I had a new experience the other week, I went to the Nando’s restaurant chain for the first time.
I checked their website to see how to order in their restaurants.
I read their menu which had details of different order combinations.
I spoke to one of their staff about ordering.
Until I spoke to one of the people who was with me, I couldn’t tell you exactly how hot their ‘hot’ marinade is.
You can build in all the materials, job aids, standard text, and support materials into something. You can count, add, time and correlate all the uses of those materials. Still what matters most is the social aspect with someone putting it into context.
Do you agree? Please add your comments.
Lost and Desperate 
As the description of the ‘hotness’ by your friend is a very subjective opinion, surely ‘trial and error’ would have provided a more accurate benchmark for you – thus diluting the benefit of ‘social’?
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Thanks Craig; my friend knows what I eat, they’ve shared my food before. They have a better understanding of my context – is that more cost effective than ‘trial and error’?
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Reblogged this on Reflections of an OD Team and commented:
From an OD team lunch I was prompted to write this.
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Context is really powerful. Especially if you build scenarios and put experts and novices in the room. The new eyes and the ‘auto pilot’ operators challenge each other. I find this particularly useful when implementing change related training, especially if the experts are a little set in their way. The conversations need to be managed, but they remember it!
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Thanks Yvette – the expert/novice mix is interesting. What defines expertise? Is it the individual or the people around them? In the circumstance above I spoke to someone who’d visited Nando’s over half a dozen times – does that make them expert?
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Let’s not start with the sauce. How about the confusing menu options and the size of those tiny chickens they serve up? Sorry, this is not a review but sometimes I just wish for the simplicity. Restaurant managers over complicate things sometimes. I don’t understand why they can’t serve up a sauce sampler. Want to try how hot it is? Well here’s a toothpick, stick it in the sauce and you tell us!
How hard is that?
Obviously I’ve had the same experience at Nandos but I’m not bitter.
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Thanks Helen – I ‘knew’ you’d have an opinion. 🙂
The size of the chicken is a fair point to discuss; what is the size of the side orders is another. These are the kind of questions that a social conversation can help answer. In the world of measuring everything, where would these conversations be ‘counted’.
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