By 
Before there was project management software, desktop energy bar lunches (and dinners), and all sorts of quit-smoking support groups, there was a restaurant lunch on payday, cocktail napkins ( in which to rest an occasional cocktail) and shared fun. – all in the middle of the reasonable working day.
The wonderful thing about these lunchtime meetings was that they took place in a place other than the workplace, and not always in the same place. Looking back, I realize those lunches typically included:
– Teamwork (at least two of us present)
– Decision making AND diversity (Italian, Chinese, or burgers, not to mention dessert, anyone?)
– Finance (Ann had the extra cheese, so her bill is $1.00 more)
– Dependencies (I will have what she is having)
– Leadership (the waiters instinctively knew the leader; he got the bill)
– Reasonable risk (OK, I’ll have a glass of wine with lunch)
– Empowerment (I know what I want, I’ll order first while you decide)
– Commitment (let’s share a post)
– Sympathy (we laugh, out loud, and enjoy ourselves and others)
– Measures of success (that was delicious, let’s do it again).
Sure, at least half of the lunchtime conversation centered around workplace gossip and life outside the workplace. Just as often, however, the topic focused on the one thing we all had in common: our jobs. Issues, now referred to as “challenges” or “opportunities,” were as common then as they are today, and would sometimes dominate the hour (yes, a whole hour and maybe even an extra 15 minutes!).
And where one of us invariably saw barricades, rock slides, and stop signs, another of us saw secondary roads, detours, roads less traveled, and new roads to be built. Almost everyone had a freely offered option or opinion on what to do to fix it.
The opinions and options were often good, and sometimes they were written down so that they could be remembered, brought back to the office, and implemented. Not everyone carried pen and paper (this was a pre-Blackberry world, my friends, after all), so we grabbed the closest thing to hand: the mostly clean cocktail napkin and a BIC pen.
The cocktail napkin, that little 5 x 5 square that started lunch somewhere between a table and a hard place (under the cocktail glass). Who knew that it could become a vehicle to successfully complete a project!
With a few lovely words or phrases and an occasional drawing scribbled on the napkin, lunch concluded happily and productively. If it was a really big initiative or a particularly complex problem, it became a two-napkin project plan.
The napkin full of ideas moved from the table to the desk, from thought to action. There are no planning meetings, committees or subcommittees, no competition for credit, and no trees being killed. Oh yeah, and we got home from work at a reasonable hour most of the time.
In today’s sterile (in my opinion anyway) work environment, there is little time for lunch and even less time for fun. It’s about power and speed. The funny thing is that there is no power in the energy bars, PowerPoint or power demo days. And speed kills.
We are asked to embrace teamwork, but there is no team in the room at the time of the performance appraisal. We’re told to think outside the box, but we’re often rewarded for doing it “right” than doing it differently. In the office, laughing out loud is a rarity (and a “LOL” text is no substitute!)
After all the leadership training, many of us are still more comfortable taking directions than doing them. We avoid liability while claiming credit. And we don’t make a move without a mostly nonsensical 50+ page PowerPoint presentation at the ready. Speak quietly and carry a large “deck of cards.” Sigh…
Project planning has moved away from the cocktail napkin to multi-megabit software that is convoluted, slow, and loaded with bells and whistles. Project Managers are now certified and add “PMP” to their resume. All that is needed is about 20 days of training and some homework assignments; there are no real projects to gain hands-on experience with. To paraphrase Three Six Mafia’s Oscar-winning song, it’s tough for a PMP!
More time is now spent managing the project software, monitoring tasks, and constantly updating the plan than on the project work itself. There are pre-planning meetings, planning meetings, post (small) action review meetings, operations review meetings, and alignment meetings to get our story straight. After which we present our “accomplishments” so that no one else gets credit. Meanwhile, we’re starving and cranky because we haven’t had lunch or fun, and the prospect of leaving work “early” grows dimmer, along with the light of day.
It has never been more true, in today’s work-frenzy world, that home is where the heart is. Why? Because there is a precious heart in the office or in the boardroom, and the rest of our anatomy spends most of its time at work. The heart is left alone at home, together with those whose hearts we profess are the most important.
Here’s an idea: Next time you have a planning meeting, bring some clean cocktail napkins and old BIC pens (no PDAs, no anyberrys, no wireless laptops). You could even have the meeting at the corporate cafe or a nearby restaurant. That way, you can also have lunch. Keep the time about an hour, 90 minutes at most. Spend the first 15 minutes talking about anything but work. Remember the sound of shared laughter. Then, discuss relevant ideas (the reason for the meeting in the first place), write them on cocktail napkins, pay the bill, and head back to the office.
Even better, get a box of cocktail napkins…then you can really think outside the box!
What is the worst that can happen? Do you leave work at a reasonable hour feeling good about what you accomplished, and that you accomplished something while you were working? The trees will love you for it too!
Can I offer someone a cocktail… napkin?