Cliques and Cohesive Teams
The origin of the word clique is interesting. Since the early 1700’s the word means “an exclusive party of persons; a small set, especially one associating to arrogate power or privilege”. Prior to that it was used as the equivalent to the french word claque, which is defined as “a set of men distributed through an audience and hired to applaud the performance or the actors.” In both cases, the modern and the historical, it’s all about a tight group of support around a superior. Of course we see cliques in our professional lives. In my experience they are more prevalent than not. There are signs when your in a clique at work. The team has shared values, there is limited conflict in how things should be handled both inside, and outside of your circle of influence and control. Communication is high at work, and most importantly, outside of work. I’ve been apart from, and a part of clique. I’ve also transitioned from being on the inside to being on the outside and all these experiences led to some very interesting conclusions on the benefits of, and challenges with, cliques.
The most interesting time that I was out of a clique was when I was working at a government agency. I always joked that I was the token white guy but like all good jokes there was truth to it. For the majority of my time at the agency I was the only male, and the only caucasian.
The females of color definitely had a clique going on led by our manager. They would have extensive conversations about topics I had zero experience with. Among them, black family structures, the nuances of their church interactions inclusive of the personality of the pastors, the interactions of black sororities, clothing, ethnic hair care, etc. Even the way they communicated would change, especially if they thought I wasn’t around. It became more of a light ebonics dialect. As an example “I can’t wit You” was often heard when one member was telling a funny story to another. I would also hear about interactions and communications after hours including social media that I wasn’t a part of.
Now it wasn’t just race and sex that created the clique. It was also about jobs and the related mindset needed to be successful. Broadly speaking, they were all focused on the auditing functions of our organization. They were not risk takers and were very focused on rule following. Consequently, they all shared work values. My job was exactly the opposite. I was in a sales aligned role. To be successful, I had to take risks and work around the rules. Everytime I thought about my job the Earthworks album title “A Part and yet Apart” came to mind.
The outcomes of the clique was that it was a tremendously effective team. They were very ‘in sync’ in getting the job done. They worked very efficiently because of the shared work values. There was never a question among them as to what’s an acceptable idea or what is an appropriate timeframe for work to get done. They all looked at their job as meeting the spec. Now, technically, the auditing functions were only part of what we were supposed to be doing, even though it was all-consuming to the clique, and consequently how our organization was run. Eventually the mono-culture did kill the organization but it took years and years. During that time it was a great group who did excellent (as they defined it) work. I won’t lie that there was an emotional impact on my life. Plainly spoken it sucked going into a job every day where I knew I was the outsider in every sense of the word. Where my ideas and my values were obviously, and sometimes overtly, never seriously considered or valued.
The next most interesting experience about cliques was when I went from being on the inside of one to being on the outside of one. I was hired into the IT group at a manufacturing firm. It was an effective team built around a boss who had shared values. I experienced the exact opposite of the government agency. This time I was part of the culture of excellence. It was an IT culture, meaning we moved fast, broke things, and tried again. The goal was to learn as much as you can and then some more. We always tried to exceed the spec. Naturally, I thrived, I made friends, and I had shared engagements inside and outside of work. Then, sadly, the old boss got an opportunity at another firm several hours away. The new boss was more from the structured side of the firm. Almost instantly he created a clique that was built around the few folks who did nothing beyond what they were required to do. There were lot’s of echoes of the government program. It was another “meet the spec and nothing more” mentality. The new boss was emotionally limited and old school vindictive. I even got slapped on the hand, or as he put it, “course corrected” when I discussed the shoddy work of a colleague with another who was also impacted by it. The boss pretended to care about what I had to say and then argued with me about all the ways I was wrong. To top it off, they sent an email to the entire staff congratulating the colleague with the low quality work for doing such a great job. The email was very clearly directed towards me. Suffice to say, my job satisfaction went into the toilet.
Cliques as I’ve illustrated with my personal examples are usually mono-culture and driven by a single individual. A linchpin. Sometimes that linchpin is the CEO of a large company and so the CxO suite clique becomes the culture of an organization. Like my personal example, this can go poorly. Companies with bad cultures tend to crash hard. Think the overly aggressive wells-fargo, or Enron.
This is one of the reasons why diversity was championed at large companies. Different ideas should influence the culture. I think this works really well with large sprawling organizations with many decision makers up and down the chain. This is where part of a healthy senior leadership mentality is to balance cultural influences. If you have aggressive decision makers with equal power and authority with risk averse decision makers, you get a culture that’s something in the middle.
Unfortunately, this tactic doesn’t work in smaller organizations, teams and their resultant cliques.
In my government job, and when I had a new boss, I couldn’t influence the culture because I wasn’t in the clique. I didn’t have equal say to go to my boss and say “no, this project is crap, I won’t accept it, go do it again” When I said that I got the course correcting “going to cut this off at the head speech”
So, like much of my writing, it leads to the question of what should you do when you find yourself in a job with a clique? Well if you are in the situation like either of my jobs where the clique at work was highly effective, then just enjoy the ride. It’s especially good when you are part of an effective team. Nothing lasts forever, so appreciate it when you have it good.
Even when I wasn’t in the clique but it was an effective group, it made the job easier. I learned the group norms even though I wasn’t a part of them and was able to work with them. I could respect what they were doing even if it was completely against what I was trying to do. But what if you are on the outside, and the group is performing poorly like when my new boss came in at the manufacturing firm. Do you wait it out? Hide in your job and hope things change? I’ve tried that and I can say that it’s a sad existence. It turns a career into a 9–5 job. You’re rarely happy at work. Even working for a ‘great company‘ can become a ‘miserable job’ and that’s a horrible feeling.
Of course you could leave. But as I’ve discussed in my blog, you stand to lose so much if your organization has some form of equity in benefits, i.e. longer vacations or higher pay with tenure. That being said, even if you don’t decide to leave, it’s time to start looking around. That’s what I did at the government agency. The job was good enough to keep, but I was constantly looking for something better. Good opportunities do come along if your patient enough.
One option that I don’t recommend is to try to change the culture. It won’t work and becomes an exercise in futility. Culture comes from people’s personalities and most deep beliefs. These don’t change quickly, they only change over decades and with lots of life experiences. The one caveat is if you become the boss, then you get to decide the culture and possibly lead the clique if one naturally forms. Of course, that changes your job and you may not like it as much.
Cliques in the workplace aren’t inherently bad. They can feel that way if your not part of it. They can also be one of the things that makes you feel like you’ve got the best job in the world if you are in an organizationally effective clique that matches your personality. Often I end my articles about conceptual facets of the workplace by arguing that you have to be aware of whatever the work thing is and plan accordingly. That fits here. I also wanted to underscore that these things don’t really change all that much. They are tied to the boss, and unless your boss changes regularly, something that can be related to all sorts of other issues, you’ll have to work in and around the clique. My biggest piece of advice is don’t get mad at it. Don’t let it drain you emotionally. Cliques are one of those things that simply exists. If your on the outside of one, remember that some day, the tables may quickly turn and the quality of your work life will increase exponentially. If you are on the inside, like I said earlier, enjoy it while everything simply… …cliques!
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