Posted on: Monday, May 20, 2002

Workplace cliques can be a good thing

Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Cliques are not isolated to school playgrounds.

They are bound to form in any large organization or group, said Harry Reis, a psychology professor at the University of Rochester. It is simply human nature for people to gravitate to others with shared attributes such as age, race or life experience.

"People tend to feel anonymous," he said. "Cliques give you a social home. Whether it's good or bad is a two-edged question."

At their best, cliques can lead to productive bonds and friendships that can enhance the work experience and boost retention.

Where some cliques go awry, say management consultants, is when they are too exclusive and create paranoia and distress for outsiders — just like junior high.

Kenneth R. Rabinowitz, president of Professional Development Group Inc. in Pittsford, N.Y., compares cliques with alliances, where people band together to achieve mutual goals or make decisions, sometimes to a company's detriment.

Cliques create delicate management situations, but trying to break them would be futile, Reis said, like a parent forbidding a teenager to date a biker. Groups will continue to interact, even secretly if they have to.

The key is to harness the potentially positive outcomes of a clique, said Robert S. Legge, president of Legge & Co. LLC, a management consulting company in Brighton, N.Y.

Legge suggests that managers pose regular challenges to employees that force them to transcend their social boundaries.

And managers should never discourage employees from making friends at work. That attitude could be even more devastating to a company than the cliques themselves.