Sandwiches, boundaries, and human connection

What I learned about human connection and boundaries from the choice between grabbing a sandwich or sitting down to eat lunch.

The French are well known for their love of food and for their prioritization of a sit down meal. As a friend who grew up in France explained to me, taking this pause is not just about not rushing, but also about the quality of the food you are putting into your body. Every day around noon, my colleagues would put their coats on, grab whichever teammates were nearby, and head to the cantine (cafeteria) at our office in Buc, near Versailles. They would each grab a tray, load it up with a starter (maybe a little side salad or radishes and butter), a hot main course (which would range from chicken to sausages to duck confit), a dessert (sweets, fruit, or a piece of cheese), and a little bread. After paying, they would grab a pitcher of water or two, and sit down together to eat.

The unwritten rule was that talk of work was practically forbidden in the cantine. Teammates talked about life, travel, family, politics, entertainment. And for a group that spoke English in meetings much of the day, this was an opportunity to relax back into French for a while. When everyone had finished eating, the group moved into the next room to grab an espresso. During the coffee time, work was no longer taboo, though not always where the conversation would go. As they walked to the office building before their 1:00PM meetings, the team was refreshed and ready to dive back in.

The cantine also had a stack of sandwiches available. They were long pieces of baguette, containing either ham, cheese, or ham and cheese. If you grabbed a sandwich to take to your desk or to a meeting room instead of sitting down to eat, you could expect either pitying looks or disapproving ones. Especially during my first year living in France, I would choose a sandwich many Thursdays to finish final preparation for my 1:00PM program review. People would walk by my office on their way to the cantine, and would stop to tell me that this wasn’t good for my health, or to give a gentle tsk-tsk. Taking this break to eat was considered the rule, not the exception.

The instinct to grab a sandwich and keep working, rather than to sit with my colleagues and take a break, stuck with me during my early days in France. But even though the sandwiches were pretty tasty (great ingredients make for good food, even when it’s just a sandwich), I eventually came to appreciate the time with my colleagues, the break from work (although speaking French was not a break for me!), and of course the rather delicious hot food that the cantine served. This daily ritual came to symbolize two things to me: the power of boundaries, and the power of human connection.

The power of boundaries:

In most of the American team cultures I have experienced, leaders demonstrate their commitment to the company and to their team by working long hours, and by making themselves available practically all the time. I have worked in product development and product management for many years, and there are absolutely times during the development lifecycle when extreme effort is needed, and when all hands are needed on deck to be ready for a big milestone or to solve a customer issue. That was true in France, too, and team members ate sandwiches while working when we were in legitimate crunch times. But that lunchtime break was an example of a boundary that was understood to be important and respected during normal times.

If we want to build teams that last, and we want those teams to build businesses that last, we can’t expect everyone to exert maximal effort all the time, with no time for recovery and recharging. Leaders play an important role in setting these expectations for the culture and norms on their teams. When well-meaning leaders tell their team that they are available round the clock for anything they need, they are modeling to their team that valuable people are available all the time, and that this is an unwritten expectation. In a crisis? Totally necessary. But every day, every week? This is not sustainable.

Leaders would be better served by transparency about their own priorities and boundaries, and to keep to them during the normal course of business. For my part, I am an early bird, and I get up between 5:00 and 5:30 most mornings. This means I am not at my best later in the evening, when my creativity has run dry for the day. During normal times, I prefer to arrange my schedule to do creative work in the morning when I am energized and focused, and to limit late meetings. I also make it to as many of my sons’ weekday Ultimate Frisbee games, soccer games, and track meets as I reasonably can, and I tell my team where I am in hopes that it makes it ok for others to arrange their work flexibly during normal times so they can do the same.

Maybe you keep scheduling meetings over your exercise class or lunchtime walk or music rehearsal, or whatever it is that would clear your head and re-energize you. Could you take a step or two toward implementing boundaries during the normal course of business, by holding that block on your calendar? During a crisis, we’ll go into all hands on deck mode, but let’s make that the exception.

The power of human connection:

The other key to the lunch ritual was the connection that the extended teams formed by sharing a meal with a varied group of team members, filling each other’s water glasses when they noticed they were getting low, and listening to each other’s stories. Sharing a meal is a tradition that has brought people together since ancient times, and food has a strong connection to memories and emotions for many of us.

The pandemic taught us that a lot of work can be productively performed remotely (especially in software product development), but when time with friends and family was hard to come by during the lockdown, the longing that we felt underscored how much we need human connection in our day to day lives. One of my French colleagues told me that their daily lunch ritual was why they didn’t need to do as much team building as we generally do in the U.S. when we form new teams or launch new projects. They spent time practically daily to get to know each other without talking about work. That investment of time strengthened bonds that helped them during the tough times at work.

Eating team lunches every day is not part of most American teams’ culture, and that probably won’t change anytime soon, particularly when many of us work remotely and don’t have access to an inexpensive onsite cantine with great food. However, there is still an opportunity for leaders to make some positive change in our team cultures by modeling a little more time to recharge and connect during the normal course of business. The humans on our team will be better for it, and may even have an extra reserve of energy the next time it is needed.