Safety First. Then Teamwork. Mostly Teamwork but Wear Shoes in the House

For this teamwork session, I decided to invite my mother, Cynthia Ball, to be my guest for the challenge. Allow me to first start my saying that I LOVED THIS CHALLENGE!!!!! I enjoy cooking and also interacting with my fellow fellows to learn something that i didn't know before or even becoming more diverse so much and this challenge brought all of those things together. My mother and I worked with Beth and her guest, Bob, and Mariam and her father to create a spicy vegetarian chilli and curry chicken over a bed of white rice. Working with my mom as my partner was a very different concept than our normal relationship. I doubt that we have ever done something where we had to work as a team to complete a common goal. We have helped each other over the years in working to achieve various goals but never has it been as involved or intensive as the teamwork challenge. It was a little challenging to work with other fellows and my guest due to the fact that my guest was my mother. Differences in addressing elders was very common to me. I would never call an adult which I just met by their first name but it seemed second nature to beth and Mariam. I am not saying that they were being disrespectful to her, but I definitely noticed a difference in how i addressed Mariam's father and the way she addressed mine. But these are simply differences in how we were all reared growing up. Everyone seemed to work well as a team. After deciding on the dish, Mariam and her father took the lead on this project because they had the most experience making this dish and knew the proper procedure. No one challenged this structure for the good of the team. Mariam definitely took authority which is something I learned from our past challenge that must be done in order to be successful. One person or a small group must take initiative to lead the team. After selecting the entree, tasks were divided up based on cooking experience and relative skill of the culinary arts. Every person had a specific task and the success of our team was dependent on how well each person completed their own task because each small part comes together to make up the meal for the entire team. Therefore, if one area was lacking, it would bring down the score for the whole team. We succeeded in making a delicious meal and working as a team with great communication and team cohesiveness. One part where we failed was in the execution of timing. We took too long prepping the food and we almost ran out of time while plating. I think the value of teamwork comes down to how i described the dish. Everyone's part may seem small or insignificant but in actuality, each section is paramount in the final product. The small pieces are what come together to give the overall product and if some of these small pieces are not handled properly, the entire structure will come crashing down. Taking this knowledge into the upcoming challenge, I will not let myself or my teammates feel as if their work is too small or that it does not mean anything to the group. We all must understand that every task goes towards the overall end result of this challenge and you never know what small step may be the catalyst that sends our team skyrocketing towards new heights and ultimately success.