Parable Of The Kitchen Spindle

(via capitalideasonline) I liked the wonderful parable called 'Parable of the kitchen spindle' (first published in the Harvard Business Review in 1962).

A restaurant owner found his cooks and waitresses were bickering about orders, especially during peak hours. He consulted four specialists, representing four different disci­plines:

A sociologist framed the problem in terms of status and hierarchy: the cooks resented receiving orders from the lower status waitresses. He recommended sensitivity training for both the cooks and the waitresses.

An anthropologist stressed cultural norms, especially concerning sex roles. The male cooks disliked having their actions initiated by women. He recommended that a senior cook be given authority to manage the system-he could tell the waitresses where to leave their orders and parcel them out among the cooks.

A psychologist diagnosed the problem in terms of sibling rivalry: the cooks and the waitresses were like brothers and sisters competing for approval of the boss, who had become a parent figure to them. He recom­mended weekly counseling sessions for both groups to improve communication.

An information theorist blamed "cognitive overload." At peak times, too many orders had to be memorized, resulting in tension and friction around the kitchen. He recommended waitresses punch the orders into a new computer system, which would display the right orders at the right time for each cook.

The manager was thoroughly confused. He feared he could not afford any of these solutions. What if he invested in one of them and it did not work? In desperation, he mentioned the problem to a junior cook. "You know, in the restaurant where I used to work they had a rotating thing in the kitchen and we clipped our orders to it," he replied. "The cooks could just turn it around and pull off an order each time they were ready to start cooking something new. It made everything a lot easier. Do you think that would work here?

The boss said he didn't know. So he took the idea back to the four experts. Each continued to recommend the course of action first proposed, but each also said the kitchen spindle might help alleviate the problem:

The sociologist said the spindle would align statuses (since the orders would have to wait until the cook got them).

The anthropologist said the spindle would impersonal­ize the initiation of action, thereby freeing the cooks from the despised reversal of sex roles.

The psychologist said the spindle would reduce the friction-causing interaction between cook and waitress, minimizing sibling rivalry.

The information theorist said the spindle would give the system external memory comparable to a comput­er's (i.e., the orders would be saved on paper).

The boss installed the kitchen spindle, and it was a smashing success. He never had to consider any of the experts' other advice further.

The moral of course, is that when a decision makes sense through several different frames, it is probably a good decision.