Saturday, November 15, 2008

Canteen at the origin of better organization culture

I was speaking to a friend of mine this morning and she mentioned about a very simple idea that she had heard from someone on building better relationships with your colleagues in your organization.

The idea is to have lunch with one new person in your organization every week.

(The duration of the implementation of the idea would be a function of your continuity in the organization and the number of people working there )

I am sure the creative minds would be able to work around this idea to come out with several interesting variants.

I loved the idea ! :)

4 comments:

Pranshu Gupta said...

hey Ujjwal

that actually is a unique concept to develop a great rapport with every new person. But the main roadblock could arise when the department of the newcomer is different & when he is above in rank.

Rahul Gupta (RPG) said...

Thats a very interesting concept, pretty simple and sounds effective too. It could work the other way round too. My recent experience with the non profit group I am a part of, we started having lunches after our meetings, and in few weeks we all got so friendly that we lost the professionalism that is required many times to do the things on time.

Ujjwal said...

Pranshu, everything can be worked out if people are willing to let go their inhibitions. I think thats important to try any new idea

Ujjwal said...

RP, thats an interesting fall out:)

In corporate setups people are generally anticipated to be more conscious of where their interactions are leading towards and not just swim in the flow of things.
I guess in the non profit group that u mentioned, its the voluntary nature of people getting together which may be causing some drift from professionalism.
But yes, its important to balance out professionalism and having an informal culture at work.