In Episode 2 we left the Eagles and Rattlers at Robbers Cave still fighting each other for no good reason and finding out that groups have a power over us as individuals that we’re often not aware of.
Other key points from Episodes 1 and 2
We’re biased against other groups by assessing them as insincere and we’ll downgrade their performance even though objective data says otherwise.
We’ll favour our group members and help them more than we do those in outside groups, not because our group needs the support more but because they’re in ‘our group’.
We’ll even drop our usual moral standards to support our group or team, mostly justifying our actions by claiming they are for “the greater good”.
The formation of cliques
In the 1979 comedy, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, we get an example of the sometimes absurd nature of our desire to create sub-groups within a major group. The movie is set in the time of the birth of Jesus. In one particular scene the main character Brian, played by Graham Chapman, is selling food at a gladiatorial contest. As Brian sells two servings of Otter’s Noses to Reg, played by John Cleese, and his three activist colleagues, Brian asks if they are the Judean People’s Front (JPF). Reg is appalled that Brian would confuse his group, the People’s Front of Judea (PFJ) with the Judean’s People Front.
Brian asks to join the PFJ and once he goes through the rigorous recruitment process (“How much do you hate the Romans?” “A lot!” “Right you’re in.”) Brian is informed the only group they hate more than the Romans is the Judean People’s Front. Francis, played by Michael Palin, adds “And the Judean Popular People’s Front (JPPF)”. They all then turn to the single member of the JPPF and scream the ultimate insult “Splitter!” (Monty Python, 1979).
Sometimes groups evolve and “split” naturally as we clarify what our purpose and identity is, that’s how groups evolve. But sometimes we find sorting things out within our group too difficult so we just form another group. And we end up like the PFJ, JPF and the JPPF who forgot about their common cause and ended up hating each other more than their common enemy, the Romans.
In research terms and in common language this type of group is called a clique. We all know about cliques and we all know what it’s like to be on the outer with a clique. In workplaces, cliques start out as cohesive and highly productive teams but at some point turn into insular and destructive groups. Cliques are “a term used to describe a group of individuals who choose to interact with one another more frequently and with higher intensity than they do with others in similar or the same circumstances” (Dong et al., 2015).
We need to have friendships at work which can lead to greater productivity, retention and job satisfaction (Tasseli, 2017;Buckingham, 1999). We are social beings and in an evolutionary sense, it stands to reason that we look after and favour our own group. But when does the friendly and cohesive work team go from being productive to destructive? It’s when information and communication stop moving out of the group that the negative effects of group cohesion and cliques start to occur.
Some of the negative effects of workplace cliques are (Pillemer and Rothbard, 2018;Turhan, 2014):
An increase in destructive gossip within the cliques
Low information sharing outside the clique
Interests of the clique replace those of the organisation resulting in the group interests taking precedence over the values and goals of the organisation
A resistance to new relationships
Complication of complex decision making
Distancing of relationships for those outside the clique
Distraction from work based tasks due to an expectation of emotional support for team members within the clique, which may at times be excessive.
We don’t necessarily want to break the bonds within a group, but we do want to build stronger bonds between different groups or teams. Effective communication between groups leads to improved knowledge creation and creativity (Abrams et. al., 2003).
If you see information and knowledge getting stuck it can be a sign cliques have formed. You may hear comments like “Why did you tell them that? That’s supposed be kept within our team.” or “Why are you talking to them?” (In reference to another team within the organisation). These are classic signs that the allegiance is to the team, not to the broader organisation.
One of the reasons cliques form is because of a lack of trust within an organisation. People believe they will be taken advantage of if they share too much or feel powerless, so they take control by restricting information and keeping their group committed to each other above all else.
Building trust between groups
One of the ways to break down cliques and start getting open flow of information and communication is to build trust between groups. Trust is contained within a closed system (Burt, 2001), meaning there can be a strong trust between team members within a group but that trust doesn’t necessarily spill over towards other groups. So organisations have to work on building trust between groups.
The role of building trust between groups often falls to those that may not have a particular allegiance to a specific team. A business partner, a project manager or anyone in a management role often has to work on bringing teams together.
The keys to be a good connector in these situations is being able to treat information with discretion and being able to self-monitor (Tasseli and Kilduff, 2017). Treating information with discretion means knowing what information to share and what should be kept in confidence. Self-monitoring refers to the ability to switch roles and styles quickly when working with different groups. The good connector is somewhat of a chameleon but plays an important role in building trust between groups and creating a positive workplace culture (Tasseli and Kilduff, 2017).
As trust is built the effective flow of information starts to happen and we have improved knowledge creation. In trusting environments knowledge flow is more effective and the information is passed on in a way that can be used (Abrams et. al., 2003 ).
Let's consider what constitutes trust. One of the models (and there are a few) has three components to building trust between people. They are (Abrams et. al., 2003):
Competence - does this person know what they’re doing?
Benevolence - do they care about me as a person and have an interest in my goals?
Consistency - are they consistent in thought and action?
The research literature struggles with a single definition of trust. If you can’t articulate a definition of trust, you know it when you experience or see it. One simple definition describes interpersonal trust as “the willingness of a party to be vulnerable” (Abrams et. al., 2003).
Competence doesn't require us to know everything. One of the keys to building trust is being able to admit when we don’t know something or are not sure. Knowing our knowledge and abilities well enough to recognise when we don’t know something, is a demonstration of competence. Generally people can detect when a colleague is trying to bluff their way through and while they may not speak up, trust will be diminished, as no one “knows everything”.
The reason trust creates more effective information and knowledge transfer is because staff are prepared to say “I don’t know/understand”, knowing that the admittance won’t be shared. This creates and environment where the receiver of the information feels that “this person cares about whether i understand or not”, which increases their motivation to learn. In a trusting environment the sender of the information is also able to share a sense of vulnerability by asking “Am I clear? Am I helping you understand?”.
A higher level of trust within a group turns out to be a self-governing process so that an organisation needs less monitoring, and hence lower costs, because teams look after themselves, and each other. A trusting relationship between groups means that supportive behaviours will be reciprocated when needed. The adage “you would do the same for me” applies when there are trusting relationships between teams.
Back to the Eagles and Rattlers
The Eagles and Rattlers had been set up to compete against each other, so an ‘us and them’ formed very quickly. They could be described as cliques. At the end of the competition phase the researchers described the Rattlers and Eagles as “clearly structured, closely knit ingroups”. This closeness made it difficult to bring the groups together in phase three of the experiment.
One attempt to bring the groups together was at a Fourth of July celebration. Both groups were provided with fireworks to shoot and told they could shoot their fireworks with anyone they wanted. The groups did not mix at all and kept seperate from each other.
On another occasion the groups were about to return back to the main camp after a camp out. The truck that had transported the Eagles to the camp out had ‘broken down’. This was another attempt to see if the groups would come together when one of the groups needed help, in this case the Eagles. The preference initially was for the truck to take two trips so the two groups didn’t have to be in such close proximity to each other. This negotiation went back and forth until one of the Rattlers (referred to as Mills) and one of the Eagles (Clark) both said “Let’s go” and headed for the single truck and then all the others followed. It turns out Mills was one of the leaders of the Rattlers and his actions were enough to convince the rest of the group that it was ok to travel together.
Trust building strategies
There are proven ways to build trust, many of them we know already but here are a few that have been confirmed by research. Refer to the paper by Abrams et. al. (2003) for a full list and descriptions. You can access the paper here.
Caring about people (Benevolence)
Breaking confidences is a sure way to destroy trust. Be clear about what can be shared and what can’t and hold each other accountable. Ask “should you be sharing this?” Sharing information that shouldn’t be shared will result in the information flow reducing to a trickle.
Frequent communication helps build trust. Effective communication also occurs with “weak ties” (i.e. when people don’t know each other well) where benevolence and competence exist. This is because unique information is often shared with those we see little of.
Trust building communication is reciprocal in that we need to listen and be receptive to others and be open and share our views as well. People trust and seek out others who can help them explore a problem collaboratively. The adage of “bring me solutions, not problems” is redundant in a trust seeking environment because often people are seeking help to find a solution.
Stronger bonds, and trust, develop when colleagues get a chance to identify common interests. These can be work or non-work related. Some people like to keep a separation between work and their personal life but they can still identify common interests through work, such as “the love of a good spreadsheet” or “a well executed plan”.
Be consistent
Saying one thing (eg. “We value respect around here”) and then doing something else (eg. yelling at someone for making a mistake) will diminish trust. The words used become meaningless and colleagues start to question the motives of someone who doesn’t “walk the talk”. When making commitments be as realistic as possible, over promising and under delivering is a form of inconsistency.
Maintaining procedural fairness and justice is one of the highest impacting practices an organisation or manager can make to build and maintain trust (Dirks and De Jong, 2022). This means ensuring policies and procedures are applied equally and managers know how they work. Recruitment, performance reviews and promotion decisions need to be seen as fair and just.
Demonstrate competence
Establishing common vision, purpose and goals gives groups some certainty and therefore enables trust. It limits misunderstandings about why and what you’re doing. It also helps develop common language. Vagueness and absence of clarity forces people to create their own clarity and each groups, or individuals, view on the direction of a project/objective will be different.
Be clear about expertise and limitations. Take the lead when working with your strengths and defer to others, or at least bring them in, when dealing in areas of limited knowledge. We are in effect trusting another’s competence when we invite them to participate and share knowledge.
Summary
Cliques can form within organisations and these groups restrict the flow of information coming in and out.
Cliques can negatively impact knowledge sharing and creation.
Trust can bring groups together, and individuals can fulfill the role of trust builder between groups, particularly if they aren’t aligned to either group. These connector roles are more effective by people who can be discrete and are good at monitoring their own behaviour.
Three elements of trust include competency, consistency and benevolence.
References
Abrams, Lisa & Cross, Rob & Lesser, Eric & Levin, Daniel. (2003). Nurturing Interpersonal Trust in Knowledge-Sharing Networks. Academy of Management Executive. 17. 10.5465/AME.2003.11851845.
Buckingham, Marcus, author. (1999). First, break all the rules : what the world's greatest managers do differently. New York, NY. :Simon & Schuster,
Burt,R.S.2001.Bandwidth And Echo:Trust,information, and gossip in social networks.In A.Casella&J.Rauch (Eds.),Networks and markets:Contributions from economics and sociology: 30–74. NewYork, NY: RussellSageFoundation.
Dirks, K. T., & de Jong, B. (2022). Trust within the workplace: A review of two waves of research and a glimpse of the third. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 9, 247–276. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-083025
Dong Y, Tang J, Chawla NV, Lou T, Yang Y, Wang B (2015) Inferring Social Status and Rich Club Effects in Enterprise Communication Networks. PLoS ONE 10(3): e0119446. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0119446
Monty Python (Comedy troupe). (1979). Monty Python's The life of Brian (of Nazareth). London :Eyre Methuen,
Tasselli, Stefano & Kilduff, Martin. (2017). When Brokerage Between Friendship Cliques Endangers Trust: A Personality–Network Fit Perspective. Academy of Management Journal. 61. amj.2015.0856. 10.5465/amj.2015.0856.
Uzzi, Brian. (1996). The Sources and Consequences of Embeddedness for the Economic Performance of Organizations: The Network Effect. American Sociological Review. 61. 10.2307/2096399.
Verkuyten, Maykel. (2021). Group Identity and Ingroup Bias: The Social Identity Approach. Human Development. 65. 10.1159/000519089.
Commentaires