Change Lessons from an Italian Supermarket: Part 2

A great change leader can pull a rabbit out of a hat … or for me, fresh anchovies out of the refrigerator.?

If you read Part One of this series,?then you know the story of how I was caught “short-fooded” returning from the Hurrah Supermarket with only a third of the grocery items for dinner for sixteen. Now normally (i.e., back in the US), I would go to another store or return later. But in our area, all grocery stores, large and small, close until 4 pm or so, after il pranzo.??Too late to drive the 20 minutes back to the supermarket in Sassoferrato and still have time to prepare the meal, set the table and get dressed to welcome company.?

My American friend Pam had the good grace not to ask me how I wound up in this sad situation but the great sense to problem solve with me.?She knows I hate doing things at the last minute and that I pride myself on making complicated meals look like they magically appear on the table.??Time was not on my side.

My ignorance of the metric system saved me. When I placed my order with the fishmonger who sets up shop in an alleyway garage on Wednesday and Friday mornings, I had no concept of the size of a kilo. Imagine my surprise and good fortune when I finally opened the bag holding two kilos of shrimp and a kilo of fresh anchovies. So many shrimp to peel and anchovies to clean.??My original plan was to serve them as antipasti but dinner they became.??Earlier in the week while exploring other towns, we purchased cheeses and a few jars of specialty items. Recounting what was in our larder, a menu emerged (see below).

What did this part of the story teach me about change??

During times of change, a best buddy is your greatest asset

After finalizing the menu, Pam started grating the loaf of two-day old bread into breadcrumbs for the baked anchovies and a variation of eggplant parmigiana.??While the aged grater had much to be desired, my friend’s sheer willpower produced one cup of crumbs, not enough for breaded eggplant parm, but just enough for the new recipes.??As she grated, she offered words of encouragement and practical advice.?Her calm became my calm. I started to feel that the evening meal just might work out.??

When we are caught in a change spiral, having someone to offer solace and support allows us to gain stability.? I’ve seen this buddy system work in many transformational changes including M&A.??A buddy to explain the cultural norms. A buddy to pull us aside when we need some advice. A buddy who helps us to do the hard work of change. A buddy who helps us gain the perspective to move on. And Pam offered just the right amount of input – not too much that it overwhelmed and not too little to be of no help. Too much information flusters people; too little information leaves people frustrated and fretting.

Traditions can save you from disaster

My Italian family knows they will get an American-sized dinner when coming to our home. Yet they stick with their tried-and-true daily lunch on that day:??Antipasto, Primo Piatto, Secondo Piatto, Contorno, Dolce, Vino and Espresso. Elements of an expected lunch.

While I produced a respectable dinner at the end, the reality is that if a smaller version was served, it would have been just fine.??Perhaps even preferred.??My comfort was knowing that their lunch tradition would help me to save face if needed.??No matter how meager the meal, they would not arrive or leave hungry.??And from prior dinners, I knew no one would arrive empty handed.??They did not disappoint.??

Recognizing traditions, norms, habits of our employees may lead us to realize that in some cases nothing new, nothing additional is required.??Just letting things be may be the right course of action. Consider a major change effort where we spend loads of money on posters, coffee mugs and system crashing videos, when what our employees want is a routine meeting or a valued Friday check-in with their manager. Some semblances of what they are accustomed in their daily work lives. Is going above and beyond sometimes too much???Are we producing indigestion rather than contentment?

If you think it’s about the food, you’re missing the point?

As my family gathered around our table, it struck me that what mattered was not the food on the table, but the people around it.??The laughter. The love. The howls. The hugs. They showed up not for the food, but for the people. A chance to come together as family.??A chance to say?ciao, come back again?to new friends.??The chance to be at a table given to me by one cousin centered in the kitchen previously lived in by another.??A home filled with old memories creating new ones.

If it is only food bringing people back to the office, then we are missing the crucial elements of community.??When we want to come together regardless of what’s in the corporate café, then connections are meaningful. That’s the special sauce. How do we design gatherings to leave people wanting to come back again???To return knowing that what they will have is an experience good not just for the body but for the soul.?

When the topic of corporate cafeterias is front page news in the New York Times, we know food has morphed into a symbol for what may be missing in our modern workplaces, including the employees. Keeping talent in good times is hard enough.??When companies are restructuring, reducing, and relocating, retaining talent who stay through the rough days will not be accomplished by gift cards or gift baskets.??

Your resilience and your resourcefulness will get you through your tough times

In a nutshell, what I learned is that resilience will help us not be afraid to experiment and to trust we will get through the ordeal. Kellerman & Seligman?in their new book Tomorrowmind: Thriving at work with resilience, creativity, and connection – now and in an uncertain future define resilience at its most basic as “bouncing back.” It’s “the way we prepare for events that we anticipate happening; and it can describe the way we process events after they happened."??I love how they write about the factors that build resilience: emotional regulation, optimism, cognitive agility, self-compassion, and self-efficacy.

Our resilience allows us to step back and use our resourcefulness to create new ways of doing things and to believe we can manage what’s about to change. That day, I had friends, family, and food. How could I fail? And yes, I had a little help from my Internet friends: Google and the NYT Cooking.

Menu?

·??????Crostini with Truffle & Artichoke Spread and Green Olive Tapenade?(Bread provided by my brother who lives on the ground floor; spreads purchased in Gubbio and Ascoli Picena, respectively)

·??????Assorted Salami and Cheese Platter?(Bits and pieces from refrigerator)

·??????Chickpea Salad with Fresh Sage?(Chickpeas from Hurrah supermarket and sage on hand)

·??????Sauteed Shrimp Scampi?(Two kilo of shrimp purchased that morning from the fishmonger painfully peeled and using my own creation)

·??????Breaded and Baked Anchovies?(One kilo of anchovies purchased that morning from the fishmonger carefully cleaned plus Pam’s breadcrumbs using a recipe found through Google in?La Cucina Italiana)

·??????Deconstructed Eggplant Parm?(Eggplant from Hurrah’s plus Pam’s breadcrumbs and tomato passata from our cupboard using a recipe from NYT Cooking app)

·??????Homemade tiramisu?and?cherry tart?contributed by cousins

·??????Sparkling wine?from Franciacorta contributed by a cousin and?Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi?and?Pathos?(Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon & Syrah Blend) from Santa Barbara winery in the Comune of Barbara in the Province of Ancona in the Region of Le Marche

References

Severson, K. (2023, January 24). Amid dusty trays, offices rethink the cafeteria.?The New York Times,?A1

Kellerman, G. R. & Seligman, M. (2023).?Tomorrowmind: Thriving at work with resilience, creativity,and connection – now and in an uncertain future.??Atria Books