Cake as a management tool

As someone with a passing familiarity with management techniques and tools (as in, they tend to pass me by), I was immediately taken with Hadley Beeman's suggestion on Twitter that . This on the back of one of my current colleagues making some excellent cakes regularly and the knowledge that at least one other tweeter () makes cakes for her teams.

And Hadley, of course, is entirely right.

A senior manager I once worked with walked around the office at least once a week with some form of confectionary. Doughnuts, chocolates, biscuits, cakes, grapes, crackers, cheese... we had the lot. Nine times out of ten the offering came at just the right time, lifted the mood around the office, got everyone talking about which bit of confectionary they were going to choose, and was just a nice treat.

From the point of view of a manager-officer relationship, the weekly treat allowed for a bit of conversation with the manager in question, made them seem far more approachable, showed that they were willing to make an effort on behalf of their staff and meant that everyone thought they were a bloody nice person (which, as it so happens, they were).

So, as far as a management tool goes, making and sharing cakes with your staff or colleagues - in an entirely uninvited way (and not out of some form of obligation, as with buying cakes every time it's your birthday) - seems to be highly effective.

I therefore recommend it to you all and, in recognition of her identifying this formally (at least so far as I've come across it), I shall call it the Hadley Effect.