leadership development

Boring Meetings Are Beyawnce

A high-octane chocolate cake offering a double shot of espresso will be our dessert today because it’s time to wake up those meetings that are presently asleep at the wheel. Get ready for the instant sobering realization that your routine meetings, affectionately known as nap time to your staff, are in dire need of a jump-start.

Chocolate cake with coffee butter cream
Chocolate Espresso Cake with Coffee Buttercream

In a word, your meetings are narcoleptic inducing agony. The comfortable cruise control mode you’ve set is silently killing your career aspirations and choking your team’s productivity while you erroneously believe that you are accomplishing something. A quick analysis of what your meetings are truly achieving will undoubtedly reveal that adjustments are in order.

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Anonymous Surveys: I Scream, You Scheme, We All…Know It Was You

Think of this dessert and story as an intermezzo, a kind of palate cleanser for your adult taste buds or a sweet for your inner child that is about to get called out for unsavory behavior. We are taking a time-out to reflect upon the anonymous associate opinion survey with a spicy ginger cookie ice-scheming sandwich. There is no chocolate in this recipe because chocolate is for winners.

Ice Cream Sandwich
Ice-Scheming Sandwiches

Get the ice cream and put on the stretchy pants.

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How to Manage Up: Bow To The Bundt

Bundt cakes are reminiscent of a royal crown and a chocolate marbled pound cake with bittersweet ganache drizzle is the perfect amount of fancy for a managing up discussion. This glorious cake has many steps, as will your managing up journey; both endeavors are well worth the extra effort.

Your curtsy could use some polish.

Chocolate and vanilla marble pound cake
Bow To The Bundt Cake

Managing up is an important skill to master for a successful career. Scrapping titles in favor of more egalitarian business relationships is trending, however, the hospitality industry remains a steadfast bastion of peremptory feudal order brimming with pomp and circumstance as well as secret rules of conduct. We are not pondering the reasons why, as an industry, we cling to imperial management paradigms since that is a heady topic and we are not a group of deep contemplators. Let’s gloss over the bigger issue and get back to the practical instruction of managing up, shall we? A game of thrones, indeed.

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Resignations ~ Make Like A Banana And Split

Sour cream banana cake is a wonderful accompaniment to crazy behavior discussions in general, not just resignations gone awry. Bananas set the stage for the impending shenanigans and then a boozy brandy glaze and chocolate were added to make it even less business appropriate. It’s frosted with lightly sweetened whipped cream to make the cake look innocent of any wrongdoing but we all know better.

 

Cue Bon Jovi, ‘cause you’re going out in a blaze of glory.

 

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Being Underestimated ~ You Ain’t Seen Muffin Yet

The deceptively humble muffin is an excellent choice for a lesson in being underestimated. Nonchalant on the exterior but buttery, cakelike and bursting with the dynamic flavor combo of your choice on the inside, this recipe is for a delightful cake in disguise. You may be a little muffin today, but you are on your way to splendid notoriety and nothing can stop you. Except over-mixing the batter (which will only prolong the misperception about your prowess, baking or otherwise) as rubber, while awesome for tires, is an unpleasant consistency for cake.

So, you’ve been underestimated and overlooked. It happens to everyone but that is no solace to your smarting feelings. It sucks; however, by tapping into the craftier part of your personality you can find the advantage in the situation…in every situation really.

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