Don’t Salt Your Soup Before You Taste It

There's an old story about Edison who always took out the people he wanted to hire out for lunch. When the soup arrived, he would just sit back and watch each person. Those who tasted the soup before salting it were immediately crossed off from his list. To him, anyone who was foolish enough to salt the soup before tasting it wasn't worth his salt!

 

The leadership management thinking behind this is that Edison felt individuals had too many false blinders on when it came to understanding life. If they assumed the soup needed salt without tasting it, which showed how little sense they had. Such people could not be trusted to appreciate challenges at the workplace. That was Edison’s viewpoint from interactive sessions.

 

Perhaps the bottom line of Edison’s viewpoint was that he wanted to hire people with creativity. Let’s discuss creativity next.

 

Creativity and Risk

Let's face it; you cannot separate creativity from risk. The two are interrelated. So if you aren’t creative, you get stuck with mindless routine. That does nothing to help any organizational leadership management or foster leadership skills.

 

That way, Edison was right. You can tell a lot about a person by the way he salts his soup. It's interesting if you really consider the implications of this simple but effective story.

 

The morale of the story: the next time you're invited to lunch by management or a perspective new boss, hold the salt until after you taste the soup!

 

Now let’s discuss briefly about leadership team building activities. These activities are all about tossing out the boredom from routine work pattern to encourage creative thinking. By taking part in fun filled leadership team building activities, every employee unravels the fun side of work and goes back to work with renewed awareness and commitment.

 

Here is an interesting exercise that focuses on fortifying leadership skills:

 

Fantasticat

Most employees forget what they are truly good at in the course of routine work. That is why this game is a great way to inspire ideas and feelings of employees. The game helps employees to be aware of what they are fantastic at. It could even be about what they wish they could fantastic over a period of time.

An employee may want to be a pilot. The idea itself may not be practical. But the important aspect is to give employees an opportunity to think about what they believe they are capable of.

Each employee can take turns at the game of Fantasticat by stating something like: “I am fantastic at playing chess. I want to be a chess champion because I like to plan. I like to overcome the opponent by strategy.”

 

Another employee may have another dream or strength to share. The questions that can be asked on Fantasticat are as follows:

• What activity do you believe you excel at?
• What do you dream to be if it were possible?
• How would you achieve that dream?
• Would external expectations affect your determination to realize your dream?

 

The game of Fantasticat is one that can help employees feel and see things differently about their own career aspirations, hidden talents and goals.