Corporate team building sometimes happens in the kitchen these days. I often hear about the team cooking as an alternative to paintballing, go-carting, rock climbing etc. I too was thinking about cooking and leadership yesterday.

Maria and I catered for a decent size group of friends yesterday. The weather was good so the deck came into its own … but it was the juggling more than half a dozen recipes that got me thinking. More so than usual, I was sticking to the written law according to the foodies who had written the 3 different books that we had based our gourmet lunch journey on.

Normally I like to ‘feel’ the flavours and judge proportions accordingly. But as the kids joked about the scenario in the kitchen, I was running backwards and forwards to the written word instead of following intuition. Everything turned out great.

Leadership can be similar. Even those of us who are experienced leaders regularly find ourselves in times of heightened stress and activity. At such times it doesn’t hurt to go back to tried and true, more formulated responses to what we are dealing with. Refreshing ourselves with the ‘basics’ of communication, meeting management, planning etc can be really helpful so we can rely on solutions that we know have worked in the past rather than winging it.

I write while travelling. This has allowed me to do some refresher reading on the topic in which I will be buried with a customer over the next few days. Very helpful. Whatever the challenges you are facing at the start of this year, why not dig out some pre-loved material that will help you get oriented.