Anyone can cook, anyone.

Wow, an unusual night – after 4 years of longing to catch Ratatouille either on business travel flights or the occasional break I take in PJ, it came to me on Channel 5 on a night that magically most of my other appointments got canceled (if you know me I’m never home on a Sunday night…), no competing football match for the TV, urgent but more of a tomorrow-urgent work left to do, et cetera.

And like most Pixar cartoons, it was magical as always. A healthy way for lacrimal gland cleansing, these movies speaks to all our inner hearts and guides our secular moral compass in a divided world.

Core to this movie, imho, is this motto: “Anyone Can Cook“, as the antagonist food critic Anton Ego framed it at the end:

In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.

The quote is actually longer and can be found on IMDB, but in essence, this is an important perspective in a world starving for talent, for ingenuity, more so in the arts but also sometimes in the sciences, and the risk of giving credit to something new, something that has extraordinarily ordinary and humble beginnings, is too daunting an undertaking for the leader desiring an echo chamber to their opinions.

Ironically, I’m surrounded at work these days from the opposite spectrum of people. It’s loosely called marketing, the need to turn ordinary things extraordinary regardless of its real “talent”. Of course there’s an admission criteria where the quality of work is judged, filtered, and ridiculed by the “great chefs” before even getting a chance to be served to the customer. But once through, there’s no turning back, all decks on the ship will have to come together to bring out the best of the talent, hoping for market acceptance.

Officially endowned with the role of pointing out “talent” for the team, I in turn get ridiculed pretty often. No don’t take this as airing dirty laundry in public as it’s more of a common stereotype of large organizations: each of us plays a role in a theatrical setup chasing after a web of Key Performance Indicators that points in all directions profitable to our shareholders.

Now and then, a Remy-like character shows up, full of enthusiasm and ideas, but is, as the corporate lingo goes, “not ready for prime time”. Covered by a number of Linguini-characters (we call them business developers), they continue to toil for admission, sometimes winning the hearts of the trial customers, sometimes winning brownie points before key decision makers. But once the toque is off, and when we realize that Remy is a rat, all bets are off. Chef Gusteau’s kitchen cannot be operated by a rat, or rats, or for that matter any lesser chef than the best in France, who are simply following the recipes left by the late Gusteau.

That is, in a nutshell, the breakthrough that I haven’t found after being here for a year. I will continue to do what’s best for everyone including myself in an equilibrium state (allowing some amount of hair pulling), but fundamentally, I long for my own La Ratatouille kitchen.

Not every company can create a great product, but a great product can come from any company, not just big brands.

Not every business can provide the best service, but the best service can come from any business, not just businesses with customer service departments.

Not every man is good enough to be your son in law, but he who was chosen by your daughter can come from anywhere in the entire human race from any family background.

Not every school can provide you with a great education, but your greatest lesson in life can come from any school, within or without the white walls and ivory towers.

Next time you see a potential talent with the wrong fit, before you shut the door, say, “Surprise Me!”, and he or she just might.