One of the questions we encourage teams to discuss is if they feel they have enough time to foster professional relationships with their co-workers (see card CUL:04 in the deck). Hopefully, by now we can all agree that a positive work culture doesn’t come from pre-COVID “team building” staple events like happy hours or casual Fridays. Getting to know one another through more than our work or beverage choices or wardrobe decisions is super important as it has impacts on the team’s wellbeing which has a direct correlation to success.
This is exactly what Robin Dunbar and Samantha Rockey found while writing their book on the psychology of teams.
In our research for our book The Social Brain, we found that when space is created for connection and to build friendships, it’s very efficient. What we see is huge increases in performance and a sense of well-being. Well-being does not just mean physical or mental health, but social health, which has largely been neglected over the past few decades.
If companies want to create better work cultures – and better organizations – they need to understand how friendships and relationships work in the social world, focusing on the power and benefits of social health in organizations. This comes through relationships and friendships.
At Same Team, we believe teams need to carve out time for individuals to meet socially albeit professionally. Getting to know more about our backgrounds and experiences helps to not only connect people to each other but also exposes everyone to broader perspectives.
If you offer the opportunity, the space, and the context in which to meet and connect, then people can learn about each other and find out that people in different business functions don’t have horns and might be quite nice. You start to see the purpose of the organization as a big story, rather than just seeing it from your own perspective.
According to the authors and what I’ve seen up close…
Creativity, collaboration, and innovation flourish in environments where relationships are fostered, and workplace friendships can dramatically enhance both performance and well-being.
With those kinds of outcomes, there is zero excuse for leaders to avoid setting up this dedicated time. The simplest thing you can do is to pair people up and give them questions to provoke conversation or provide a simple activity. The last part is necessary because while getting to know each other is important, not everyone is comfortable in social situations, even those professional in nature.
By the way, one of the worst things you can ever do is to ask your teammates to share something “interesting” about themselves. That’s the best way to amp up anxiety and send people deep into their shell. Make it less awkward by providing themes and questions. This takes the pressure off of people to come up with questions of their own in a social situation which is also known to cause anxiety.
Don’t make this complicated but do be protective of this time. Communicate and convey the importance of these activities to everyone individually and the team as a whole. Provide the themes and questions and then get out of the way and watch your team grow.
