Team Working – Why A Cooking Class Could Be The Magic Ingredient

Looking to help your team bond? If so, you will be led into team building activities. And who would have thought that the answer lay in the kitchen?

Management expert Ken Blanchard is quoted as saying, none of us is as smart as all of us. And yet, so many firms and organisations fail to invest in developing teams.

If your employees don’t gel, don’t communicate or collaborate – or don’t do any of these things well – the resulting conflict, missed opportunities and deadlines will be hurting your business.

Thus, team building activities alongside individual supervision and developing strong leaders become part and parcel of a business’s cultures.

But why do the team building activities such as Cookery Courses From Seasoned Cookery School, popular choices for strengthening a team, work and work so well?

Cooking and communication

How long does one mix of ingredients need to bake? At which point should another part of the meal be placed in the oven? Who is peeling the veg? What does this tool do? Who knows how to use it? Does it need more seasoning?

All these questions are ‘collaborative’ questions, open-ended questions inviting discussion. And this means that as a team, not only are people communicating with each other, they are collaborating too.

A strong end result

What could be a strong incentive than if you don’t cook it right, we don’t eat?

Cookery courses combine all kinds of skills but of course, not everyone possesses the same level of cooking skill or knowledge. And so very quickly as a team enter the kitchen or BBQing area, a set of vulnerabilities open up.

Working together is the only option for succeeding. Because without it, the team meal at lunch is missing a dish…

Everyone contributions are important

In the commercial kitchen, everyone’s contribution is valued.

• The guy who loads the dishwasher, despite being seen as a menial role by many, keeps the kitchen stocked with clean utensils, cooking equipment, plates and bowls.
• The team who peel endless sacks of potatoes, onions and so on create the raw materials ready for use in dishes.
• The cooking team seemingly perform alchemy, turning a cluster of a few ingredients into a dish that diners love.

All this happens seamlessly and in good time – time is of the essence in a kitchen, it is the pressure that everyone faces – and a team that needs to work together will be much stronger after spending time in the kitchen.

A supportive atmosphere

In order for any team to reach its goals, the environment in which they work needs to be supportive.

But within the team itself, there needs to be a mutually supportive atmosphere. When the pressure is on, a supportive team will be the most productive one.

Make use of different skills and learn new ones

No question is a hard one if you know the answer and so we assume that everyone knows how to peel a potato using a potato peeler. But its only easy if you know how.

Teaching and learning new skills is something that happens every day in the kitchen. but on Seasoned Courses cookery courses it is amazing what happens to a team in a different environment.

The leader, normally so confident, can be vulnerable and not possess the same level of cooking skills as junior members of staff.

Someone who may find it difficult to shine at work all of sudden becomes THE person with the aptitude and ability to not only create the dish but help their team members to learn and use new skills that help to deliver the final project.

Good leadership

A strong team has a strong leader, someone who understands the difference between facilitating, seeing the bigger picture and micro-managing.

They don’t rule with fear but enable team members to grow and develop. The kitchen can sometimes come with a bit of a reputation, with red-faced chefs barking orders and juniors scuttling about the place.

But a real commercial kitchen is not like this. And neither should your team be. But what a refreshing change to see someone else naturally rise as a leader, as well as placing someone who hitherto has been reluctant to lead from the front, develop some leadership attributes.

Most importantly – It’s FUN!

Fun reduces conflict. Fun relaxes people. Fun makes people smile, instead of frown. Fun means people learn and in the cookery class, this is exactly what happens. Seasoned Cookery school cookery courses have helped hundreds of teams to mix, with results being outstanding for the client.

Isn’t that something your team needs?

 

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