Yesterday I was a part of a faculty advisory panel for the faculty of George Brown College's Centre for Hospitality and Culinary Arts. I wouldn't call myself a hospitality professional, and by no stretch a culinary artist, but I came with the perspective of the future of meetings.
George Brown is generally regarded as Canada's best for these programs, but this was a very critical and candid evaluation of their performance and integration with industry. There was a chef on the panel, the Executive Chef Nigel Didcock from The Granite Club. I was very impressed with his staunch position and consistent response to all questions. He challenged the faculty over and over to get with the times, but mostly he insisted that they behave as mentors and coaches to the students. He was adamant that they needed better direction.
While I might replace "direction" with "nurturing guidance" or other less domineering jargon, he made a very compelling case. He shared a lot of personal accounts of mentoring practices he's engaged in, and was open about having a multitude of mentors in his life that he leaned on.
Regardless of where we are in our own careers or lives, the good chef made me realize that we should all be considering mentorship and developing those around us to the best of our abilities.
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2 comments:
Clearly from the trends we are seeing what you learn today will be irrelevent tomorrow. In this case what should we be teaching our students? I think that Nigel was bang on, learning how to chop, sautee, braise etc... are all fundamental skills but skills that can be learned and perfected in the workplace. The harder skills to teach are the soft skills, how to lead, how to be an effective member of the team, how to communicate honestly with colleagues, and humility. Essentially, educators of today should be mentors responsible for not passing over their accumulated silo of knowledge but the tips and tricks that got them where they are.
I think the most important thing people can learn is how to learn. A formal education is said to have a 3 year shelf life. If it was acquired by means of hard work and reflection, then you've got something more timeless.
The value of reflection is a tough thing to sell for a mentor. Everyone wants easy answers. There's no learning there, though.
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