There are only a few things I know about that you might care to hear. One is cooking, and that is something that’s fed me both literally and figuratively for most of my life. I grew up in a restaurant family, have already led a whole half of my current life as a restaurant guy and caterer and now I have the great joy of having other skills so that I can go back to cooking for fun and maybe a few bucks now and again.
What’s most intriguing about this is not only that I could make your stomach happy at the drop of a fritter, it’s that when you talk about building coherence and community, food is often the driver. Business lunches, working dinners for board members, Happy Hour, potlucks…they are the backdrop of so many moments that help the cause of effective workspaces. It’s certainly no secret that finding the commonality we share has to be a building block of “team” but in this day and age of divides so often depicted as absolute, those Velcro moments are harder to create and combine. Only some of us vote, we don’t all have children and certainly I’ve got some differences with people who live south of the river-or east of the river-or north of somewhere, or, you get the point. But we all get hungry. And even the curmudgeonly among us would rather eat with someone than alone. It’s this starting point that absolutely has to be abused repeatedly time and again, if the other options are going to be HR’d out of the picture.
So, what I ask of you is to think about how to do it one better. What is a more effective way to throw a potluck? Who is the passionate foodie but reticent employee who lurks under others’ Q and A at team meetings, and how can you draw their experience and streusel out into the open for the benefit of your productivity and detriment to your cholesterol count? As with most of the tactics of modern business, it becomes a creativity issue of using time honored tactics in atypical ways to prove to yourself and your clients or employees that caring can mean many things, and not all of them have to include a pay raise. Although you could buy some great steaks with an extra $40.
~ Jason Goux is a guest contributor.
