The Best Business Book Ever

The best business book of all time is...drum roll puh-lease...Kitchen Confidential.

Kitchen Confidential? Not How to Win Friends and Influence People? Not Hammer's Reengineering book? Not Iacocca? Not even The Fountainhead?

No, no, no, and not even close.

Buried in Anthony Bourdain's story of learning to work in kitchens from the New England clam house of his youth to the four-star establishments of his colleagues that are "mysteriously empty of four-letter words" and the salacious facts that bread baskets are recycled ("it's a fact, get over it") is the information you need to run any business.

That's because a restaurant is the archetypical business. The ur-enterprise. The commodities commodity. What really is the difference between a Big Mac and a DB burger that costs literally ten times as much?

Why its the foie gras and the truffles and the better cut of meat and the...whatever. Just like any foodie, I would be happy to eat a burger that costs $100 before tax and tip. I would be glad to convince myself that the foie gras is superior to Deviled Ham and that the truffle is more wonderful than the most golden urinal in the most palacial estate described in the most british accent by Robin Leach.

Sure.

But if the roles were reversed, and the secret sauce contained flecks of platinum and cost as much as a Gucci handkerchief, then the world (with the help of the PR folks) might be convinced. It's not so crazy. Lobster used to be the food so cheap it was given to slaves and chicken more desirable than steak (hence Mr. Hoover's promise to put one in your pot when you've been eating nothing but sorry-ass steak).

So a restaurant has to create a unique competitive advantage out of almost thin air. Celery florets (the stuff you've always thrown away from the end of the stalk) are turned into a culinary delight.

Fair enough, I say. Good for the restaurant to create value. And all the more lesson to any business that thinks it cannot beat its competition for any reason whatsoever. It isn't about the product, it's about the perception of the product. And that truth is repeated over and over: Betamax was "better" than VHS, Oracle didn't have the best database, Microsoft didn't have the best operating system, even Google doesn't have the best search engine. But all these companies made the most out of what they did have, which was an understanding of the market and the customer.

I like to ask my clients if they want to have the best product in the market. If they say yes, I worry that they have a goal which will ruin their business and put their employees out of work.

Which is the real reason Kitchen Confidential is so good. It's all about management. How does a restaurant turn out consistent food? It isn't the chef making all the dishes. It's a bunch of South Americans and the dregs of society (as Bourdain calls them)--people one step away from prison or the mental hospital, or just back from there.

How do you make food that makes the NY Times critic swoon with these societal rejects? Especially when your competitive advantage is what might be considered literally trash? This is the toughest management problem in the world.

Bourdain gives us his first lesson in the book. He drops a hot pan because, well, it's hot. The cook next to him, a mountainous man with an evil eye, says something to the effect of "Little Sissy can't take the heat?" by not saying anything as he picks up another fiery pan literally from inside the pizza oven, drops it in front of Bourdain and makes him feel the reality of his role in the restaurant. "Grow up" is the message and it is something most every manager would like to be able to say to an employee finding problems with getting the job done.

And Bourdain, and every chef, doesn't resent the boss for yelling at him. He does the same now. He tells new hires that they can work for him, but it will be a year or more before they're allowed to talk.

Now that certainly doesn't translate one-to-one in the corporate world. Yelling is out of place. So is insisting that new employees with years of education and MBAs are idiots. After all, unlike an illiterate cook, it is only fair to give an MBA at least one chance to see if they have a good idea, or should be handed a hot pan and told to shut up and cook.

(Another great book is Heat by Bill Buford. It too explains how restaurants work, and should be informative to anyone in businesses from car sales to social networking sites. And, I am also very appreciative to Mr. Buford for his revival of the parenthesis. [I feel a new man. Thank you, Bill.])