When it comes time to developing your leaders or planning team building events for your company, a cooking class may not be the first idea that pops into your head. After all, what’s your business got to do with cooking? However, having your team bond over the creation of a great meal is actually an excellent way to both boost the team’s morale and increase their creative output.
Cooking is great for team building and really makes the team put in 100% and work together when they are in the kitchen, because they have to eat the meal at the end and nobody wants to go hungry or eat a meal that doesn’t excite the taste buds! Cooking is unlike other team building events because to produce the perfect meal the team must play on each other’s core strengths, show their leadership skills and communicate effectively to put food on the plate. Want to see a live recording?
Kitchen’s aren’t known for being the most spacious areas, which means the tight space forces all team members to get to know each other pretty quickly. More often than not it’s the shy team members who rise up and take control in the kitchen!
Cooking is one of the most inventive team building activities and is a sure fire way to unleash every team member’s creative ability. Whether it’s finding a shortcut to cook the food faster or adding a dash of a special herb to spice it up, cooking is very imaginative and fun. If your company is in an industry that demands creativity, you simply can’t go past the Team Advantage Leadership Recipe!
The Gainmore Gourmet® Challenge Opening Night!
In this full day event you’ll create the opening night of your very own restaurant all with our friendly guidance and supervision. Working in competition, groups plan, purchase, cook and serve their ‘opening night gala dinner’.
On arrival, coffee and breakfast are served, followed by an explanation of the day’s process and a few quick safety issues.
Planning the Ingredients! Then group’s plan their menu, prepares the recipes, purchase the necessary ingredients (within a tight budget), organize the work and get cooking!- The big cook-off! Groups enjoy the benefit of their own experienced chef/cook who’ll entice everyone to prepare dishes to create a magnificent meal. You’ll learn how to chop, fry, sizzle, flambé, bbq & bake.
- Bring on the wait staff! Now you’ll all create a “Long Lunch” style table setting. Everyone becomes involved; putting out tea lights, flowers and napkins folded intricately.
- The big REWARD….now you’re the customers! You’ll be amazed and rewarded with your delicious meal as you relax, eat and enjoy the delicacies you’ve created together.
Your MENU …The menu is mostly a fusion mix of east and west, but groups can choose any recipe they want… so long as they can keep within their budget!
Dietary Needs: With advance notice, we can cater for vegetarians and those with special dietary requirements…. taking great care to ensure everyone feels included, not ‘singled out’ as having different food needs.
Only have half a day to spare?
We know how tough it can be to take people out of the business for a whole day, so we have a 4 hour version of ‘Opening Night’. Basically we take half the work out! We’ll plan, get all the ingredients, and provide the recipes.
Your workshop leader
John Kenworthy is a chef by trade. At the tender age of 15, driven by his mother’s dreadful cooking, John found a lowly position in a ‘greasy spoon’ café in his local town centre where he learned how to fry eggs, bacon, bubble and squeak, fish and chips, black pudding and other English breakfast ‘delicacies’ as well as how to wash dishes, peel potatoes, wash floors and all those other fun kitchen jobs. At 17, John was in charge of the cold kitchen at the Palace Hotel in the Isle of Man, moving on to run the kitchens in the Palace Lido, leading a brigade of 58 casual and part time kitchen staff to cook and serve meals at conferences hosting 2500 people.
At 19 joined Iain McKenzie as sous chef at Eastwell Manor in Kent, England. At Eastwell, John learned the valuable lesson that he cannot, and never will be able to make Croissants!
John became Head Chef at De Marco’s restaurant in Manchester whilst studying for his degree in Hotel and Catering. John went on to run hotels and restaurants in the south west of England, France, Saudi Arabia and then London. He then began teaching at his alma matter in Hollings Faculty, Manchester and commenced his ‘second career’ in teaching and training.
John puts his leadership ‘nouse’ down to his time in the kitchens. “During a single meal time, a chef faces every leadership and management issue that most other jobs barely see in a month. Add on the stress, the heat, the pressure and the instant feedback if you get it slightly wrong… you learn to think on your feet, take charge and make sure that the team is with you all the way. If you didn’t learn how to be better, you’ll find out soon enough… it all starts again in 1 or 2 hours!”
Other Advantage Programmes
| Leadership Advantage
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Coaching Advantage
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Team Advantage
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| A unique leadership programme that challenges you to breakthrough your leadership potential and attain higher levels of performance… on the green.
Leadership Advantage raises the standard for leadership development with an engaging simulation on the golf course as the extended classroom where application of skills is immediate, learning process enjoyable and memorable! |
Coaching is one of the cornerstones of talent development because it motivates people to realise their full potential and improve business performance.
Coaching Advantage utilises proven methods of enabling people to be more effective by harnessing their potential and motivating them to achieve outstanding results. You will be able to attain higher levels of performance and more importantly, sustain them. |
The most significant contributions leaders make are to the long-term development of teams – that adapt, prosper, and grow.
Team Advantage enables companies to break down unproductive silos, improve communication, generate team spirit and move the team from individual potential to team performance. By aligning people, the organisation and corporate goals, you will sustain higher and higher levels of performance from your teams. |
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| Negotiations Advantage
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Sales Advantage
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Your Advantage
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| Negotiation is at the heart of commercial activity and organisations need to be competent at getting the best ‘win-win’ relationship they can.
Negotiations Advantage simulates real life negotiation dynamics to engage you to gain agreement, negotiate with internal and external parties, and generate greater impact for and in your business. |
“Your bottom line starts with your front line”.
Sales Advantage provides you with the tools to build and motivate a winning sales team – one that generates not just revenues, but mutually beneficial, long-term business relationships. Practical exercises and case studies ensure that what is learned is translated into actual sales. |
Your business is unique and we do not believe that “one size fits all”.
We partner with our clients to design high impact experiential training solutions that accelerate development for you and your people, unleash potential and maximise the impact of transferred performance. |
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| GAPPS3 – Leadership Assessment | Executive Coaching | ||
With rigorous and robust reliability and validity – GAPPS3not only profiles your organisation, team and individual – it will guide you to the “So what now?” step – suggesting a planned development path and offering you links to modules, course and e-learning.
GAPPS3 identifies your current strengths AND your priority development areas AND your potential as a leader. |
GAINMORE™ Advantage Executive Coaching is a six-step coaching program over a three month period (a season).
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