The Ties That Blind

Ropes courses help white-collar workers develop corporate collegiality through socializing, sweat, and sinew. Colleagues go in; friends come out. But wholesale congeniality can actually make teams less effective. With my colleagues Hongseok Oh of Yonsei University and Myung-Ho Chung of Hansung University, I recently studied 60 teams in 11 companies representing a variety of industries. In the most effective teams, we found around half of the relationships among members were close enough to be considered friendships. In teams where that number approached 100%, performance dropped dramatically. Such groups suffer because they are insular, impermeable to outside influences, and unhealthily self-reliant. Sometimes those problems can be avoided by brainstorming or by assigning someone in the group to be a devil’s advocate. But where friendships are especially close, even those techniques are unlikely to produce dramatically differing perspectives. The friendships that benefit teams most are formed outside the group. Business-centered relationships with people in other parts of the company are important for transmitting simple work flow information. But even more important are relationships that extend into the social sphere—to lunches and dinners and after-work drinks—because they are especially fertile sources of social capital. Team members who socialize in this way, particularly with top managers and with leaders of other teams, bring back to their groups strategic information, task-related advice, and political and social support. Top managers can’t require employees to befriend people outside their own domains, but they can encourage it. Team leaders should be told that developing a broad social network is part of their job. Managers should set aside funds for cross-functional social activities and create opportunities for employees to bond around common hobbies or pursuits. When composing teams, leaders should consider whom—as well as what—potential members know. And mentoring programs should aim to place company fledglings beneath the wings of veterans from other departments rather than with people they work with every day. My colleagues and I have nothing against corporate Outward Bound programs. But instead of braving the wilderness, teams should venture out into the far corners of their own organizations.

The Ties That Blind

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