DCI America

By Wayne Weiner, On-Site Program Coordinator, DCIAmerica

New Hampshire has two additional seasons a year: mud season and black fly season. Mud season comes right after winter, when the winter melt turns every non-paved surface into a giant sludge bath. This is followed by black fly season, which begins on Mother’s Day and lasts until Father’s Day. Black flies, unlike their cousins the mosquitoes, don’t mind draining every ounce of your blood. I thought of this article when I ran to my mailbox and felt very much like unprotected protein to my tiny little friends.

On a very bad day, one of my clients once likened his problem, employee cliques, to “squeegee people”; those people in cities who throw sudsy water on the driver’s side of the windshield and expect you to pay them to wipe it off. Most of the companies I’ve worked with have factions of employees deciding which employees will be admitted or excluded from their circle of trust.

Acceptance into a clique has nothing to do with an individual’s work competence. It can revolve around basic differences such as a person’s sex, political beliefs, religion, culture, or more subtle things like sports preferences, whether or not members have children, if a member smokes or doesn’t, and drinks or doesn’t drink.

Should managers be concerned about these cliques? If he/she is not worried he/she will be sorry. Unchecked cliques chip away at the productivity of an organization, and stifle organizational growth. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, these groups create tension, pollute the work environment, destroy trust, and sometimes even drive good workers out of the job. Inadvertently, members of these factions can be long term employees who might have seniority, and excellent performance appraisals.

I have never seen the contaminating of the workplace a managerial goal. Some managers mistakenly believe they have no right to intervene in destabilizing cliques; they are dead wrong. Every person at work is either working towards accomplishing a work related goal or is not. You can’t control what people think, who they are attracted to or what they discuss in private, but you can set an environment that will not tolerate exclusion.

If you believe that you are a manager of a group with cliques, the following steps will help you to successfully deal with factions.

1.) Spot and record as many of non-company sponsored group activities as you can:

Before you deal with cliques know where they are. Are groups of people coming into work a half an early just to chat? Are people going out for drinks after work on a regular basis? Any activity that becomes exclusive to people you pay to be team members can be harmful. Stay on top of these activities and make sure you do not in anyway sanction or partake in them.

2.) Keep people on task:

Even the best employees will gather together during down time and get into discussions that have nothing to do with work. I worked with a team of highly skilled operating room nurses that, because of the nature of their jobs between their assignments had group down time. The down time allowed them to create multiple cliques, with one of the most back stabbing toxic environments I have ever witnessed. Fire departments have it right, they don’t constantly wash their truck to keep them clean; their managers are keeping their firemen on task.

3.) Never acknowledge a clique as a representative group:

You hired the members of a clique as individuals; treat them as individuals. You never want to give a clique power. You have to treat the members of the group as individuals. Do not let anyone appoint themselves as a spokesperson. If you want to know how people feel about an issue, talk to each person individually. The operating nurses benefited by direct interaction with their supervisor and we were able to see a measurable improvement in absenteeism, turn-over, and retention.

4.) Put Your Beliefs in Writing and Enforce Them:

Don’t be afraid to work with your management team to articulate your company’s values. Validate your company’s values through actions. It is amazing what department lay outs can do to create tension. I worked with a company in which the people on the second floor of the company neglected to invite the people on the third floor to a birthday party. The ensuing negative consequences of this slight caused two people to threaten to resign, and squashed communication between the two floors. A simple statement in their employment handbook about celebrations would have saved this company thousands of dollars in revenue.

5.) Discipline individuals when they deserve it:

Don’t be afraid to address an individual’s breach of good behavior. No employee has a right to cause discord in your workplace. If a person is a rumor monger, reservoir of negativity, and stress inducer deal with the person’s behavior immediately. Make all his/her employment decisions predicated on the person’s performance.

6.) Create a management sponsored group to deal with celebrations:

The group should be created by management to recommend what type of activities should be celebrated like birthdays, retirements, seasonal parties, and graduations. The group has only advisory power. You can’t control what individuals do outside of work but you can make official rules about what the company stands for concerning its sanctioned activities.

7.) Model the behavior you want your staff to follow:

Simply, if you are part of a clique drop out of it immediately. Be positive in all your dealings with your employees showing them that you will deal with issues on an individual basis without bias to any group.

I strongly advocate employees feeling appreciated at work and having fun. Developing the structure and mechanisms that prevents exclusion and foster inclusions is your challenge. You can do it, and I know it is what your employees truly want.