[Do it now! note#151] The importance of dining with business partners

How are you doing? This is Hayashi.

The other day, we reached a small milestone in the project I am currently working on, so I went out for a meal with the people from the various partner companies who are working on the same mission.

Since joining this project, I have gone out to eat with people from my own company several times, but this was the first time I had done so with members from all the companies involved.

When companies and organizations differ, even if the overall policy and goals are the same, subtle differences in values can emerge regarding specific methods of execution. This is what is known as "agreeing in principle, but disagreeing on the details."

I understand that this is, in a sense, a natural occurrence when organizations and individuals with different values work together on a project. On the other hand, as I am in a position to manage this project and it is still going to be a long road ahead, I thought it would be good to increase mutual understanding and create more opportunities to make daily work easier, so I proposed this meal, and the opportunity for everyone to get together was realized.

Today, I would like to record, partly as a reminder to myself, why I felt it was important to have a meal with the business partners belonging to the project.

You cannot do good work with people whose humanity you do not know

First, although it is obvious, just by learning about the hobbies and backgrounds of my business partners, I felt that the distance in our human relationships closed significantly. It has already been one year since I took on this current job this April, and this was a time that made the human relationships I had built up over the past year more than 100 times deeper in a single meal.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, opportunities to work with people in the workplace decreased, and I think there are a certain number of people who, in that state, have not had as many opportunities to eat out as before. Since remote work has also become widespread, there are probably some people whose work is almost entirely online.

The other day, I had the opportunity to talk with several people from a different organization within the company, and there were a certain number of people who had joined new projects during the pandemic who said, "Even though we are on the same project, there are many people I have never met in person, and I don't even know what they look like."

While remote work and virtual teams have become the norm, making it convenient to form teams regardless of location, through the experience of the meal the other day, I keenly felt the importance of sharing the same space and eating with people on the same project.

In particular, intentionally having a meal with business partner companies that have many different values makes me feel that when conflicts arise from opposing opinions or differences in position at work, I can calmly think about "why is the other person saying that?"

Even if our positions and roles are different, what we are aiming for is the same. There are ways of doing things that each person thinks are "good" based on their own sense of justice, and the question is how much we can respect that and turn it into value for our work. It is easy to put into words, but very difficult to execute.

However, I realized, albeit with some embarrassment after a year, that you can never overcome conflict and finally put your arms around each other and say "we did a good job" with people you have never eaten with and whose character you do not know.

Work moves forward even if you don't go out of your way to eat together, so I had been putting it off. However, it was a very important process for doing better work and for the people involved in the project to feel a sense of purpose and interest in their work.

You can learn about values and worries regarding work

It was also a very valuable time to be able to hear raw voices, not only about strengthening human relationships, but also about what they value and what parts of their work they find difficult.

When organizational cultures differ, the values that are cherished also differ. Therefore, expectations for other partner companies also differ, and I think there are situations where you feel distrust when they act in ways that differ from the values you cherish.

It is self-evident that you cannot do very good work in a state where you both have the feeling of "why don't they do this?" Just by knowing the honest parts that don't come out in formal daytime business meetings and the values cherished by that organization, you can understand that "even if they are acting differently from our expectations, they are doing it seriously based on their organization's values."

It is important to have the perspective of "they are doing it seriously within their own values and the world they see," and I think that because we understand that, it leads to a sense of trust as a basis for communication.

It is also an opportunity to grasp what the other party expects from you, such as what they are struggling with and how they want you to act, which leads to the realization that 'if they feel it is difficult to work in such areas, I should also understand their concerns and try to improve them.'

This also tends to feel formal when discussed in a conference room during the day or through voice-only communication in a web meeting, often taking on the nuance of a 'formal request.' However, by talking about these concerns while sharing a meal, I felt that it was easier to eliminate that 'formal request' nuance and guide things toward improvement in a way that is more acceptable to both parties within a natural conversation.

Overflowing with insights and learning

It was also a very fruitful time to learn about the history of the current project and the human relationships involved, which are rarely discussed in a conference room.

Especially for someone like me who did not participate from the project's inception but joined a project where certain methods and workflows were already established, I believe that understanding and respecting the past of those who have been involved longer than I have is extremely important.

Why are work processes that seem troublesome the way they are?
It is easy for a newcomer to criticize them, but there is a history and background to why things are that way, and it is clear that if you criticize without properly understanding that, it will not be accepted.

Also, there are predecessors who are described by other companies as 'this person is truly amazing,' and just thinking about 'what kind of actions make people say that about them?' provides many learning opportunities.
You can also hear stories like 'So-and-so at our company may look like that, but they are actually like this,' and knowing the balance of human relationships at other companies can be surprisingly important.

As you can see, the importance of dining communication lies in being able to notice things that you wouldn't notice even after 100 meetings in a conference room or on the web.
I was surprised at how different the conversations could be just by 'talking in a different place than usual,' 'talking while eating,' and 'having conversations you wouldn't normally have,' even with people you interact with regularly.

Moving forward, I will actively create opportunities to communicate with business partners from other companies while dining outside of the conference room.
I hope this will also serve as an opportunity for my own team members to feel the fulfillment and interest that exists around their work.

Well then, have a great day today.
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