The parallels of work and end of year large family gatherings for the holidays
Applying a ways of working lens to family holiday gatherings
Disclaimer
I want to make it clear that any comparisons to context on TV or any other sources is strictly for illustrative and entertainment purposes and not aimed at anyone I know. This is a reflection on commonalities between the work environment and family gatherings that occur at the end of the year with a touch of tongue in cheek.
Context
My recent end-of-year holiday was spent with my partner’s family, celebrating Christmas and two birthdays all in one action-packed week.
Like many families, as they grow and spread out, gathering everyone becomes more complicated. Children become adults, go off to college or university, find partners, and get jobs. As a result, annual gatherings involve travel, coordination, meticulous planning, and a lot of coordination—meals to cook, events to organize, and ingredients to buy. In our case, we flew in from the UK, while others traveled from different states in the U.S.
For many, the end-of-year Christmas celebration is the main event where everyone reconnects. Of course, not everyone has family or chooses to celebrate with them, and for those, a more friends-based gathering is becoming increasingly common—think "Friendsgiving" as an alternative to or in addition to Thanksgiving in the U.S.
Hopefully, some of this feels familiar. The key point here is that a holiday gathering requires real effort. We call it tradition, it often feels more like a ritual—a carefully choreographed dance of planning, cooking, and eating (with drinks flowing liberally).
The Parallels
Think of your family group as a project team tasked with delivering multiple meals, complete with diverse dishes and the added complexity of dietary restrictions.
You have deadlines (flexible or firm, depending on how many glasses of wine have been poured) and a mountain of preparation to manage: what to cook, how much to buy, who will do the cooking, and how much cutlery is needed.
In many families, there’s usually one or two people who take the lead. Rarely is the work evenly distributed across a team. If you’re lucky, there’s a written or digital plan. In our case, there was a spreadsheet—shared with some people but not all (because part of the plan was organizing a surprise party). This information gap, well-intentioned or not, led to questions like:
“What’s the plan for today?”
“What time is meal X?”
“What can person Y do to help?”
Then there was the well-meaning individual who bought extra ingredients when we already had plenty.
To complicate matters further, the family hosting the event took the planning reins, but this limited contributions from those who normally led the cooking efforts. Visual management was sorely lacking. I half-jokingly suggested a Kanban board on the fridge to organize the agenda and sequencing. The idea was praised and forgotten.
The Chaos of Good Intentions
When people ask how they can help—or worse, suggest last-minute changes—while the cooks are elbows-deep in pots and pans, it leads to confusion, multitasking, and sometimes a few outbursts. Good intentions aside, it’s a perfect storm of stress. This reminded me all too much of certain workplace dynamics.
Layer on top the traditional family roles: the youngest, the eldest, the matriarch, and so on. These dynamics further complicate the holiday kitchen, making it resemble a high-stakes corporate project under a tight deadline.
The Strategy
I took a different approach. I volunteered for the unglamorous but essential tasks—dishwashing, trash duty, and vegetable chopping—and played gatekeeper to shield the cooks from unnecessary interruptions. I fielded questions, delegated simple tasks to willing helpers, and kept the kitchen traffic-free.
When my work was done, I mingled with the rest of the family to keep them entertained (and out of the way).
Reflections
I don’t presume to “fix” Christmas at the in-laws—there are lifetimes of traditions, roles, and interactions at play. However, minor nudges can reduce chaos. This is not a company-wide agile transformation; it’s more like introducing a few lightweight processes. My goal was simply to make things a bit smoother.
While tensions may rise in the family kitchen, the intentions are always rooted in love. If you want a dramatized version of this dynamic, I recommend the holiday meal episode of The Bear (it takes kitchen chaos to an 11—yes, a Spinal Tap reference).
Goals for Next Time
Create a visible plan—an Obeya wall for roles, timelines, and a list of one-time tasks (“buy eggs”) could be a game-changer.
Focus on empathy and communication. Listening and understanding motivations (instead of judging) often reveals the heart behind holiday traditions—a way to honor loved ones, past and present, through shared meals and rituals.
While the family celebration was chaotic at times, it was filled with love. The food was delicious, and everyone largely agreed the celebration was the calmest on record.
What stories do you have?
How do you handle family dynamics and shared responsibilities during festive gatherings? I’d love to hear your tips, tactics, or funny moments!
Influences
Some other recent influences that contributed to my thoughts on the topic
Course: Cleaning Toxic Waste - Modus Institue courses in general but mor specifically “cleaning toxic waste” course which takes an in depth look at how people interact in the workplace and what anti-patterns of behaviours can occur that lead to levels of toxicity. These are far more nuanced than you might imagine, it isn’t about being a jerk although that sure is part of it. Jim Benson is one of my heroes and more recently I‘d like to think I can call him and the Modus team friends. For those of you who don’t know Jim Benson, cocreator / author of Personal Kanban with the incredible Tonianne DeMaria back in the mid 2000s. Jim is one of the most thoughtful humane thinkers I know and has a wonderful punk rock ethos to the world which is both fun with a strike of rebellion. I cannot recommend the course enough and Jim has a book on the topic he is finishing off which I know will be brilliant and the course offers you a peek into the book.
Blog Series: Failureship - by Chris Matts (on his IT Risk Manager Blog)
Blog Series: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to the “Office” - (recommended to me by Chris Matts)
TV Series: The Bear and in particular the “Fishes” episode which explores a rather tense memory of a dysfunctional Italian American holiday celebration of “the seven fishes” which is a traditional meal of seven different fish dishes the day before Christmas say. Seven courses sound like a look and in the episode of the Bear it really becomes apparent, just how stressful, and toxic things can get when there’s lots of people present, people falling into their own roles and some people taking on tasks whilst other sit, watch the TV and wait to be served.
Movie: Office Space by Mike Judge (of Silicon Valley and Beavis and Butthead fame)
There’s plenty of other stories I am sure we are familiar with; the goal of this blog is not to catalogue the history of toxic culture in media but illustrate a few poignant examples that amplify the observations.
Photo attribution by Kelsey Chance on Unsplash