Never Eat Alone
One area that I would like to develop is my social networking skills. I’m not necessarily shy, but I am “quiet” - I don’t find it easy to make small talk with people. I’m also naturally a bit of a loner - at lunch I normally choose to sit in the park on my own and read. In the corporate world I can see that developing this skill would have a huge benefit for me.
“Never Eat Alone” is the name of a well known book by Keith Ferrazzi. Now to be honest I haven’t read this book, but the title of it has stuck in mind now for some time. I think its a great idea and, as such, I plan to put down the book once a week and make an effort to have lunch with a work colleague. Once I have managed to do this one day a week, I’ll consider upping the challenge to two or three days.
One final (but important) point: I’m not interested in crude, desperate glad-handling. I like this challenge because its approach to social networking is base on genuine relationship building.
Check back here for weekly updates. I might even track down the book and read it.
Update 16/4/07: well last Friday I went to a going away lunch for a work colleague. I got off easy in the sense that I didn’t have to organise this. Still I made the effort to go and it was definately good to talk to people outside of the office.
Update 21/4/07: well yesterday (Friday) I lunched with a couple of work colleagues. I felt some initial frustration as we decided where to eat and I had to wait for the food to be prepared. This took about 15 minutes, and I was thinking to myself this is why I prefer to bring my lunch and sit outside in the park on my own. But once the food came these thoughts went away and I enjoyed myself. I have already organised to lunch with a different work colleague next week so expect another update then. I am finding the act of publicly challenging myself has provided good motivation to continue this challenge. In fact, I might even write a post related to this.
Update 1/5/07: Last week I lunched again. Its become apparent once a week is not much a challenge. Twice a week is the goal from now on…
Update 20/05/2007: Lunched twice this week with people. I’ve just moved to a different team on a different floor so the challenge this week is to lunch with someone from my new team.
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3 Comments
May 29th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Good on you. I don’t mind so much eating lunch alone, as it is often at my laptop. However about 3 times a week I will have dinner with work people or friends, so a good balance occurs. I think if you never eat with work people you don’t really find out what they are like - which may sometimes be a good thing
ho ho, but it definitely makes people feel more comfortable with you. Also depending on where your head is at, eating alone can often make you think too much about stuff that maybe doesn’t bear thinking about…ie. work stuff. Think about work stuff in work time, I reckon.
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October 17th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
What I find helpful, personally, is that I always bring something to the table during lunch with other colleagues. I mean that literally and figuratively. First of all, people like to see someone share their food, something simple such as a dessert (brownies, cookies) or if you’re confident about your cooking, bring a main dish that you made yourself. Secondly, figuratively, contribute to the conversation and always be complimentary, even when you don’t think they deserve it. People just like to be praised so they can feel good about themselves.
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October 18th, 2007 at 12:28 am
That’s great advice Rudy! This was actually one of my first posts and I had almost forgotten about it. I will be starting with a new employer soon so I think I’ll make a conscious effort to do this again.
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