A lot of times kitchens can be very psychologically unsafe environments. The last one I worked in was very much that. The owner (who was also the head chef) had many accolades under his belt and he had built what could have been considered a dream team of star players. The majority of the kitchen staff had all been kithen managers, people who had spent plenty of time developing menus, costing items, managing their own teams of people for years. We had the potentiality to blow the competition out of the water. However, taking all the information from the article into consideration, it’s kind of no wonder why we failed. You can’t win a war when everyone is their own army. The head chef would ask for our opinions, there would be long drawn out conversations about how something could work or why it wouldn’t but regardless he would do whatever it was he wanted to anyway. Instead of being sensitive to one of my fellow cooks’ feelings when she was overwhelmed by money troubles at home, he told her she needed to ‘leave that at the door’. He also effectively told me that my depression didn’t matter and my mood affects everyone and I should just figure out how to have a better attitude so it didn’t take down the atmosphere. It got to the point no one would want to talk to him since he was only shitty to us anyway. The most frustrating part was that, for the most part, we all worked well together. There were free agents that just did whatever they wanted to, but they weren’t the people being emotionally unsafe to their teammates.
It often lends itself to bigger and better breakthroughs if people aren’t afraid to share their thoughts for fear of ridicule from the rest of the team. It also provides a diversity of thought when everyone is given permission to talk instead of being overrun by one or a few people.