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The Peanut Enters Stage Left
The office was split between the people that ate their lunch at their desks and those that drank their lunch offsite. It was a very different time with ashtrays still a fixture in all conference rooms. I was content eating the lunch my wife had packed in a nondescript brown bag and being pleasantly surprised at her occasional little additions. One day, she threw in a small bag of peanuts. For some reason, I offered them to my three cubicle mates by quietly placing them on the communal table in the center of our shared space. It was not long until Bill, our boss, missiled past our cubicle's entrance on the way to one of his ever-critical planning meetings. With hardly a glance into our workspace, he made an instant course correction to the coordinates of our peanut-laden table. He sat his papers next to the peanut bowl, freeing both hands for the delicate job of shelling peanuts. He focus was suddenly on shelling, eating, and talking. We heard about his upcoming meeting (which would fall into dismal disrepair without him, so he must hurry) as he carefully extracted the meat, dutifully depositing the shells in the dustbin, and slapping their contents into his mouth as one might knock back a shot of cheap whiskey. We sat in amazement of his openness. Within a few minutes, he depleted the peanuts and vanished. My cubicle mates and I stared at one another in shock—communication.
Refining The Tool
Over the next few weeks, the small bags from my lunch grew to five-pound bags of Hoody's unshelled salted peanuts stored under my desk. The Baggie and trashcan were replace with two nice bowels—one for peanuts and another for the empty shells—both of which my wife had found at a garage sale. We discovered that shelled peanuts were ineffective—people just grabbed a handful and ran. Unshelled peanuts required two hands, a place to conveniently dispose of the waste, and, most importantly, time. Shelling produced only two peanuts, not enough to quench your appetite or impede conversation. It was the perfect combination of lack of satiation, effort, and tending to addictive traits to create the proper dwell time for conversation. We were exploiting his weaknesses and manipulating our boss's behavior.
Don't Talk With Your Mouth Full
Information flowed, people understood the goals, and anxiety waned. All for peanuts. In later years, I have found that cherries, grapes, and crackers and hummus all have the same effect. Variety of fair brought the curious. The key was the item needs two hands or a pit, and cannot fill the mouth. Eating one must only whet the appetite. Regardless of my title or stature, it is a trick I continue to employ.
The Peanuts in Reverse
There is more to learn from this than how to get information from superiors. Hidden in it is the value of unstructured spontaneous communication. This is at the heart of the age-old form of "management by walking around." Walk into a subordinate's office and simply ask how they are doing. The first few occasions bring skepticism, but as it becomes the norm, people open up and tell you what actually is going on. The two key ingredients are:
- One-on-one communication, and
- Time. Stopping your seemly frantic day to talk and, more importantly, listen.
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