It is evitable in a competitive environment like Recruitment Process Outsourcing that, from time to time, service providers will feud over accounts and have territorial disputes.

Being interested in world politics, I thought the most recent turn of events in the Middle East could prove to be a model of how to resolve contentious issues between service providers. No, I am not referring to the latest round of indirect talks and shuttle diplomacy brokered by the US between Israel and the Palestinians (though I am pleased to see some progress in this area).

It seems as if Lebanon and Israel have come up with a novel solution. Instead of taking their territory disputes to the battlefield, they have moved them to the kitchen.

Here is the situation: Both countries lay claim to the chickpea, tahini, lemon juice and olive oil dish known as hummus. To resolve the right of ownership, recently (May 8th), Lebanon set the Guinness World Record for the largest bowl of hummus (surpassing the previous record set 4 months ago by Israel). The Lebanese bowl of hummus weighed 23,042 tons, more than doubling the previous record. The best part of this ongoing rivalry is that nobody died or was injured in the process.

RPO service providers can learn a valuable lesson from Lebanon and Israel. We don‘t have to maim and destroy each other in pursuit of the next big deal. There is no need for sabotage or hidden landmines. Instead we can fix everything with a simple culinary contest like 2 adversarial Middle East countries.

I suggest (with the backing of my co-workers at Pinstripe) the undisputed leader in Recruitment Process Outsourcing is the RPO service provider who...creates the largest batch of baba ghanoush (which nobody seems to care about or claim ownership of).

Originally posted on RPOlosophy