Has your office ever been on a ropes course expedition or played paintball? How about softball or rock climbing? It was probably fun and a good bonding experience, but not everyone likes getting physical with coworkers. Imagine doing something just as teambuilding, only more delicious...a hands-on (or demonstration) cooking class for your company!

Senior merchandising VP working in the pantry

Rebecca Ets-Hokin's Culinary Team Building Program provides a tasty alternative to an afternoon retreat, and it supplies an incredible look at your group's dynamics, communication, and strategies. Plus, it's completely mobile. We come to you - we can turn any meeting room into a equipped, professional kitchen.

Never mind anyone's background - your team will learn how to work together to prepare delicious food - we provide training on basic kitchen skills and professional techniques. Afterwards, we'll share a constructive discussion about how the group came together (or didn't) as a unit. Plus, the group will receive a customized cookbook with the recipes you prepared, professionally styled photographs of the dishes, as well as fun action shots of the group at work! It's an incredible - and useful - memento of the workshop.

You'll be impressed at how the intra-team dynamics in the kitchen reveal the strengths and challenges of your team. The workshop is a great opportunity - in a safe and professional environment - for them to analyze those dynamics and transfer their learning to the workplace

What are the key ingredients of a successful team?

Culinary Team Building addresses these key points:
• Talents of each member: What are people good at, what do they know how to do? What do they want to do?
• Individual responsibilities & roles: How do the pieces make the whole? How does each person's work fit into the long-term goal?
• Team's sense of direction: What needs to be accomplished? How will the team be divided and work allocated?
• Operating procedures: How will problems be solved? What are the obstacles to completing the task, if any? How will the team access knowledge that it doesn't have?
• Interpersonal relationships: How do people interact with each other? Are there breakdowns in this area that affect the entire team and productivity?

How It Works:
The experience is fun and challenging, in fact, it feels kind of like an exciting reality TV show challenge:

• The group gets seasonal, fresh ingredients, quality cookware and equipment, and a trained Culinary Instructor to use as a resource. She establishes basic kitchen safety principles about cutlery, cookware and food safety. Then, the team gets the challenge: prepare a meal. They have 15 minutes to strategize, and 60 minutes to execute the meal.Get cooking!

• The Culinary Instructor observes the teamwork.

• The teams plan - either successfully or not. They determine which (and how many) dishes they want to prepare, keeping in mind that this is the meal for the team! No one wants to go away hungry.

• After the team has determined their dishes and prep teams, they may call in the Instructor to consult on recipes or techniques. As the group cooks, the Culinary Instructor assists them by sharing cooking techniques.

• At the 45 minute time point, the groups will be reminded of the time, and asked to finish up.

• After the hour has passed, the food will be served, either course by course, or all at once depending on the dishes prepared. Food is served either buffet or family-style.

• A fascinating debrief session is conducted during the meal, while the team relaxes. The team builds bonds by breaking bread together. The facilitator is comforting, non-threatening and professional as she reveals how the team worked well together - and where the problems were.

- What were the challenges?
- Which methods and techniques (culinary or managerial) were used?
- How were choices made?
- How do you like each other's food?
- Did the team seem to have a common sense of purpose and goal, or were people confused about what they were doing and where they were going?
- Who participated and how?
- Anyone left out in any way?
- How was leadership delegated or obtained? Did the leadership overpower the teamwork?
- How were tasks and roles assigned?
- Were people happy with their roles? If not, how was that displayed?
- In the end, did they accomplish what they set out to do?
- Did people have fun and seem to work easily together?
- Were there any obvious personality conflicts?
- Anybody choose to work alone?
- What do others think about that?

Levi's COO gets some fun experience plating up salads for his team's meal.

Return on Investment
Companies are looking for innovative and creative team building experiences to improve their organization's most important asset, their people. There is a growing demand for team skills that increase and improve the productivity and overall results of individuals and teams within corporations.

Culinary Team Building identifies and analyzes performance on a variety of levels.

A Culinary Team Building three hour session provides:
• A more productive staff
• Insight into team members' strengths & weaknesses
• Management teams with tools to reduce corporate liability and improve team morale
• Culinary guidance, cooking and fun!

At the end of the session, the Culinary Instructor asks for feedback on the experience. The session closes with giving the team positive comments regarding their culinary and organizational talents. As a follow-up, a cookbook, reflecting the dishes created by each team, along with photos of the dishes created for the team to take back to the office, documenting their adventure is sent.