Learning. Adding some masala to management lessons

Like many moms of my generation, I share a love-hate relationship with my kitchen.

It is pure love when the s ambar turns out so well that I even let my husband’s comment “Ah, that tasted exactly like my mother’s sambar ”, pass. Or when the c hanna masala that I packed for my perpetually hungry sonscomes back polished clean and their friend’s mother calls me asking for the recipe. Or, when my finicky mom appreciates the koottu and vatha kozhambu that I had hurriedly prepared before leaving for work.

However, it is anything but love, when work goes on and on and never seems to stop, where the kitchen is concerned. I must concede, though, that most of the management lessons that I have picked up over the years did come from the kitchen. For all those who have had the privilege, pleasure (and the utter amazement) of watching their mother, mother-in-law, grand moms and aunts managing the kitchen, this should resonate with you.

Forget the 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. rush hour outside. Have you ever witnessed the 7.00 a.m. to 8.00 a.m. rush hour in the kitchen? In an old (but spotlessly clean) two-burner gas stove, my mother would be whipping up breakfast and lunch at the same time, deftly chopping vegetables and making one dish after another as fluidly as Bombay Jayashri’s musical notes.

Dosas with milagai podi for one family member, sambar rice with appalam for another, packing would be on, full swing. In the midst of all this would be requests for cups of coffee from someone or the other and Horlicks or Bournvita for the little ones in the family. My mother would operate in the midst of all this, with zen-like efficiency. This is what is known in modern parlance as ‘multi-tasking’. And yes, my first brush with multi-tasking did begin in the kitchen.

But let’s rewind a bit and look at what typically would have happened the previous night. Amma would be watching the TV serial along with the rest of us with rapt attention. But she would be cutting vegetables, keeping in mind the next day’s menu. With the menu designed the previous night, and the vegetables cut, the tamarind and dal soaked in water, the next morning would be all about action. This was my first lesson on planning. In most of the engineering and management books, we learn that wastage can be minimised. But zero-wastage ? Nah! This was one more lesson that came, you guessed it right, from the kitchen.

What do you do when you have left-over rice? Well, it gets made into some sort of a ‘mixed-rice’ the next day, such as lime rice, coconut rice, curd rice with seasoning, get the drift? This zero-wastage philosophy was not just at my mother’s kitchen. Even at my mother-in-law’s kitchen it was just the same. For the first few months of my marriage, I never figured out why my mother in law made avial , every Saturday! Saturday was her weekly ‘veggie-shopping’ day. And the one way to empty out the leftover vegetables in the fridge was, of course, avial ! For these ladies, leftovers were synonymous with creativity. Leftover bread would thus become bread upma and leftover dosa batter became kuzhi paniyaarams .

And now, for the hot tip. Contingency Planning You may have seen vathals and vadaams being made in your terrace or the neighbour’s terrace. These were made in summer and would be used through the year.

My mother-in-law was the first to introduce me to a technique called “clean as you go”. This way, even in the midst of major cooking, the kitchen and the counter would always be clean. Dishes would get done then and there. I later started applying the same do-it-right-now philosophy to ‘housekeeping’ my email and filing systems at work.

Before you conclude that ‘masala’ management is all about Mom’s kitchen, let me add a few lessons that I picked up from modern kitchens. One of the things I noticed is that the smart kitchens are always in a “state of preparedness” to receive unexpected guests. My friend Lakshmi will always have boiled dal and one or two chutneys in the fridge, another friend Manju, has chappati dough and boiled potatoes in her fridge. My sister goes the extra mile and actually stocks home-made paneer cutlets in her freezer. These women are unfazed by unexpected guests. Give them 10 minutes and a hot lunch or dinner would be served with a smile. The next big lesson that I learnt was how to ‘reduce complexity’ and still have a great party. My friend Chandrika introduced me to the concept of ‘pot luck’. She applies design-thinking to the menu carefully and ensures that every guest brings one item, right from starters to main course to dessert. This way, the host also gets an opportunity to enjoy the party and as the cooking load is distributed and no one feels the stress of cooking for 10-15 guests. And now, for a ‘marketing’ tip from my own kitchen. My husband and I are a real-life example of two-states and cross cultural integration. I am a Tamil Iyer and he is a Kannadiga. Thus, when my relatives come over for a meal, I make Udupi recipes such bisibelebath and when my in-laws side of the family come over, I make p aruppu usili and vatha kozhambu . I hide the little imperfections with an extra dose of garnish, like any good marketer!

So, here’s a message to all those who manage training programmes. Whenever you want to train people in management, why not consider sending them to the nearest kitchen?

The writer is CMO, Polaris Financial Technology

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