It’s your 30 minutes lunch break! You either believed it to be an interruption of your day as you had so much work to be done, or the highlight as you were able to step out of your busy day for a moment to take a deep breath!

Image courtesy of sirikul at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

But one way or the other, it turns out that you were wrong. Talking to my dear friend McKinley the other day, who follows this blog loyally from the beginning, and listening to him talking about the importance of not only never sitting alone while having lunch in the staff canteen, but also making a point of always sitting with different people, and use this half an hour to connect with people and build or strengthen relationships, opened my eyes.

Give these guidelines a try next time you’re having lunch in your staff cafeteria, and you’ll be amazed by the outcome:

1. Never sit alone! If you sit alone you not only miss out on an opportunity to connect with your coworkers or miss out on having a conversation with someone you usually would not talk to, you also send a message to everyone, that you prefer to sit by yourself and want to distance yourself. Even if you’re an introvert and this is where you get your energy from, be aware that this may even be perceived as distanced or arrogant.
2. Always sit with different people! You will always find the same people sitting together that go for lunch at the same time talking about the same things. In a hotel you would see the housekeeping team sitting together by itself, the sales team or accounting team by itself, and almost never mixed. Or you would have managers all sitting together on one side and employees on the other side. If you strive for a culture in which all employees of your organization work together towards a common goal, this isn’t very helpful nor does it send the right message.
3. Built rapport! Talking to someone at lunch gives you the opportunity to talk about something outside work, ask about what’s going on in the other person’s life and to show interest. This is more valuable than anything you can imagine, as it builds trust. Once you build trust you can move at a much faster pace and are able to accomplish things that you thought were impossible only a moment ago.

Next time when you take your break, think twice, if you’re going to sit alone or who you’re going to sit with, and understand that you might be missing out on an opportunity to build or strengthen a relation with a coworker and learn something new.

Question: Did you try it, and how did it go?