’s a connection. Make a connection. Caveat: do not judge others answers. That employee is revealing their raw self, protect and foster dialogue care team responding to calls either

Standard Policies & Procedures are a mixed blessing. In our line of work with my current employer, we tend to keep P&Ps to a minimum. Our environment is so dynamic,individual teams, crews need the latitude and freedom to solve problems immediately. Rigid P&Ps hinder efficacy in some circumstances. You’re the one, or rather you team should decide which procedures need tightening up.

In healthcare, well medicine, training is predominantly “see one, do one, teach one”! Efficiency is only gained by repeated use of skills. Train new equipment as it’s incorporated in the kitchen, repeat competency annually.