Executive recipe for success in business

Too many cooks do not spoil the broth, writes Sue Williams.

In one corner, a company director on $400,000 a year is standing with both hands in a mixing bowl, up to his elbows in flour. In another, a group is engrossed in the task of peeling a dishful of prawns, a wide smile on their faces as they're encouraged to think of the exercise in terms of undressing.

Next to the stove, the CEO is being instructed to "dance with the wok", as a pile of vegetables and noodles sizzle inside.

"Now isn't this fabulous?" asks chef Wanitha Tanasingham, supervising the roomful of business executives, who would usually be far more at home striking million-dollar deals over lunch than back in the kitchen cooking it themselves.

"We grow up with food, we celebrate with food, we make friends over food," she says. "It's the centrepiece of our lives. It's what life is all about."

According to Tanasingham, it's also the perfect recipe for business success. Forget abseiling down mountains, taking a yacht out on the high seas, or challenging colleagues to a paintball showdown as high- level exercises in corporate team-building.

Today, more and more captains of Australian industry are turning to team cookery as a way of fattening their profit margins.

The reasoning is that group exercises in the kitchen - with the added bonus of all sitting down to eat the day's results afterwards - have a direct correlation with what happens later in the boardroom. Team cooking, for a start, requires plenty of communication and interaction, something most companies do well to foster in their workforces. It also involves mentoring, articulating a common goal and working towards it, and opportunities for plenty of conflict resolution and problem-solving when one person burns the onions or an uncoordinated effort from too many cooks spoils the broth.

And at a time when the better exchange of ideas and good leadership skills are recognized as the meat and two veg of business success, where better to learn them than doing the basics, preparing the very means of survival?

"In cooking, if people don't come together as a team, then the end result won't be good," says Tanasingham, Leading her group through the business of making samosas, with pastry strong enough to hold their "life's desires" they spoon in.

"In the kitchen, you need to support each other, interact with each other, solve problems that arise all the time, be creative, and focus on what you're doing. They're all exactly the same skills you need in corporate life but here, instead of just talking about it and analyzing it, you're experiencing it firsthand, and having fun at the same time."

Indeed, at a recent conference organized by the marketing manager of software company JD Edwards, Susie Macmillan, delegates agreed their team-building breakfast — in which Tanasingham led 200 people through cooking breakfasts for each other of scrambled egg burritos and French toast with amaretto — was a real highlight.

"It was all about working together and giving to each other, so it created a great atmosphere," says Macmillan. ‘It was also so different"
Tanasingham has been taking corporate cookery classes for nine years now, but only recently, with her company Wanitha Inc. has found the market taking off as Australian companies start taking team-building exercises as seriously as their US and UK counterparts.
Estimates in 2000 valued the leadership development industry worldwide at about $US50 billion, and the growth has been exponential since then.

But the enthusiasm for putting teams of executives through tough physical exercises, such as three-day bushwalks and commando-style workouts, has waned, possibly with the increasing costs of public liability insurance.

Certain incidents haven't helped, either, Like the KFC employees being rushed to hospital after sustaining serious burns in a 2002 fire-walking exercise and executives from a magazine company staging a mutiny during a sailing challenge when one staffer broke her arm on rough waters and the others refused to go out again the next day.

"Activities like paint-balling and abseiling are individual and competitive," says the Malaysian-born Tanasingham, whose father was head chef to the royal family for 20 years and who migrated to Australia in 1982 at the age of 21 to train as a chef and educator.

"Shooting at your colleagues is fine, but it isn't exactly the mutually encouraging and supportive team spirit you want to create, and not everyone wants to abseil and will enjoy it. Everyone, on the other band, eats, and food, and passion, are a big part of all of our lives."
Ross Judd, managing director of Team Focus, a company that organizes corporate training sessions for clients, is already a fan. While he often sends executives off on golf, sailing, paintball and even lawn bowls days, he's found the cookery sessions have proved among the most popular.

"People are looking for something that will give them more of a return these days, and cooking seems the ultimate team- building exercise," he says. "It's fun, and very bonding."

As for Tanasingham, now taking her group through garnishes, she's adamant that as more companies replace getting the knives out with spoons, spatulas and skillets, the healthier balance sheets will prove at the end of the day. "Just like you take ownership of a recipe when you're cooking, this encourages employees to take ownership of the direction of their company and their contribution to its corporate wellbeing," she says. "They learn to enjoy the experience and work together to create a good future for everyone."