Siheyuan: Starting as a Chef Apprentice

On the streets of Berlin, a young office worker was holding a leaflet of Wang's All-in-One Restaurant and reading it while walking. He was attracted by the picture and introduction of "Chinese-style roasted pork elbow" and decided to try it after get off work.

When he walked into the restaurant, the waiter greeted him warmly and guided him to a seat.

When ordering, the waiter introduced the new dishes in detail again, and the office worker ordered the "Chinese-style roasted pork elbow" and another side dish without hesitation.

When the pork elbow was served, he was impressed by its tempting appearance and aroma. After tasting it, he praised the dish and said he would visit the restaurant often in the future.

……

As the number of branches increased, cross-cultural management became an important issue facing Wang Jianye.

In Germany, a land of diverse cultures, employees from different regions have different cultural backgrounds, work habits and values. How to effectively manage and coordinate these employees so that they can work together and work for the development of the hotel has become a difficult problem that needs to be solved urgently.

At the Berlin branch, during a normal dinner rush hour, the interior was brightly lit, diners were laughing and talking, and waiters were busily moving between tables, taking orders, serving food, and clearing away tableware.

The German employees carried out their work in an orderly manner according to the established procedures. They stood tall, walked briskly and rhythmically, and scanned every corner of the restaurant with focused eyes, always paying attention to the needs of customers.

When taking orders, German waiters will politely walk to the customer's table, bend slightly, and ask the customer's needs clearly in standard German. They will then quickly and accurately record the order information in a notebook, turn around and walk quickly to the kitchen to hand the menu to the chef. The whole process is like the operation of precise gears, efficient and orderly.

Some newly recruited Asian employees have different working styles. They pay more attention to flexibility in teamwork and harmonious interpersonal relationships. During the service process, Asian employees will always pay attention to the customer's expression and tone, trying to capture the customer's potential needs from these details.

For example, when they see a customer looking around anxiously as if looking for a waiter, Asian employees will not hesitate to temporarily put down their work and take the initiative to ask the customer if he needs help, even if they are currently performing other tasks such as clearing dishes from the neighboring table.

During the dinner rush, a small internal incident caused by cultural differences occurred. A German customer suddenly signaled to the Asian employee, Xiao Li, that his child accidentally knocked over a water cup and needed to be cleaned up. Xiao Li immediately stopped serving food to another table of customers and rushed to get the cleaning tools.

However, according to the established process followed by German employees, cleaning the table should be done uniformly after all current serving tasks are completed, which can maximize work efficiency and avoid confusion.

Hans, a German employee, frowned when he saw what Xiao Li did, and his eyes showed dissatisfaction. He quickly walked to Xiao Li and said seriously in German: "You shouldn't clean up now, it will disrupt our service process. Serve the dishes first."

Xiao Li looked aggrieved. He explained in not-so-fluent German: "But the customer is in a hurry now. The child might get wet and feel uncomfortable. We should meet the customer's urgent needs first."

Hans disagreed. He shook his head and insisted that they should follow the procedure. The two of them were deadlocked and the surrounding customers began to cast curious glances at them, which made the originally lively atmosphere in the restaurant become a little awkward.

After Wang Jianye learned about this, he knew that if this problem was not resolved in a timely manner, similar conflicts might continue to breed in branches, affecting the normal operation of the hotel and team cohesion.

Therefore, he quickly decided to organize a meeting of all employees, hoping to resolve the misunderstanding caused by cultural differences through communication and exchange, and find a management method suitable for multicultural teams.

On the day of the meeting, the employees of the Berlin branch gathered in a corner of the restaurant. The originally spacious space now seemed a bit crowded. The employees were sitting or standing, with different expressions, some with doubts, some with a little seriousness, and everyone was guessing the purpose of this meeting.

Wang Jianye stood in front, his expression solemn and firm. He cleared his throat and said, "As everyone knows, there have been some minor frictions in our branch recently. This is actually due to the fact that we come from different cultural backgrounds and have different working habits and values. Today, I specially invited a professional cross-cultural communication expert to explain to you. I hope we can better understand each other and solve this problem together."

As soon as the voice fell, a well-dressed and elegant cross-cultural communication expert came forward. She was smiling, with gentle and kind eyes, holding some materials and cases in her hands. The expert first introduced herself to everyone, and then began a vivid explanation.

She used a projector to show some pictures of different cultural scenes, and pointed at the pictures while saying: "In German culture, being on time and following rules are very important values.

For example, in German factories, workers strictly follow the schedule to carry out production operations, and every step is accurate and correct, which is regarded as respect for work and responsibility for the team. In our hotel, German employees follow the established service process for the same reason, which ensures the efficiency and stability of the service, so that every customer can receive timely service. "

As she spoke, she switched to another picture, which showed an Asian family sitting together eating, with a warm and harmonious atmosphere.

The expert continued: "In Asian culture, harmonious interpersonal relationships are highly valued. In the service industry, Asian employees tend to pay more attention to the emotional needs of customers. They believe that it is worthwhile to satisfy customers' immediate feelings, even if it means breaking some routine processes. As we have seen, Asian employees will immediately put down their work to help customers when they have urgent needs. This is to make customers feel valued and cared for, thereby establishing good customer relationships."

In order to help employees better understand this cultural difference, the expert also gave an example. She told a story about a cooperation project between a German company and an Asian company.

During the project execution, the German team advanced the work according to the detailed project plan, with strict time nodes and quality standards at each stage. The Asian team, on the other hand, paid more attention to the communication and collaboration atmosphere among team members. When encountering some emergencies, they would give priority to the feelings and opinions of team members and adjust the work plan. This led to some misunderstandings and conflicts between the two sides in the early stage of cooperation, but through in-depth communication and mutual understanding, they finally found a balanced way of cooperation, and the project was successful.

The expert's explanation was lively and interesting, and the employees listened attentively, whispering to each other from time to time and discussing their feelings. Some German employees nodded slightly, as if they began to understand the motivations of the Asian employees' behavior; the Asian employees also thought deeply and realized that the German employees' insistence on the process was not rigid, but a cultural tradition.

Wang Jianye listened carefully to the expert's explanation. He observed the changes in the employees' expressions from time to time. Seeing that everyone gradually understood, he stepped forward and said, "The success of the hotel is inseparable from the efforts of every employee. No matter what cultural background we come from, we are all members of this big family. We should respect and understand each other and jointly find a working method that not only meets the overall operation requirements of the hotel but also takes into account the characteristics of different cultures."

His voice was steady and powerful, and his eyes swept across every employee firmly. He continued, "In daily work, I hope everyone can communicate more. When encountering problems, don't rush to blame, but think from the other party's cultural perspective and discuss solutions together. Only in this way can we improve work efficiency and provide customers with better services."

After the meeting, the relationship between the employees began to improve significantly. During a lunch service, a similar situation occurred again. A customer accidentally spilled soup on the table. Xiao Zhang, an Asian employee, was about to clean it up when he suddenly remembered the last meeting. He turned to Peter, a German employee next to him and said, "Peter, this customer spilled soup. I want to clean it up, but I know we have a process. What do you think we should do?"

Peter was slightly stunned, then he smiled friendly and replied, "The situation this time is rather special. You go and clean up first, and I'll help you take care of other customers." Xiao Zhang nodded gratefully and quickly cleaned the table. The customer thanked them for their service.

When faced with special customer needs, German employees no longer stick to the same rigid procedures as before. For example, an elderly customer had difficulty in moving and needed a special seat arrangement. German employee Anna took the initiative to discuss with her Asian colleagues, and together they quickly adjusted the layout of the restaurant, found a comfortable and convenient seat for the elderly, and thoughtfully provided the elderly with some additional services, such as specially prepared soft food and warm blankets.

This cross-cultural integration and understanding not only improves the work efficiency and satisfaction of employees, but also brings customers a better service experience. Customers feel more intimate and thoughtful service in the restaurant, and their evaluation of the restaurant is getting better and better. The reputation of the restaurant gradually spreads in the Berlin area, attracting more customers to dine here.

Over time, this cross-cultural management experience has also been extended to other branches. In the Hamburg branch, employees receive special cross-cultural communication courses during their induction training to understand working methods and communication skills in different cultural backgrounds. This enables new employees to integrate into the team more quickly and reduces contradictions and conflicts caused by cultural differences.

During a large business dinner, the Hamburg branch welcomed customers from different countries and regions. With good cross-cultural communication skills, the employees provided personalized services to the customers.

They are able to accurately understand customer needs, whether it is German customers' strict requirements on food quality and service efficiency, or Asian customers' attention to interpersonal relationships and attention to details, the employees can cope with it with ease.

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The event was a huge success. Customers were full of praise for the hotel's service and said it was one of the most satisfying business dinners they had ever attended.

……

In order to ensure the freshness and quality of the ingredients, Wang's All Series Restaurants has always maintained a close cooperative relationship with local suppliers since its opening.

As the restaurant business prospers, the number of customers continues to rise, and the demand for food ingredients is also increasing day by day. The original supply model gradually reveals its limitations. This change has forced Wang Jianye to re-examine the cooperation model with suppliers and actively explore opportunities to further expand supply channels to meet the growing business needs.

In the long-term cooperation with meat suppliers, the restaurant's keen market insight has enabled it to detect subtle changes in consumer tastes and demands. With the improvement of living standards and the awakening of health awareness, some organic, high-quality meat products have emerged in the market and are highly favored by customers.

Wang Jianye realized that if this type of organic meat could be introduced into the restaurant's menu, it would not only meet the modern consumers' pursuit of healthy eating, but also add a unique selling point to the dishes, thereby improving the restaurant's grade and competitiveness.

Therefore, Wang Jianye took the initiative to conduct in-depth negotiations with existing meat suppliers to jointly explore the expansion of organic meat supply channels. The suppliers showed great enthusiasm and enthusiasm for this cooperation intention and took quick action to establish close cooperative relations with local organic farms.

They frequently travel between various organic farms, conducting in-depth inspections of the farms' breeding environment, feed sources and breeding methods to ensure that the organic pork, beef, lamb and other products they supply strictly comply with organic standards.

Most of these organic farms are located in quiet corners of the German countryside. On the vast grasslands, cows and sheep graze leisurely, and pigs move around in clean and tidy pens.

Farmers follow the laws of nature and the norms of organic agriculture, using antibiotic-free and hormone-free breeding methods to allow livestock to grow in a healthy and natural environment. After several rounds of detailed negotiations, suppliers and farmers finally determined key details such as the purchased varieties, quantities, prices, and delivery methods.

When the first batch of organic meat arrived at the restaurant, the whole kitchen was excited. The chefs opened the packages with great anticipation and carefully examined these hard-earned ingredients.

Organic pork is rosy in color, with clear texture and evenly distributed fat; organic beef is a deep and attractive dark red color, with firm muscles and a faint aroma of grass; organic lamb has no smell at all, and the tender meat is mouth-watering.

The hotel's chefs quickly used the organic meat in the preparation of special dishes. For example, in the dish "Organic Steak with Chinese and French Mixed Sauce", the chef first marinated the organic steak with salt, black pepper and olive oil to make it taste good.

Then, the steak is put on the hot iron plate and fried. With the sound of "sizzling", a layer of tempting charred crust quickly forms on the surface of the steak, while the meat inside gradually becomes tender and juicy under the action of high temperature. The fried steak is served on a beautiful plate, and the chef pours the carefully prepared Chinese and French mixed sauce on it.

This sauce combines the richness of French black pepper sauce with the sweet flavor of Chinese braised sauce. The unique taste complements the deliciousness of organic steak. (End of this chapter)