Meet your new workplace role model: the chef giving up his Michelin stars

From The Guardian, September 22, 2017

In his recent article for The Guardian, Stefan Stern, the author of "Myths of Management" and a visiting professor at Cass Business School, gives us a great example of job crafting to create meaningful work. Job crafting involves changing one's tasks, relationships, and ways of thinking about work in order to make one's job more meaningful and motivating.

French chef Sébastien Bras has decided to renounce his 3-star Michelin rating and choose a simpler more meaningful existence instead. Stern comments:

“Our newly liberated chef is thus an important role model. He is taking back control. He is rejecting the drudgery of the career ladder and the self-imposed pressure of conforming to other people’s expectations and standards. He is going to cook what he likes when he likes, and satisfy his own personal ambitions. Let others worry about Michelin stars. Bras will concentrate on pleasing his customer and, in the process, himself”.

Chef Sebastian is fortunate enough to work for himself and be able to make this change, but what about employees – can they craft their jobs? The answer is yes! Even though work design is sometimes constrained by the situation, employees can shape their work design. Examples of how they can do this include:

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- Focussing their efforts on tasks that are most interesting

- Building new relationships with others at work

- Reducing uninteresting or unnecessary tasks

- Introducing better ways of doing things, and

- Obtaining more support from their supervisor

Please click here to read Stern's article and here to read more about Chef Sebastian's decision.