Baking & Cooking

The Ingredients

At Learning to Lead we teach the art of cooking – cooking with humans - unique, wonderful, tasty, high-energy humans. Competence and skills, attitude and energy are determinants of good ingredients.

The Science of Baking and The Art of Cooking

The passion that my wife Debbie, a gourmet chef, displays for every aspect of cooking and entertaining inspired me to seize on the metaphor of cooking and baking to describe what it is that we teach at Learning to Lead.

Debbie reminded me that baking is a science while cooking is an art. Baking requires the application of intense energy (heat) to a predetermined formula, using a tested method. It is a recipe-driven process, which is irreversible. The only artistic opportunity the baker has is to decorate the cake.

There are many recipes from which to bake. There are tried and tested favourite recipes, and there are great recipe books from every corner of the globe. Whichever recipe one chooses to use, however, one should follow it meticulously.

Measure 300 grams accurately, “level” tablespoons must be level, and if the recipe calls for 30 minutes at 180 degrees, one should not attempt to bake for 25 minutes at 210 degrees. Baking is an exact science.

Cooking, however, is a creative art form. By using only six basic sauces, and three soup stocks, one can cook with an infinite variety of fresh ingredients. By blending carefully chosen combinations in a chosen sauce or stock, one can create an art form.

At Learning to Lead, we don’t teach baking. We teach cooking, and the ingredients we use are humans. Baking, like management, is a science. It is about practical processes, and there are thousands of recipes to bake with. Recipes for good corporate governance, recipes for writing feasibility studies, recipes for doing salary surveys, recipes for preparing budgets, recipes for managing a production line, recipes for doing a comprehensive audit. GAAP is a recipe. First Aid is a series of recipes. Modern medicine seems to be mostly about precise medical and surgical recipes…

At Learning to Lead we don’t teach baking. There are better bakers than we are, and they teach baking in all its forms really well. Their recipes are reliable time after time, and they bake them using predictable formulas that work.

At Learning to Lead we teach the art of cooking – cooking with humans - unique, wonderful, tasty, high-energy humans. Competence and skills, attitude and energy are determinants of good ingredients. Honesty and loyalty impart a special sweetness too.

We teach six sauces -  six different ways of looking at the world.  With these six pictures, you can master the art of cooking instinctively.  The sauces that we will teach you will enable you, as a leader, in any situation, to optimise the energy that flows so freely from the relationships you have with:

- The real you,

- The people closest to you,

- The people around you,

- Your organisation,

- Your family,

- Your country, or even your continent

We will also introduce you to six herbs and six spices, which will bring out the unique, subtle and wonderful flavours and aromas of humanity.

We will share with you six gifts that will change what is possible for you and for those that surround you – permanently.

By Colin Hall and Debbie Reinders-Hall