I hope I don't tick off anyone with my view below. I believe in what I have written, but I'm the first one to admit that most caterers don't have a problem with "kitchen kingdoms". It is important to remember that the problem could "creep" up on any caterer at any time so it is wise to keep looking for situations that may cause an unhappy kitchen.
The kitchen and its staff are really the indisputable heartbeat of any catering company. The kitchen is a complex combination of skills and egos. It is easy for a single person (often the owner) to crown themselves ruler of the kitchen.
This isn’t bad, but if the ruler becomes a dictator, problems are created. If the owner is the chef and becomes the kingdom-keeper, little can be done to prevent or cure the situation. I can’t tell you the number of times co-owners or spouses have called me in for consulting to deal with exactly this, but I have never had great success in solving this problem. When I’m there, everyone agrees that a kingdom is not good for the company and the person in question always promises to change. Once I leave, everything goes back to the way it was.
A hired staff person may take over the kitchens as an executive chef or kitchen manager in a dictatorial manner, but this should be avoided first of all in the hiring interview. Appropriate kitchen management needs to be part of the job description and discussed during the first and last interviews for the job.
“Chef, if you were to be hired, we need you to understand and agree that we are not looking for a take-over type of leader. Your job is to build a team with active participation by all the culinary staff. We are not seeking a dictator in our kitchens. We want our kitchen leader to maintain control through teaching proper procedures and exerting a mutual respect for everyone. If you need assistance in special situations, ownership needs to be involved. Do you have any questions on what we are seeking? Are you in total agreement with this policy?”
The goal is to have a kitchen that is based on company-wide policies and systems instead of power or personalities. During your interview, you can quickly get a sense of the candidate’s degree of understanding by learning about their views on having recipes written down or keeping them in their head. If they believe that their recipes are theirs and are reluctant to share them with others, it’s a good sign that they are a kingdom builder.
Some caterers engineer a situation during a chef’s employment interview where the interviewer is interrupted via the phone or with someone entering the interview room announcing a particular problem that just happened in the kitchen. The interviewer then asks the chef being interviewed if they have ideas for a solution. While this is a staged situation, you can learn a lot by how the interviewee chef responds.
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Even though I am a very small operation I can completely see this happening! I have a friend "event planner" and the situation that she is in is the staff resents the "cook" so she needs to oversee and intervene for staff because of the "Cook's Kingdom". How I handle this with my own staff is they are instructed to review the task list and ask questions if it is new and/or unclear or I ask if they would like to oversee someone who has done it before etc. I mindmap all my tasks for an event and it is broken down into easy to understand steps so people know when they come into the kitchen or etc., to look at the computer (or my ipad or iphone- off site) and choose a task from the list unless I designate them specifically to someone (which is rarely they are all crossed trained!). It is broken down by event (color coded), day of the week and most important/time consuming from top to bottom! Seeing an overview (mindmap) also helps schedule time if tasks can be done earlier you can easily review your list or if you have a heavy day maybe something needs adjusted or more labor brought in. I think a lot of time "The Kingdom" issue stems from people's egos and fear of failure on the one "in charge". They are overwhelmed because they can't concentrate on their task because of so many questions and interruptions and then it leads to them questioning themselves, becoming irritable and a control freak! Instead of having tasks lists made in advanced that has been reviewed and knowing that everything is done when the tasks list is done!
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