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The Gourmet Challenge® experience has a team cooking together as a way of building and improving the team dynamic. The demanding and highly-engaging environment of the commercial kitchen, and cooking together as a team, is a medium for team building and bonding, showing how co-operation and teamwork make for a more motivated, more efficient and high-performing team.
TEAM COOKING FORMATS
Our team cookery programmes are individually designed for each client based on specific objectives and desired outcomes.
Typically our clients needs fall into two categories:
Team building with cooking
A fun and bonding team cookery experience combined with analysis, development and review of team dynamics. The programme
combines theoretical team learning (exploring the foundation of the team dynamics) with the hands-on experience of planning,
cooking and sharing a gourmet meal together (seeing the team in action). The kitchen with the team cooking provides the
physical metaphor for the workplace interactions of the team, and is used as part of an experiential teambuilding and
cookery programme to analyse, assess, review team dynamics and build individual and team interactions, skills and
characteristics. On this programme, theory explored in the development sessions is put into practice with the team
cooking together in the kitchen.
Team spirit and bonding through cooking
A fun, bonding team cooking experience. This format provides an innovative and exciting way for team members to work together,
planning and cooking a gourmet meal which they then share. The primary objectives of this format are bonding, getting to
know each other better, collaborative working and FUN! Unstructured informal learning takes place with the team cooking
together but formal observation, assessment, review and development of team performance is offered through the
'Team Building with cooking' format described above.
THE MENU/THEMES
The team can prepare and cook any meal, suitable for the design format and venue including lunch, dinner, high tea, cocktails
and canapés, brunch, buffets, BBQ's etc.
Our clients' team can build any menu to cook or specify culinary theme for their team cooking day, including Italian, Modern British, Thai, French, Mediterranean, Fusion, Mexican, Japanese, healthy and more.
We decide the menu for the team to cook based on the most suitable dietary requirements of the team, and each event is
bespoke. Where possible we integrate our clients own business and team relevance into the menu, for example; If client is a food retailer or manufacturer, or the team deals with food in any way, we would build their own products into the menu.
Healthy eating and nutrition is high on the corporate wellness agenda and we provide a healthy eating themed challenge for
team cooking events. See details for building high performance through positive nutrition for more information.
TEAM BUILDING FOCUS AREAS (Team Building with cooking Format)
Our designs are based on specific team building needs, but many teams focus on developing one or more of the following areas through the team building cookery experience,
including: collaboration, communication, creativity, innovation, project planning & delivery, time management, creative problem solving, managing change, different personality & work styles, team strengths & weaknesses, team stages of development and so forth.
We integrate a wide range of best practice development diagnostics, psychometrics and models into the cookery activity. These
include Myers Briggs, Belbin, Insights, Tuckman's model (forming, storming, norming, performing), StrengthsFinder and others, chosen specifically to meet the team need.
OUR FACILITATION TEAM
All team building cookery events are facilitated by our professional and award winning chef team and expert people development
consultants. Every team cooking event is hosted and managed on site by one of our excellent event hosts.
If the client requires it, we can work with their own internal development consultants integrating the experiential element of
our team building and cooking events with their own learning and development programmes and corporate events.
COOKING LOCATIONS
We deliver our teambuilding programmes through our partner cookery network of hotels, restaurants and private properties - all
with fabulous kitchens where the team can cook. We deliver nationally in the UK, in city centres, country retreats and in clients own offices.
We can also deliver our team events using cooking overseas, including Europe (France, Spain, Italy) or any specific
destination the client may require
TIMINGS AND ITINERARIES
We design our itineraries to suit each client's needs. Our team cooking event range includes evening, ½-day,
full-day and two-day (with overnight) formats. All our cookery programmes can be integrated into existing itineraries, for example conferences and existing development programmes.
TEAM SIZE AND APPLICABILITY
We have run team building programmes for teams of 4 — 150 people cooking together. Participant teams represent the
entire spectrum of the organization including graduates, managers, leaders, partners, directors and board members. The venue and format will change depending on the team size, mix and seniority.
OPTIONAL "FOODIE" EXTRAS
When appropriate, we integrate additional and optional “foodie” activities into the team cookery event design.
These include: visiting food markets and specialist stores, restaurants and delicatessens, tasting and demonstrations (chocolate, cheese, wine, olive oil, bread), and food appreciation hands on “masterclass” sessions with experts such as sushi, pasta, Christmas cooking, '5 ways with chicken in 30 minutes', and many more.
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Design Formats |
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Team Building |
Team Spirit |
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Perfect for |
Team assessment and development through the combination of theory and experiential fun — team development days/series. |
Team bonding, fun, reward, entertainment. Regular team “fun” days, reward, motivational days and/or corporate events to entertain clients.
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Outcomes |
- Team dynamics analysis, assessment, review
- Fun, team bonding, building team spirit
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- Fun, team bonding, building team spirit
- Natural unstructured learning
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Benefits |
Long term value for team
Review of team function and action planning moving forward, including:
- How different personality styles impact the team
- How to improve communication and co-operation in the team
- How to encourage collaborative working
- Team strengths and weaknesses
- The impact of change of the team and how to manage change
- How to building trust and encourage supportive behaviour/sharing
- How to operate more effectively and efficiently (project and time management, planning, operational, organisational skills)
- How to inspire innovative and creative thinking and resourcefulness
- How to utilise team strengths for problem solving
Bonding — through the learning and experiential components
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Short, sharp and impactful
Relationship building
Networking
Recognition and reward
Development of team identity and spirit.
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Facilitation team |
Learning & Development consultant
Chef team
Event host
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Chef team
Event host
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