54.3 F
San Diego
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024
-Advertisement-

Serving a Purpose

The kitchen can be a great gathering place for parties and is often the hub of family socializing, but who would have ever thought the warm and relaxing setting would be a venue for human resources activities.

As it turns out, two local companies and an author have devised creative ways of putting the kitchen to work for teambuilding exercises that can help employees work together harmoniously, or, at the very least, generate camaraderie that fosters an improved work environment.

Inspiration for corporate teambuilding in a social setting can be found in Karin Eastham’s book, “Cook the Part: Delicious, Interactive and Fun Team Cooking,” published by Crosswalk Press. The book features eight themed menus with complete plans to prepare a team dinner in the comfort of a kitchen and home.

The premise behind the book is that when co-workers gather to cook and dine for an evening, they will experience a fun event that captures workplace dynamics. To begin with, the participants set a goal of creating a fabulous meal. There will be time constraints for completion of that meal. Everyone will have tasks to complete; therefore, each role is critical to success of the team.

Eastham, a Rancho Santa Fe resident, suggests bringing work teams of eight to 12 people into the kitchen where they can learn about interacting with others, role flexibility, and authenticity and vulnerability as they help each other prepare a meal. Results can range from developing better relationships, to gaining a better understanding of co-workers, to learning about each other’s strengths and weaknesses, she says.

Cooking for Camaraderie

“It’s a great bonding experience,” she said. “After one of these events you go back to the workplace with new appreciation for members of your team.”

Eastham can speak with confidence having served as a director for Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Illumina Inc., Geron Corp. and Trius Therapeutics Inc. During her long career in life sciences, the certified public accountant has held positions as executive vice president and chief operating officer and trustee of the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute; senior vice president, finance, chief financial officer and secretary of Diversa Corp.; and vice president, finance of Boehringer Mannheim Diagnostics.

Eastham said she left Sanford-Burnham in September 2008 to devote herself to writing “Cook the Part” over the following three years. Inspiration for the book came from spreadsheets she used to coordinate work teams of fellow board members and friends who gathered in her own kitchen over the years.

“I’ve always used cooking as a tool for building relationships,” Eastham said. “Early in my career I found it was a stress reliever. Then I started cooking with our work teams. It’s amazing what kind of issues you can resolve by cooking.”

Recipe for Better Relationships

Faheem Hasnain, president and CEO of Receptos Inc., says “Cook the Part” helped build camaraderie among himself and a group of biotech executives. Hasnain said they were trying recipes they wouldn’t normally be using in a setting that was outside their usual day-to-day professional environment. Eastham parsed out the tasks among the team of eight participants so each member could each bring something meaningful to the experience.

“There was a lot of fun and laughs,” he said. “You’re eating food and drinking wine at the same time. What could go wrong with that?”

“We all got to know each other better and friendships started to build,” said Hasnain, who is planning on hosting a similar teambuilding event in his Encinitas home with the Receptos executive team and staff of aesthetics company Senté. “When you engage in this type of event you get to know each other on a personal level.”

Among the enterprising local businesses that can facilitate teambuilding in the kitchen is La Jolla Cooks 4U. Under the direction of Chef Jodi Abel, a company’s staff can participate in gourmet cooking classes where they mingle, relax and enjoy preparing a meal together then feast on their creations.

Classes are held in Abel’s spacious Mt. Soledad custom home kitchen that offers sweeping ocean and mountain views.

“People walk out of here excited — they’re ready to get to work,” Abel said.

Collaboration on the Menu

“They’ve done collaborating in a way they wouldn’t have done anywhere else.”

She started La Jolla Cooks 4U in 2008 on a shoestring budget with a presence on the Internet and a reliance on TripAdvisor reviews. Now when a company or out-of-town guests come to her home she says she can coordinate four to six teams and work through 10 recipes.

“By the time they leave they’ve had an amazing time,” Abel says. “They’ve really bonded on a different level.

A more structured teambuilding event is offered at San Diego-based Festivities Catering’s 6,000-square-foot industrial kitchen at Camino Ruiz and Miramar Road. That’s where groups of 30 to 50 people get together to cook in Festivities Culinary Championships. Challenges they face along the way include communicating with each other as they locate ingredients in the refrigerator or pantry, working with unusual ingredients such as beets, and recovering a dish that’s been ruined.

Richards said teambuilding aspects pull together as the participants have to cooperate, use their imagination, and share their knowledge about such things as differences between kosher salt, sea salt and iodized salt. There’s also a competitive element as team members are scored on a scale of 1 to 5 on teamwork, overall appearance of the finished product, taste, consistency and quality.

What may be just as rewarding as winning a fun trophy or set of wooden spoons is the group sharing at the end of the event about the roles each played and how the meal all came together.

“We want them to enjoy cooking,” Richards said. “To demystify it for the nonculinary people is my personal goal.”

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-