Corporate Cooking and Team Building

Strong, connected and effective teams are a vital support in creating corporate success and many organisations have looked to traditional team building methods to assist them in bonding their staff together. However, recent research has suggested that such traditional methods of team building could be doing little towards improving group coherence.

A survey of 100 people who played team sports revealed that there was no link between how often the team activities took place and the bonds that they developed within their group. These findings suggest that traditional workplace team building strategies, which include such unusual activities as walking over hot coals or playing paintball, are of little or no value.

Dr Moira Lafferty, from the University of Chester, who led the study with colleagues from Liverpool Hope University, said: "Our findings suggest that, despite there being no positive relationship to team cohesion, team building activities... are still conducted. "

While the team activities investigated in this survey may seem to do little to improve cohesion it does not mean that all group bonding tasks are ineffective. A more unique and enjoyable, yet traditional, team building activity like cooking could be a much more effective relationship strengthening solution.

Cooking has long been known to bond groups of people together. Research in the US reveals the benefits cookery can bring to families who regularly share mealtimes. These can include better family relationships and improved academic performance. There are even greater benefits for those families that also include the children in the preparation and cooking of the family meal.

We can therefore see that cooking is great for bonding people together, teaching them new skills and giving each member of the group a better appreciation of what it means to work as one to create something fabulous.

Cookery is the ideal activity to strengthen bonds between those who need to communicate effectively in the working environment. There are now dedicated cookery schools available that offer short cooking courses and workshops to those interested in a team building activity that really does makes a difference.