Christmas is my favorite holiday, but a close second is Thanksgiving. I love getting together with family, counting our many blessings and most of all stuffing myself to the brink! I love turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and even green bean casserole. While I consider myself a great aficionado of thanksgiving cuisine, I am also very particular in the way in which the meal should be prepared. I am a purist, no frills, not fancy, no “complexities to tease” the palate and most of all lots and lots of gravy!

I was early in my marriage, so I always looked forward to holidays to spend time with Nicole’s family as a way to earn my way into their good graces. She was raised in eastern Pennsylvania, and I was raised in Western Pennsylvania. While Pennsylvania is one state, there are pretty large differences in customs and food influences between the two sides of the border. Her family was used to fresh not frozen, lots of colors on the plate and food was prepared separate between meat, carbohydrate and vegetable with minimal sauces and gravy. My family, on the other hand, loved the idea of anything that could be a casserole. We also froze everything just in case there was threat of a nuclear winter, and we needed a food stash. And lastly, we took great pride in drowning food with ketchup, ranch, melted butter or gravy. It was Thanksgiving Day, and we were celebrating at Nicole’s house, and boy was I ready for the feast! I had fasted all night and into the morning and, wore my pants that an extra two inches in the waist to allow extra “capacity.” I was ready to put on an eating clinic, followed by a hard nap before rebounding to devour some homemade apple pie and ice cream. As the food was brought out to the table, I began to notice some things that were highly concerning. The turkey was stuffed with what looked like leaves and vegetation and not bread stuffing. In regards to the stuffing, it had specks of red and green mixed throughout which appeared to be cranberries and spinach. Lastly, as my panic continued to build, there was no sign of green bean casserole! I maintained a poker face but, on the inside, I was frantically wrestling with the possibility that I may not like my mothers-in-law’s Thanksgiving meal. This could have massive implications both on my ability to gorge myself on Thanksgiving dinner and alienate my in-laws! I pressed on and cautiously filled my plate with this foreign food. To my surprise, it was good, and I was able to fully maximize the limits of my waistband’s tolerance! While it was not the traditional meal that I grew up with, it was something new that expanded my view of a Thanksgiving menu. Even today, our family still laughs about my reaction to Thanksgiving that year.

Leadership Takeaways:

1. As a leader it’s critical to keep an open mind with your team members, peers and managers. Humility and providing safety to consider other ideas will generate an atmosphere of innovation.
2. In choosing a leadership team be intentional about diversity of background, thought and experience. In many cases the first idea is not the one you ultimately go with and having diverse viewpoints to edit, augment or adapt ideas will create better outcomes.
3. Have the bravery and tenacity to drive consensus towards new ideas. This is hard when our tendency is to limit and mitigate risk. I was not a fan of cranberries and even worse in my stuffing! I had to muster up the courage to push forward and fill up my plate!