The Big Idea
Inspired by tradition.
Designed for today.
Breaking Bread learning events are a dynamic training and development experience for growing teams who know that happy, healthy, relationships are the key to lasting success.
Divided we fall...
Change brings stress. Stress leads to incivility, isolation, and conflict. Which all lead to more stress.
This cycle creates headwind upon headwind for growing companies, such as:
United we rise
On the flip side improving connection, communication, and friendship brings a whole raft of improvements, including:
↑21%
increased profitability of engaged teams vs their disengaged counterparts.8
582%
69%
employees likely to stay with a company for at least 3 years after a great onboarding experience11
44%
Your people, your business and your bottom line need less conflict, more connection.
But how do you fix it?
Yesterday’s methods are not working for your scattered, burned out, and anxiety-ridden teams.
Nobody wants another awkward Zoom ‘social’ or a 7-hour seminar on how to write an email.
You need something specific to the issues you’re facing now.
You need a Breaking Bread event
and mixes in highly effective training methods, with remote-first delivery.
So your people build bonds that give them – and your business – the strength to succeed
– all in an inclusive, non-confrontational, flexible environment, designed specifically for today’s teams.
You no longer need to choose between wellbeing, teambuilding, or skills training.
Breaking Bread lets you have your cake bread and eat it too
Baked-In Learning
Unabashedly fun. Wildly effective.
Breaking Bread events combine connection mindset and skillset into a process that feels like play (and sticks like, well...dough!).
Bake In
Not Bryan Adams
Breaking Bread transports participants to a sensory space that is deeply linked to early learning, safety, and comfort. Dovetailed with powerful discovery strategies and appreciative inquiry, your team will enjoy an unforgettably unique and lasting learning experience.
Even better, those skills are reinforced and reactivated every time a participant bakes, talks about baking, or engages socially using methods learned at the event.
Engage
- Benjamin Franklin
Baking sourdough helps us tap into the power of active learning. by keeping hands and bodies moving - in a physically undemanding way. Combined with the fresh setting and a novel task, our bakers are present, attentive, and open to learning and connecting – without a drop of Zoom fatigue!
Relax
- Michel Thomas
Every culture has a unique bread that they celebrate, and baking together expands on that unique sense of security, nurture, and comfort. As a mediator and experienced trainer, I make sure that the environment feels like a fine celebration - safe and welcoming.
Which is especially important, because “a relaxed learning environment can provide effective retrieval cues, as well as improve learning.”
Reward
Columbia University, 2018
And, of course…what better win at the end of the day than a fresh-from-the-oven, deliciously tangy sourdough loaf? When projects feel long haul and intangible, it’s amazing to have something YOU created – to butter up, to post on socials, and to share with friends.
Employee recognition can create 4x the engagement at work, 5x a sense of being connected to the company culture, and make employees 73% less likely to experience burnout.
Moreover, people learn better and faster when there’s a reward involved, because our brains prioritize memory storage and retrieval from rewarding experiences.
The Process
Event design
When it comes to designing the content of the 'Bake Day', Breaking Bread allows for almost limitless flexibility!
The basic recipe
Like a classic sourdough loaf, every Breaking Bread event incorporates the key ingredients of sourdough baking, relationship building, and stress management.
And just like a classic sourdough loaf, that has a simple, satisfying charm.
This unadorned version is great for ongoing wellbeing perks and appreciation, with a side of cringe-free relationship building.
Special ingredients
The process allows plenty of room for special ingredients, too. Because while we might all be facing global changes, we’re still ultimately running our own race.
Click on the ingredient jars to see how you can add more flavor to your event.
Connection skills training
As an experienced comms trainer, I can help your people make connection a habit, not an accident. Skills include:
- Communicating under stress
- Managing emotional states
- Rapport-building & calibration
- Negotiation
- Public speaking
Conflict resolution and difficult conversations
Conflict has always been a feature of high-pressure, high-stakes situations.
As an experienced mediator, I can create space for fruitful, managed discussion to help find better paths forward.
Onboarding
Don’t just say it. Show new starters how much you value them.
Help them make connections, learn the ropes and tap into the culture – without another 20 stilted Zoom calls.
Ideation & creativity
Give your teams the right mental space for creativity – whether for product design, strategic thinking or problem-solving.
Employee listening
It’s harder than ever for leaders to gauge the sentiment of their teams.
Using the highly effective tool of appreciative inquiry, I can help your people express themselves in a non-confrontational, confidential environment.
Celebrations
Help remote teams create a sense of occasion, whether they’re coming together to mark a big win, a milestone or a holiday.
Connection skills training
As an experienced comms trainer, I can help your people make connection a habit, not an accident. Skills include:
- Communicating under stress
- Managing emotional states
- Rapport-building & calibration
- Negotiation
- Public speaking
Conflict resolution and difficult conversations
Conflict has always been a feature of high-pressure, high-stakes situations.
As an experienced mediator, I can create space for fruitful, managed discussion to help find better paths forward.
Onboarding
Don’t just say it. Show new starters how much you value them.
Help them make connections, learn the ropes and tap into the culture – without another 20 stilted Zoom calls.
Ideation & creativity
Give your teams the right mental space for creativity – whether for product design, strategic thinking or problem-solving.
Employee listening
It’s harder than ever for leaders to gauge the sentiment of their teams.
Using the highly effective tool of appreciative inquiry, I can help your people express themselves in a non-confrontational, confidential environment.
Celebrations
Help remote teams create a sense of occasion, whether they’re coming together to mark a big win, a milestone or a holiday.
And here are some example 'recipes'
Boosted Onboarding
Help new starters learn the culture & values, bake in connections – and learn, for example, how to manage stress for better communication. Your new team members become savvy ‘keepers of culture’ right from the start!
Aligned & fired up project teams
New project, but a team with old beef? Help clear the air, align everyone to a vision, and set things off on a strong trajectory.
Away days, offsites & retreats
In a multi-day event, there’s a chance to take things to the next level! Celebrate achievements, learn connection skills, share news & updates, kick off new initiatives, and take time to hear what employees are thinking and feeling, with a multi-day session designed to be varied, inspiring and refreshing.
Let's Break Bread!
I really want to find out more about you! But I'll get things underway by introducing myself here. Or you can jump straight to getting in touch
Meet your host, Nancy Hand
I work with growing businesses who want to take advantage of change by building strong, happy teams – instead of battling through it, hoping for the best.
Nobody wants a fight. People want to get along, but…
It’s tough to keep civility and relationships harmonious when you’re already trying to deliver a thousand projects at a million miles an hour.
And it’s really tough to connect and communicate when you’re under heroic amounts of stress.
Comfort and stability in times of change
Sourdough bread became the ‘Big Thing’ when the pandemic broke out and turned our worlds upside down, and I knew exactly why.
For about the last 5,000 years, bread has been the “staff of life” – the most basic and reliable source of nutrition in the world. Every culture has a bread they celebrate. It has represented life, safety, support, and most importantly, community.
Baking and sourdough has been a lifelong source of connection with my family. Now it is my reliable ‘go to’ as an icebreaker and relationship builder wherever I might be in the world.
No half-baked measures
The only way to create unity and shared vision is to first bring people to a place of agreement and understanding, and then build upwards and outwards from there.
I founded Breaking Bread to help teams do just that. Through this process, your people learn how to create, mend, and strengthen connections in a way that bakes enthusiasm and resilience into your business culture. People who’ve learned these skills develop a natural ability to be the ray of sunshine, even in darker times.
Connection is a way of life
My communication expertise is multifaceted. It’s largely based on more than 35 years of real-world experience and formal training in communication, learning, and behavior underpinned by extensive experience in contract law, mediation, dispute resolution, negotiation, and coaching.
But it’s also rooted in my own culinary heritage as a south Louisiana daughter of a food scientist, a foodie (know thyself!), and sourdough baker.
When I’m not training and baking in the kitchen, you might find me…
Hiking, with my husband Will
Taking photos (geaux Tigers!)
Growing dahlias (forever smitten!)
Enjoying travelling & treats
Loving these doggos
Socializing! (natch…)
