Fathering Matters
14 May 2010
Management by Eating Together
Chen Sun works in a small setup with not more than 20 staff. His boss, Mr. Tang, runs the company like he would a family. Although every employee had separate and different responsibilities, when a project required them to cooperate and support each other’s function, Chen Sun and his colleagues performed seamlessly as a team. This did not surprise anyone because the boss had a way of building his office “family”.
In the company premises, there is a small dinning area with a well-equipped kitchenette. Through the years, the staff has come to enjoy having lunch together in this dining area. It is comfortable and air-conditioned. The staff would rather eat there than walk in the hot sun to eat at the crowded food court. What’s more, Mr. Tang, the boss, would often personally take lunch orders and have the takeaways delivered to the dining area. To help his staff stay healthy and save money, he would sometimes even prepare a big pot of nutritious herbal soup, to supplement their lunch time meal. On days when a staff is celebrating his/her birthday, there would always be something special for lunch plus a birthday cake complete with candles. Sometime someone would bring a dish from home to share with everyone. Lunch at this company often felt like a family meal.
But conflicts do arise even in the most closely knitted communities. Sometimes staff might quarrel over work matters during these “family’ lunches. Mr. Tang would always interject, reminding them not to talk about work during lunch but to settle things at some other appropriate time. One time, two staff had a really heated argument. One of them took his plate, chucked it into the rubbish bin and stormed out of the dining room, slamming the door as he left. This person then stopped lunching at the common dining area for some time, and the atmosphere in the office was quite tense. Some colleagues were quite affected by the whole matter and initially wanted to avoid the common dining area too. However they reversed their decision, mainly because of Mr. Tang’s sincerity in wanting to eat regularly with them. Indeed this company’s lunch ritual held the staff together.
Mr. Tang never compelled his staff to lunch in with him, but he would always invite them and often tempt them with his herbal soup, extra dishes, celebrative mood and latest gossips. This lunch time ritual has helped staff to know one another better and created a network of support and encouragement. Strong relationships have thus been nurtured among employees. Over time, this simple ritual has even helped bring about reconciliation among staff. Chen Sun would know this very well, as he was the one who in a moment of anger, thrashed his food into the bin and stormed out of the room one lunch time. The persistent invitation by his boss to join the rest of the company for lunch, assured Chen Sun that his boss did not hold that against him and that he is still part of the team. The team remains closely knitted and the closeness helps the team to be effective and efficient.
I don’t think there is any management textbook or management guru that expounds on the art of management by eating together. It will certainly not become the next wave of management thinking. However, what Mr. Tang has been doing is simply replicating what works in most families and using it at his company to build his team. A team that eats together stays together.
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