Would you invite your boss to your dinner party?

As we get closer to the festive season but with little chance of enjoying the company of our loved ones, at least on the large scale we have been used to the past years, I thought it would be interesting to talk about bosses and dinner parties.

Actually, it’s not really about that, but about your intentions of inviting someone to your dinner party as an indication of whether you consider them interesting or not.

Of course, we’ve invited many times people that we simply can’t stand or find utterly boring, many times ‘because they’re family’ or because ‘it’s important’ for some one (maybe you, your spouse or your mom for that matter).

This is about YOU deciding to invite your boss to your dinner party and I am making this an allegory of the question: Do you consider your boss remotely interesting outside the workplace? Does he have anything to offer beyond the work relationship and all that the job entails, besides career, the daily business, next year’s strategic choices, the organization, the opportunities and challenges of our business and the list goes on and on until the point of indigestion?

Go on, admit it. You’ve been at dinners or events with your boss and senior management and the only thing you don’t want to talk about is work. Am I the only one that can’t stand ‘networking lunches’ where in-between chewing and dipping the spring roll in the sauce I am supposed to listen to the 3-year growth plan, profess I am interested and be ready to add the stuff I noted down just before lunch because ‘this the opportunity to get your message through’? Don’t get me wrong: I am not against them; they are just sometimes so tedious. And it’s OK if it’s a 1-1 with a senior person where there might be a side-agenda attached to the lunch like your next move or discussing a specific topic you need help on (like cheese or dessert come after the main course), but man, if it’s at a team event where the whole idea is to relax and try to get to know each other a bit better? You have these people that never stop talking about work: In the bus on the way to the team activity, during the coffee break, before the group photo, in the bathroom washing their hands next to someone, at dinner where they made sure to sit next to the right person, in the lobby for the after-dinner drinks…it never ends. I saw all that recently where the coffee break was another opportunity to lobby for your brand, your budget, your people, yourself. Some people even forget to go to the bathroom and run after they are called back in the big meeting room. Talk about dedicated bladders! So when is the REAL coffee break I asked myself? And the answer is, for some people, never…

So, imagine a situation where your boss in that team-event is exactly like how he should not be: never stopping to talk about work, this morning’s meeting, next week’s budget, next year’s target. And you wonder, either this is a well-focused business machine or the shallowest person you’ve ever met. Excellent at work, determined strategist, visionary leader, whatever, zero knowledge about society, culture, history. And that’s the moment you need to do the ‘dinner test’. If this person was forbidden to talk about work, would (s)he have anything else to talk about? Would anybody even listen to her/him?

These gaps seem huge especially in multi-national, multi-cultural environments but some managers just don’t think they are important. But they are. Really important especially if you are working with people you are trying to win over, genuinely understand and work with. Some might say “I do not care about this” I am just here to interact about work’. Good for you but consider the fact that many people need inspiring, human-faced leaders that are more than the sum of their latest business results. People follow people and most of the times they like them about who they are and how interesting they can be besides work. There’s so much to learn out there that goes beyond your business scope. And if you are working in a large multinational, don’t do a bloody focus group to understand the consumer. Ask the people in the local office, talk to the taxi driver, look outside the car window instead having your face buried in your phone while answering the 50th stupid email of the day.

Some of the best bosses I had were not even the best businessmen/women but they got the best out of their teams by showing deep understanding and knowledge of their surroundings, their people and demonstrated a broad spectrum of knowledge beyond work. And that's what made them special. At some point you might even get lucky and hear something 'philosophical' that you carry with you beyond that assignment. Like a few years ago, talking to my boss who was expecting his 3rd child and told me: "Your name is not 'Eiffel', you will not invent the cure for cancer, all you can hope for is to leave this earth doing some good and raising some good kids." Nice one.

Think about that and challenge yourself next time you catch yourself just talking about work and being completely ignorant of your surroundings. Pick up a book, listen to a podcast, talk to people. And you never know, you might have something interesting to say in the next dinner party. Who knows, you might even be invited back after you’ve left that team or company.

Happy holidays!

Stay thankful, Stay Safe. 

All views expressed in these posts are my own and do not represent the opinions of any entity with whom I have been, am currently or will be affiliated in the future. This is (maybe) a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are (perhaps) either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental (...or not)