Around the Table

Where Companies and Kindness Flourish

by Michael Larson

“Wherever there is a deal to be done or an alliance to be secured; wherever there is a marriage to be sealed and celebrated there is a Table pregnant with collaborative potential.”

- Karl Martin, The Cave, The Road, The Table and The Fire

In America, we're mere days away from the greatest annual gathering of people around the Table. These tables—piled high with platters of turkey, vats of mashed potatoes and boats of gravy—take center stage as we pull up chairs to the Thanksgiving feast.

The allure of The Table isn't new; this November day simply magnifies the instinct that humankind has had for millennia: to gather, eat, drink and commune.

However, we often elevate the table in the conference room at the expense of the one in the dining room. We implicitly believe that the one at the office is valuable, while the one at home or in the restaurant is just functional or, even worse, ornamental. We contrast meetings and meals, contracts and cocktail menus, business deals and blue-plate specials, and quickly assign more value to the table around which we 'get stuff done.'

But we’re wrong. The impact shared meals can have on a team, group or company cannot be overstated.

The Table is Necessary

Unlike the third slice of pie on Turkey Day, the Table around which we eat, gather and build trust is a necessary foundation for a healthy organization. It isn't a luxury to be utilized only when there's extra time or money or mental margin.

In fact, a study done by Cornell University found the rich conversation and community sparked during meals binds teams and organizations in a powerful, undeniable way.

After researching the dining routines at 13 firehouses across a large U.S. city, the study concluded that “from an evolutionary anthropology perspective, eating together has a long, primal tradition as a kind of social glue. That seems to continue in today’s workplaces.”

Shared meals undeniably aid in the formation of 'social glue,’ elevating the often-overlooked impact from unnecessary to indispensable.

The beauty and the bane of the Table is its ordinariness. We overlook its integral role in society through the ages as well as its potential for us today. However, with intention, a piece of common furniture becomes a gathering space—a catalyst for trust that extends past the time at the table and into our daily work.

Trust is essential for organizations to thrive. It precedes collaboration, accompanies engagement, and provides a foundation for Psychological Safety, which Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson defines as a ‘‘shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.’’

Building on the foundations laid by the book ‘The Trusted Advisor,’ Arable has developed a tailored version of a Trust Equation:

Trust = Credible + Dependable + Relatable / Selfish

As we increase our credibility, dependability and relatability, while tempering our selfishness, trust grows, increasing a team’s ability to engage more deeply and produce better work.

While the formula is foundational, the methodology isn't math as much as art: the art of conversation, the art of relationships, the art of gathering.

The Table is the perfect canvas.

The formalized, organized business of today started around the Table. The etymology of the word ‘company’ is the coming together of two words in Latin: ‘com’, meaning ‘with’ or ‘together’, and ‘panis’, meaning ‘bread.’ Merchants would gather to trade, tell stories and eat. Conversations were had over courses, strategies laid out between plates and glasses, deals hashed out during dessert.

What was true then is true today.

High-performing teams aren't comprised of a smattering of brilliant, isolated professionals with a shared task list. In fact, research demonstrates that “employees with close connections at work are more productive, creative and collaborative. They’re also more satisfied with their job, less susceptible to burnout and less likely to leave.”

MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory surveyed over 2,000 employees across 21 organizations over a span of seven years and concluded that great teams engage in regular face-to-face communication with a specific nod to the impact of social time (brunch, anyone??). “Social time turns out to be deeply critical to team performance, often accounting for more than 50% of positive changes in communication patterns.” The more time you simply hang with your colleagues, the healthier your communication can become, which results in more effective collaboration and, in turn, better performance.

Every connection helps and every Table can connect us.

So, if the Table has the power we suspect, how do we create the best possible environment for impact?

The Table is Intentional

We’ve all been to that lunch meeting.

The leaderless, rudderless space leaves the perfect place for Stephanie from accounting to tell that same story that never ends and never ends up anywhere. Phil, the introvert in HR, gets forgotten at the end of the table, leaving his genius untapped and his connection to the team untethered. Sandy, the VP of sales, scrolls her feed for the better part of the main course.

Setting the Table (I couldn't help it) for success can't be a haphazard or undisciplined affair.

The reality is, we spend more time researching the restaurant than readying the environment for good conversation. But the most effective leaders spend as much time planning for the Table as sitting down at it.

With a few rules of engagement and a bit of forethought, what would have been just another meal, becomes the best 'meeting' the team has ever had. Integrating three specific components will help.

First, conflict. Typically, in polite workplace conversations we avoid the potentially divisive topics. But the value beneath the veneer of risk is rich: providing clarity, discovering solutions and unleashing creativity. If effectively-navigated and intentionally-led, conversations with the right amount of conflict can be tactically useful and relationally productive.

Another bit of wisdom from the The Cave, The Road, The Table, The Fire supports this idea:

“Don’t fill The Table with talk: fill it with the learnings of life. Fill it with interest and debate. Fill it with a little bit of a wrestle about issues that personally impact the lives present.”

Learnings. Interest. Debate. Wrestle. These are the ingredients of a worthwhile meal, an impactful interaction and a team on its journey to deepening trust.

Second, great listeners. While there are best practices—eye contact, head nodding, focusing on the speaker—there are a few rules of engagement that will level the playing field for the group and increase the freedom with which everyone participates:

No Experts - No Soapboxes - No Conclusions

If you act as the expert, or scream from the soapbox or put a definitive end to the debate, the conversation—and the massive potential it has—will fizzle before it fires up.

Great listeners listen to connect, not show-off.

Great listeners listen to understand, not proselytize.

Great listeners listen to explore, not close down conversation.

Lastly, great questions. As leaders, the temptation to jump past the process right to the ‘fix’ is real. In a world with too little time and too much to do, that feels like the efficient path. But the best answers are excavated with curious questions.

"Answers before there are questions, do damage to the soul." - Henri Nouwen

So, explore, take interest, wade into topics that may have more under the waterline and begin to draw out what is truly at the heart of the matter and in the heart of your people.

The Table is Slow

I know, I know, I just lost you. For most of us, 'slow' is a foul, four-letter word. We mutter it under our breath when we’re standing in line or stuck in traffic or bored in meetings. We resist it, disdain it, believing fast leads to success so the faster the better.

But the trust that is fostered around an intentional Table is a crockpot process in a microwave world. The old adage go slow to go fast may be a cliché, but it’s true.

Do we have the time?

When led well, the Table squeezes that need for speed out of us, forcing us to slow in the face of an ever-accelerating world. Not to downshift indefinitely, but to care enough to fine tune the engine of health so we're ready for growth—and speed—over the long haul.

This long-term efficiency comes when the team knows, understands and trusts each other, when every member feels seen, heard and honored. In the end, slow helps us go faster, and further, than we imagined.

Are we willing?

The Table is Kind

When done intentionally, an invitation into a social space over food is a kindness in and of itself, then what happens, slowly, during the time at the Table can also produce kindness in us.

In the Cornell study, we see the opposite is also true. The firehouses in which there was an absence of shared meals indicated that something “deeper was wrong with the way the group worked.” Missing meals together was a symptom of an underlying disease.

In a deep-dive on the lack of kindness, or incivility, in the workplace, the Harvard Business Review discovered the cost of such behavior. In the presence of incivility, teams decrease work effort and time spent at work by almost half, while reducing the quality of work. When workers sense an atmosphere of incivility, over 3/4 of them say their commitment to the organization declined. If continued unchecked, this kind of toxic culture is over ten times more likely to significantly contribute to an employee quitting than anything else. This has real impact on profit.

The Table is Simple

‘It is in the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of love and kindness.’

- Gandalf in ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ (2013)

My grandmother's pot roast recipe must have called for a couple of cups of kindness. With every bite we heard what she was speaking, the simplest, most loving act around the simplest most everyday place.

When we pull up a chair to the common table and invite others to do the same, something uncommon occurs. In simple acts of kindness, intentional conversations, intense listening and curious questions, the Table calls us back to what is right in order to lead us forward to what is good.

Kindness, as a way of business, isn't nice; it's necessary. The Table is not a ‘nice-to-have’ but much needed space for cultural health, trust and teams that feel safe.

As leaders, our competitive edge is sharpened as much in the dining room as in the boardroom. Let’s set our futures up for success and set our Tables well for our people.