Danielle Lackey

Restaurants: Communities of Practice

A community of practice is a place where people share a common purpose and learn how to achieve that purpose in an unstructured, cooperative way. Etienne Wenger believes that effective learning occurs through relations and interactions with other people, not in a classroom or training session. The informal process of learning he calls a community of practice occurs in many social settings but they are not usually recognized as such by members. Communities of practice occur in support groups, classrooms, offices, clubs, sports teams, etc., and most people belong to more than one community of practice. These communities of practice spontaneously occur and provide the participants with a more effective and enriching learning experience than traditional pedagogy normally allows.

Restaurants, like most places of business, host several communities of practice. These communities operate amongst each other to fulfill a common goal-to make a living. In order to do that they must make sure the restaurant operates effectively. Although they share a common goal, the individual goal of each community is different. The communities interact and depend on each other, yet remain individual in their habits and community purpose. Communities of practice establish communities by mutual engagement, forming joint enterprises, and developing a shared repertoire. They interact using various boundary connections such as, brokering through members and using boundary objects. This paper will demonstrate these concepts using a restaurant as an example of how several communities interact and using the community of waiters to show how a community is defined.

Waiters

From the perspective of a waiter, restaurants are model examples of communities of practice. In a restaurant the average training for a waiter is usually about a week. Corporate, well-organized restaurants often provide a structured, formalized training which consists of several pages of learning goals and checklists to evaluate the proficiency of the waiter’s skills and knowledge. Some restaurants like this will also conduct a series of tests to evaluate menu and restaurant knowledge. Although this type of training is useful, Wenger would argue that the real learning begins when the waiter is integrated into the work team and begins the actual work of waiting tables. Smaller restaurants which are run less formally, in a more “mom and pop” style, tend to have less structured training. The waiter will usually “shadow”, or follow, other waiters for about a week and slowly integrate themselves into their own “station”, or their group of assigned tables. The waiter in these types of restaurants is not usually formally tested but may have a conference with the chef to ask questions or discuss the menu. They may also spend a day in the kitchen to observe the preparation of food and are also encouraged to eat at the restaurant to get a feel for the atmosphere and to taste the food.

In both restaurant training styles Wegner’s theory of social learning he calls communities of practice is well demonstrated by these scenarios. The shared purpose of restaurant employees is primarily to make money. In order to do this they must provide services to the restaurant guests which includes the waiters’ ability to provide guests with knowledge about the menu, wine, and beverages and to be able to serve the guests efficiently and pleasantly. In order to serve the guests in this way a waiter must have a vast array of knowledge about the restaurant and how it works. This knowledge not only includes menu and wine knowledge but also intuitive or shared knowledge. Examples of intuitive or shared knowledge would be; the daily specials, how long certain dishes take to prepare, what special treatment previous customers might expect, (i.e. the best tables, attention from management, a complementary dish from the chef), the accessibility of the waiters’ computers to ring up items or to charge a credit card, the availability of items (may run out of things throughout the shift), or the anticipation of guests’ needs by observing body language or making eye contact. All of this knowledge is verbally and often subtly transmitted between waiter to waiter, manager to waiter, kitchen to waiter, and customer to waiter interaction. This knowledge base could never be learned formally in a structured one-on-one classroom setting or from reading a book in isolation. As Wenger proposes, learning happens socially and restaurants are perfect examples of how communities of practice happen.

Community

Several elements which comprise a community of practice are meaning, identity, community, and practice. The community is an important element because it relates the social networks of learning to each other. The community Wenger speaks of is not the concept of a neighborhood or town within which people live but he means it as the shared experiences of the members of communities of practice. The community itself is multidimensional and includes the areas of shared repertoire, joint enterprise, and mutual engagement. These three elements are demonstrative of how restaurant employees relate their shared and personal experiences to the job.

Mutual engagement

The restaurant as a community of practice must have employees who interact with one another in a mutually engaged way, meaning they share a common goal and work together to achieve that goal. The membership in the community is established by the mutual engagement of the employees in a restaurant. As Wenger states, the mutual engagement of members defines a community. If the waiters of a restaurant went to work and did not interact to reach their goal then the community would not exist. Likewise, the interaction of a waiter with other restaurant employees such as bus boys or cooks does not constitute a community. The bus boys or cooks would be part of their own community of practice which crosses boundaries. The concept of boundaries will be discussed later.

There are many behaviors which enable mutual engagement. The ability for the waiters to get along and confide in one another is imperative for mutual engagement. The most effective communities of practice in a restaurant setting are ones where the waiters are friendly and compatible in the work environment. In many restaurants, due to the social nature of the environment and work setting, waiters become friends outside of the workplace. Since the nature of restaurant work is social and often frenetic, the ability to interact in a comfortable way with one another is essential for the sharing of information. If an employee is on the periphery of the group it may not be as easy to relate information to them. The example Elise used in class, of her coworker who had no knowledge of popular culture, is demonstrative of how mutual engagement can be less effective if an employee is on the periphery of the social network.

Mutual engagement often leads to mutual relationships between restaurant employees. As stated before, the employees of a restaurant may form friendships outside of the workplace. This encourages an atmosphere of closeness in relationships between employees. Often in close relationships there are disputes and disagreements. Wenger points out that’ “peace, happiness, and harmony are not necessarily properties of a community of practice.” This holds true in a restaurant. The mutual engagement of employees often leads to disagreements. These disagreements are about things such as, who gets to be in what station (some stations are busier and potentially better for money), who has to work the slow shifts and who gets the good shifts, personality conflicts among waiters, cattiness and cliques, and who is not doing their share of the work, causing everyone else to have to do more work. Most of the conflicts around waiters involve issues which will affect the amount of money they make. Jealousy and competition of who gets the good stations and shifts are common. The decision is made by managers and is usually based on seniority and/or skill.

It is also understandable how conflicts could arise due to work conditions. This refers to the small areas which are called, waiter stations. Waiter stations contain the computer terminals for ringing up items, credit card machines, glassware, flatware, table linens, and other supplies waiters and bus boys may need for the shift. These stations tend to be small and dark, to make them inconspicuous to the guests, but the waiter stations can get crowded and busy causing tension between employees.

The conflicts which arise out of the mutual engagement of employees often bring employees closer together later. After a particularly stressful shift waiters will laugh at the frenzy of themselves and some even seem to thrive on this aspect of the job. The conflicts often are an integral part of the community and job. They bring people closer together and give them a sense of shared community and a shared experience.

Joint enterprise

A joint enterprise is another element of communities of practice according to Wenger. The joint enterprise reflects the mutual engagement as a negotiated enterprise. Even though the primary reason for waiting tables is to make money there is also another enterprise or purpose and that is to create a sense of workplace and an identity within that workplace to make it a desirable job. This is part of being in a negotiated enterprise. The negotiation is made by the waiters who feel that if they have to be there then they will make the most if it. They may share ways of doing this or the negotiation may manifest differently in some waiters. The fact that the employees are all trying to make the work satisfactory or pleasant identifies them as a joint enterprise.

As a joint enterprise, the employees have control certain aspects of the job. They have the ability to act, react, or do nothing when outside factors influence them. Wenger terms this as indigenous enterprise. The employees at a restaurant make the everyday atmosphere of the restaurant. Each waiter has their own idea about what the restaurant and their work should be and each person brings their own perspective to the events of the day or night. If the chef wants the waiters to sell a certain item of which there is a surplus the waiters may all comply. The reaction is their negotiation of the enterprise. If the waiters ignore the request of the kitchen then that is also a negotiation of the enterprise. The waiters have power to negotiate either aggressively or passively. The joint enterprise helps to establish the community.

The negotiation of a joint enterprise makes the employees of a restaurant feel mutual accountability toward one another. The mutual accountability contributes toward the creation of the community. Waiters feel a sense of mutual accountability about reified information and about non-reified information. They follow a set of policies and rules set out by the management but at the same time they can glide over rules if it might benefit the community. One example of this would be eating at work. Technically, it is against the rules to eat in the kitchen or waiter stations in most restaurants. This rule exists for many reasons; it is against health codes, it distracts the employees from focusing on their guests, and it costs the restaurant money when employees eat food without paying for it. It is usually understood by restaurant employees, however, that when food is available and a coworker is hungry they will eat it.

In other professions employees are often granted breaks throughout the day and a lunch or dinner break for eight hours of work. Restaurants do not allow for any breaks due to the nature of the work, so it is mutually agreed between staff that when the chance to eat something arises they will take it. They protect each other from management or kitchen employees who may frown on this activity. Often management will look the other way when eating during the shift occurs because they also feel a sense of mutual accountability and they are also part of the community of practice. Like the managers at Alinsu, restaurant managers often began as waiters so they remain part of the community although they are on the periphery and they have a different shared purpose.

The concept of teamwork is promoted vigorously in most restaurants because it is imperative for a well-operating enterprise. Teamwork is a mutually accountable concept because it gives the employees a sense of obligation to one another and reinforces the purpose of working toward a common goal. A waiter may get several tables at once which makes it very difficult to properly serve them all. When this happens another waiter will usually help the other waiter catch up by starting the table with drinks, telling the table the special, etc. This activity promotes mutual accountability which further reinforces the community.

Shared Repertoire

Waiters have a shared repertoire around their community of practice which binds them together and contributes to their sense of community. The shared repertoire according to Wenger is a collection of artifacts, language, supplies, and anything that is part of the community of practice which helps define the community. It is the culture of the community and it is what distinguishes it from other communities of practice. The shared repertoire of waiters often includes reified concepts, like restaurant rules. It also includes information and objects brought into the community by members.

An example of shared repertoire among waiters is the language used by restaurant employees. There are many terms which restaurant employees use to signal certain events and represent information throughout the shift such as the term “eighty-sixed,” which refers to an item that has been sold out. “Slammed” or “in the weeds” is when a waiter gets several tables at once as described above. The term “phased” means that a waiter or bus boy has been cut from the floor and are not taking anymore new tables. Restaurants often refer to different departments as “back of the house,” which is the kitchen and “front of the house,” which means the wait and bus staff. The front and the back of the house use the term “fire,” which means to begin cooking the food for the next course. The back and front of the house constitute two different communities of practice who interact with each other. Often there is an element of animosity between the back of the house and the front of the house.

Other types of shared repertoire among waiters are the concept of teamwork which binds the waiters together, nicknames given to regular customers based on past waiter experiences, and the sharing of materials like pens, paper, or wine openers. It is understood that anyone in a restaurant carrying something heavy has the right of way. The only caveat to that rule is a customer always has the right of way when walking in a restaurant. All waiters have anecdotes about their experiences and like to share these with each other as they are usually great sources of amusement. There is a waiter culture which gives the waiters a sense of shared community. Even when they work very closely with other communities of practice such as the bus staff or kitchen staff, they have their own shared repertoire which separates them into their own group.

All of the experiences, practices, and habits of waiters’ help define the community they share with one another. They are bound together by a common goal, to make money, but to achieve this goal they have a complex way of relating with each other and other communities with which they work. Waiters have created a community by sharing experiences through mutual engagement and establishing relationships with one another. They have mutual accountability to each other in their joint enterprise. The shared purpose becomes about more than making money. It becomes about making work a tolerable place to go. Waiters want to make their jobs efficient and have a positive experience. The community is also constructed and reinforced through developing a shared repertoire which is unique to the community and its members. The shared repertoire and waiter culture helps the members identify themselves with the community and further binds them to it.

Boundaries

The concepts of boundaries are important to understand when analyzing a restaurant as a community of practice because there are several communities of practice at work and they are interdependent on one another to have a functioning business. Each community of practice in a restaurant has its own community characteristics, culture, and shared experienced but they also have histories with one another and share community information. Other communities of practice in a restaurant might include the bar staff, bus staff, the chef and cooks, management and host staff, and administrative employees. Aside from these communities of practice within the restaurant there are other communities from outside who will affect the waiter community. These might include food and wine purveyors, restaurant guests, food critics, journalists, and other restaurant communities.

Wenger uses the idea of boundaries to describe “the continuities and discontinuities of the social landscape.” He attributes these continuities and discontinuities to participation and reification within each community which overlaps. This means that being part of a community is influential in the interconnectedness of other communities of practice. How connected or disconnected a member of a community is can influence the interaction with another community either positively or negatively.

Duality

Community boundaries are identified by participation of members and reified features of the community. In a waiter community the boundary lines are understood by the shared repertoire of language, the uniforms, the amount of money they make, the nature of the work, etc. In the kitchen community the language, dress, work, and pay is different. This creates boundaries between two communities who work within close proximity to one another.

Wenger describes the duality of boundaries where discontinuity in the community arises from the lack of clearly defined boundaries. For instance, the food runner/expeditor in a restaurant is a job where usually one or two people organize the food coming out of the kitchen. They will garnish it, clean up the edges of the plates, prepare the food for presentation, and deliver it. The food runner is not part of the kitchen community although he shares some similar duties. He is partially part of the waiter community of practice because he wears the same uniform, performs some of the same work duties, and makes comparable money. The boundary is not clearly defined. The food runner’s participation in the community makes him a member but reified features of the job keep him on the periphery. This is the discontinuity of boundaries caused from aspects regarding participation and reification.

Continuities within boundaries are also influenced by participation and reification. The actual restaurant building is part of several communities of practice. As Wenger states each community reifies the restaurant building in different way. Different parts are inhabited by different communities but members of some communities inhabit several parts. For example, a waiter will almost never go into the part of the kitchen when food is being cooked, although they will go into a part of the kitchen where they have access to beverages and the dishwashing area. From another community’s perspective, the kitchen staff will not usually come into the main dining area until near closing, with the exception of the chef. The managers usually will go wherever they are needed. This continuity of borders stems from the reification of the restaurant building in each community.

Boundary Objects

Boundary objects are things or concepts which help connect communities of practice and organize their efforts to work toward their common goal. Boundary objects in a restaurant which serve to facilitate the common goal are the reservation computer, order pads and pens, computer and printer terminals, the kitchen window, the restaurant webpage and newsletter, and the employee bulletin board.

The waiter takes a customer’s order on an order pad with his pen. These are boundary objects because they are devices which are used by the waiters to record and eventually disseminate information. The waiter then puts the order into the computer which sends a recorded ticket of the table to the kitchen. On the ticket are the customer’s food order for the kitchen, and the table number for the food runner. Other sources of information on the ticket include, the time the order was rung in, the name of the waiter, and the number of guests at the table. All of the information on the ticket could be useful to different communities in the restaurant. The name of the waiter is important because if there is a problem or question about the ticket then the manager can find identify the waiter. The time the ticket was rung in is an important piece of information used by all of the communities because it determines when the courses are fired and if the food is taking too long to prepare. The number of guests is also used by the kitchen and managers and might determine how many servings of a complimentary course are to be served. The reservation computer, restaurant webpage and newsletter facilitate the community of guests outside the restaurant to the community of managers and host staff so as to ensure the availability of a table and to inform the guests of special events. The employee bulletin board also helps to connect the community of managers and staff. All of these communities interact with each other through boundary objects.

Boundary objects are not always an actual object in or about a restaurant which connect close communities of practice. They may exist between communities which have little or no contact or the boundary objects may be a larger community which binds two smaller communities. The food writers and restaurant guides are communities which bring new customers to the restaurant and contribute to advertising. The American Food and Wine Festival is an event which encompasses many communities. Boundary objects are the link between different communities of practice. Figure 4.1 in Wenger describes the boundary objects as the “multi-membership nexus of perspectives.” This is what connects the communities and serves to facilitate the shared purpose of the groups.

Brokering

Brokering is a term Wenger uses to describe a form of interaction communities of practice have with the other communities and outsiders facilitated by a person or persons on the periphery of the community. It is a way of transferring information in a useful way from one community to another. Specifically, it is a way of introducing new ideas into a community. Waiters will often do this when they change jobs. They may have devised a more efficient way of taking orders at a previous job and may bring that system with them when they change jobs. Often the kitchen community will have specific ways they want the orders rung into the computer. They may ask the waiters to change their habits to make the restaurant run more efficiently.

The practice of brokering fosters the spread of information from one community to another. For instance, a waiter must have ample knowledge of wine to be able to sell it effectively; however, when a waiter becomes a guest in a restaurant, his community of practice has changed as well as his use of wine knowledge. He will now use his wine knowledge to order a good wine that will nicely compliment the meal. The knowledge is still the same but it is utilized in a different way depending what community the waiter is participating in.

A restaurant is full of brokers because of the nature of the work. Waiters are a community of practice within themselves with their own set of habits and their own purpose. They also serve as brokers between other communities in a restaurant. The waiter is the liaison between the community of guests and the other communities in a restaurant such as the kitchen, bar, and even bus staff. They coordinate the preparation and delivery of the food and drinks for the customers. They also determine when a table is finished eating and should be cleared. The waiters are the link between communities of practice in a restaurant. If a guest has special dietary needs then the waiter facilitates a unique preparation of a dish. A waiter will also tell a guest about changes to the menu throughout the night serving as a broker from the kitchen community to the guest community. Wenger says, “that certain individuals seem to thrive on being brokers: they love to create connections and engage in ‘import-export.’” This holds true for many waiters. The ability to interact with many departments keeps the job interesting and exciting. The waiters usually develop excellent interpersonal skills because of brokering.

Managers are also brokers by nature. They serve to disseminate information throughout the restaurant and oversee the communities. They act as troubleshooters and assistants to all of the communities in a restaurant. A good manager is, at the same time, a member of all the communities of a restaurant and a member of no communities. Their role is “ambivalent…multi-membership,” as Wenger states. Their role in the restaurant changes daily. A manager is usually able to step in each area as needed. It is not unusual when a restaurant gets busy to have a manager act as sommelier, take orders, run food, bus tables, seat guests, and occasionally make drinks behind the bar or help in the kitchen.

Complimentary connections

Complimentary connections are established through participation and reification. This means that although brokers and boundary objects connect communities directly to one another, the broker does not necessarily become a member of each community nor are the reified aspects carried over. For example, in a restaurant the waiter may serve as a broker to the kitchen but that does not make him a participant of the kitchen community. Likewise, the waiter’s tools such as order pad, pen, and wine opener may be used by a manager but the manager does not become a member of the community of waiters. The community members intersect and interact but they remain separate members.

A complimentary connection is made when reification is accompanied by a community member. When a new rule is implemented a memo accompanied by a manager explanation is a complimentary connection. The chef not only telling the waiters the specials, but describing the ingredients, how they were prepared, and where the produce and meat is from is an example of a complimentary connection. The reified concept is the new rule or the specials and the manager or chef is the participant of another community who accompanies the reification.

A boundary encounter occurs when communities interact with each other in a variety of ways. Wenger uses illustrations on page 113 Figure 4.2 to demonstrate how boundary encounters work. A one-on-one encounter is a conversation between two members for example the chef and a waiter about something specific to each community. Immersion is a type of interaction where members explore other communities by participating in them in some way. The chef may attend a pre-shift waiter meeting, but this does not always give him a sense of the waiter community. Delegations occur when more than one member of a community cross boundaries.

Connection in a practice

Communities also have boundaries which keep members in and outsiders at a distance. The boundaries serve to keep members working toward the common goal and allow the members of a community to remain close. An outsider may not know the shared repertoire of a community and the members may share closeness with each other they do not have with others. The community boundaries, may evolve into different types of connections; boundary practices, overlaps, and peripheries.

Boundary practices occur when communities are frequently encountering each others boundaries and may eventually become a shared practice. In a restaurant the community of waiters, bartenders, and bus boys constitute a community of practice which is known by other communities as the front of the house. They all work toward a common goal of directly serving the guests and they all work very closely with one another. Their individual practices merge together to create an umbrella practice.

Overlaps are similar to boundary practices but involve members who belong to more than one community at once. They do similar work but often specialize in the work of one community. A waiter if needed in an emergency may be called upon to be a food runner or a bartender for a shift. This does not remove him from his waiter community of practice permanently, but it does give him membership into another community which has its own mutual engagement and shared repertoire. The overlap of practices distinguishes the connection from a boundary practice which encompasses several communities.

A community connection which is not as interconnected with other practices as overlaps or boundary practices is the periphery connection. These occur when members are engaged with members of another community but are not necessarily integrated into that community. This occurs in a restaurant when the chef tells the waiters the specials of the day. The chef is still part of her community but is imparting knowledge to another community. When the wine purveyors come to sell the managers new wine they are on the periphery of their practice. Likewise, when a guest comes to the restaurant or goes onto the website for the restaurant they will be told the specials, upcoming events, and other pertinent information to the restaurant.

Conclusion

The community of practice is determined and defined not by where it exists but by how it exists. The practice that they share through community bonds and their work toward common goals gives the community a life. They occur because members form communities to achieve a purpose. They are mutually engaged with one another because of a common goal. Communities form joint enterprises, where the members have sub-goals apart from the broad purposes of the community. The community is also defined by a shared repertoire which consists of a unique community culture.

Communities also have a ways that they interact with other communities. The boundary connections describe the different ways they interact. Boundary objects allow the exchange of information from community to community. Brokering allows members to cross boundaries and exchange information person to person. The boundary encounters and boundary connections describe the intensity of interaction with other communities and within the community boundaries. All of these elements contribute to communities of practice and the function of them. Learning takes place socially and is fostered by the community and through boundary practices. Restaurants are usually home to several communities of practice because they promote social and cooperative learning.