Trend: Team building in the Kitchen

Not rafting or adventure hikes but cooking courses are the next big thing in company team building events.

Trend Description:
Last year we reported about managers flocking to bootcamps and wilderness survival camps (please read our blog-posting Reality (TV) camps). Sparked by TV-shows like “Survivor” and “Fear Factor” camps demanding from their participants to deal with “life or death” situations were en vogue. They still exist, but the newest in escaping the corporate world for some corporate team building and skill-development are cooking classes, which bring – according to the Creative Cooking School of Las Vegas: “A taste of success”. Taking inspiration from “Iron Chef” or “Top Chef”, companies like Microsoft, T-Mobile, Eli Lilly and Nike are sending their employees off to the kitchen.

Cases:

CEO Chef
At the CEO Chef program everything is about team building. After a short introduction, including safety lessons and basic knife skills, the group is formed into teams. Each team chooses a team leader and is presented with a “Culinary Challenge”. For the next 1.5 to 2 hours the teams have to prepare the food, following the given guidelines, which are far away from being complete recipes. Goal is to work together, using inspiration, creativity and trust in each other. The final dinner is supposed to be the “magic time”. The ice is broken and “everyone starts sharing about who they really are when not a company employee”, states CEO Chefs website. To anchor this experience the CEO Chef coach than facilitates a discussion around lessons learned, from the collaborate cooking experience.

Gourmet Retreats at Casa Lana, CA
Other than CEO Chef Gourmet Retreats in California is mainly specialized in offering dining experiences for different occasions. The team building cooking class is just one of many possible dining related retreats, which are offered. The classes are available as hands-on or presentation and range from single subject to full-meal preparation. To meet the client’s objectives and schedule class topics and menus can be customized. The main focus is to bring together co-workers, staff and managers to share tasks in the kitchen as they work together to prepare a variety of recipes. Afterwards the food will be served with wine and/or other beverages. Fees start at $130 per person.

Creative Cooking School of Las Vegas
Catherine Margles, president and founder of the Creative Cooking School explains: “Cooking is based on a system of organization. You have several people operating in different roles and you put them all together and come up with a product—the meal. It’s the same concept as in a corporation.” According to her “food is the universal language and nothing brings people together more than creating a meal.” Meals are prepared under the instruction of professional chef instructors, while the kitchen represents a microcosm of the working world with deadlines, decision-making and cooperation necessary to succeed.

Trend Impact:
There is a huge variety of team building events and retreats, designed to make company employees happy and productive. Rope climbing, golfing, rafting, scavenger hunts or reality or game show knock offs are all ways to get employees together out of the office to discover new things about themselves and others. But while at a golf tournament the real golfers will probably have more fun and rope climbing might be to adventurous for some, the cooking classes offer a save and easy way to create the same effect – and are accessible for everyone in the company. On top of that the kitchen can also serve as a micro cosmos of the working world, with a deadline, limited resources and the requirement for cooperation. The only difference is: the top-manager in the company might not be the most gifted kitchen apprentice. This way the stereotypes of people in the office get broken down, new group dynamics can develop. And the final, collaboratively prepared meal really is “a taste of success”.

Creative Cooking School of Las Vegas

CEO Chef

Gourmet Retreats

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