MónicaFajardo
Experiential learning| Teambuilding
INGREDIENT
CHAIN
Great lessons for the workplace can be learned while cooking.
The goal of this gamified workshop is for teams to build a "chain of ingredients" to prepare and cook a tray of brownies while navigating through rules and overcoming leadership challenges.
A project designed with and for Pillow®
The challenge
The challenge was to design a safe, playful space where teams could step back, reassess their work dynamics, and uncover strengths and improvement opportunities.
Performance objectives
After the learning experience, participants will apply agreed collaboration and communication strategies in their daily work, leveraging team strengths and addressing improvement areas to work more effectively together.
Learning objectives
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Evaluate team communication strengths and weaknesses from the activity.
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Show effective collaboration by coordinating roles, sharing resources, and group decisions.
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Establish and commit to at least specific collaboration or communication agreements for daily operations.
When it comes to achieving goals and keeping up with growth within organizations,
talent and knowledge isn't enough.
Today's organizations must foster strong leadership and encourage collaboration through trust, purpose, empowerment, and communication.
How would you rate your team?
To evaluate a team's strengths and weaknesses, it usually comes down to
four main attributes:
trust, purpose, empowerement, and communication.
I don't fully trust my team
I trust my team completely
Trust
My team doesn't know or have a purpose for their work
Only the boss makes or has a say on the decision
Information is often lost or kept in
My team is purpose-driven
Purpose
Empowerement
Communication
Everyone is empowered to have an opinion or make decision
All members of the team are updated about work and each other
Easier said than done
The thing is, day to day work and individual responsabilities sometimes disguise the big elephant in the room.
The first step towards change is admitting there is a problem and that it needs to be identified and addressed.
One of the best way to admitting a problem without getting hard feelings is PLAY.
As children, we had no problem blurting out this phrase out to anyone.
Now we tend to associate play with unprofessional.
FUN FACT:
When learning is fun, employees are more inclined to remember what they learned and use it.
Read more here.
The result
A tasty, playful, and safe approach to identifying a team's strengths and weaknesses as well as the leadership dynamics within the organization.
01.
Participants are randomly seated at tables, with each seat assigned either an ingredient, a utensil, or the recipe.
The participant holding the recipe is responsible for communicating the step-by-step instructions to the team, while the others are responsible solely for their assigned item. Items are not interchangeable but may be passed between participants using the bowl.
02.
The team must develop a strategy to prepare the recipe using the fewest possible passes between participants.
Each participant is allowed a maximum of two passes.
If the number of participants is even, one person is assigned the role of bridge and may step in only if the team becomes blocked due to a lack of available passes.
03.
Team success is measured by the number of passes used and the time required to successfully prepare the recipe.
To close the experience, the facilitator leads a reflection discussion focused on team performance—what worked well, what could be improved, and the concrete agreements the team will apply to their daily operations.
The process is
broken down
Easy to grasp and broken down elements like ingredients and steps
Strategy is
planned ahead
Good planning and strong strategy secures a delicious result.
It's okay to make mistakes
Not everyone is expected to be an expert cook.
Leaders are evidenced
The voices of true leadership will be heard.
Have fun while learning
Giving feedback, getting to know roles, and rising leadership are eagerly welcomed during play.
Key takeaways
'Aha' moments
Acknowledge what surfaces in the moment and that includes the great, the good and the ugly.
Rearrange and try
Experiencing your team work in other contexts is also an opportunity to rearrange responsabilities, rethink communication and define your team's purpose.
