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Franke James is Editor/Founder of Office-Politics.com and Inventor of the Office-Politics® Game.

Peter R. Garber has worked as an HR professional for over 25 years and is the author of many business books including: Winning the Rat Race at Work and 100 Ways to Get on the Wrong Side of your Boss.

Dina Beach Lynch, is an Ombudsman, Author and former attorney. An award-winning mediator, Dina served as the Corporate Ombudsman for the 7th largest bank in the US helping over 48,000 employees to resolve workplace issues.

Dr. Rick Brandon is CEO of Brandon Partners. He has consulted and trained tens of thousands at corporations worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies across a variety of industries.

Dr. Marty Seldman is one of America's most experienced executive coaches. His 35-year career includes expertise in executive coaching, group dynamics, cross-cultural studies, clinical psychology, and training.

Arnie Herz, is a lawyer, mediator, speaker, author and consultant nationally recognized for his practical and inspired approach to conflict resolution and client counseling.

Dr. John Burton LL.B. M.B.A. M.Div. Ph.D. is an ethicist, mediator, lawyer and theologian. John is currently located in Prince Rupert, B.C., Canada, working with Canada's aboriginal communities.

OFFICE CLIQUES: Navigating workplace politics

September 2006

By Kristen Elde

Julie Jansen, author of You Want Me To Work With Who?, recalled a recent encounter: “A woman came up to me at one of my book signings and said, ‘Julie, I started this job six months ago, and there are three women there who make up a clique. They make fun of me and they ignore me and they don’t invite me to things…’”

Ah, cliques. The term invokes memories of high school hierarchies. You had the nerds, the stoners, the preps, the jocks, and who could forget, the illustrious ‘in’ group. The popular crowd, the untouchables, the chosen. At their best, they were aloof toward outsiders; at their worst, they made outsiders’ lives a living hell.

The tradition lives on. “There are always cliques, no matter what,” says Jansen, a speaker and consultant who specializes in motivating audiences and clients in their careers. “Sometimes they’re just not as obvious. For instance, in families there are cliques. Wherever there are more than two people, there tends to be a clique, to some degree.” Entirely natural, she says, and applicable to women and men alike. “The human tendency is to connect with someone else who shares a similar agenda.”

Inclusively Exclusive?

As experienced by Jansen’s tormented confider, the agenda isn’t always constructive. Members of cliques like the one she’s up against are fighting for position and status, says Toronto’s Franke James, inventor of the Office-Politics game. “Often cliques are formed around one or two charismatic individuals who decide which people to accept and which people to shun. This can easily morph into bullying.”

The term itself may be tainted, but cliques don’t have to be a nightmare. In the workplace, they can enable employees to forge healthy relationships, both professionally and personally. “They [cliques] form around members who speak the same language, who understand each other, who share whatever agenda they have,” Jansen explains. Admittedly, cliques aren’t always very fluid. “They don’t necessarily mean to be exclusionary, but because of the nature of cliques, they often are.”

Sometimes ‘exclusive’ makes sense, says Kit Herrod, director of external relations at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. “There are work groups that, by the nature of the work that needs to be done, are exclusive because other people just aren't involved in the particular program or project. These I think are fine, but if they continue on after the completion of the project and people are excluded, then that's detrimental," says Herrod, who as a manager ranks maintaining robust interpersonal relations high on her list.

Socially-oriented cliques may even be all right. Speculating about a group of coworkers who go for daily runs during their lunch break, James says, "Their shared interests and values are healthy, and it makes perfect sense that inactive people would not fit in."

Of course, just as our high school 'science geek' showed her clique-worthiness through a dedicated interest in biochemistry, a longtime fitnessphobe who wishes to join the running crew - as long as she's willing to adopt the chief value of the clique - should never be barred. Should this happen, the clique loses all respectability, says psychotherapist Katherine Crowley, who along with Kathi Elster, authored Working With You Is Killing Me. "A positive clique is an inviting clique, with loose boundaries that allow people in and let people out. What I would consider a more negative clique has a rigid structure with high walls and a lot of judgment."

Lay of the Land

A positive clique is also attuned to overlapping, to the likelihood that interests will crisscross beyond clique lines. "Cliques can form around lifestyle and fashion," James says. "The 20-something stiletto-heeled bar-hoppers may not have a lot in common with the middleaged walking enthusiast focused on family values. Yet maybe they'll intersect and agree on issues around the environment, or some shared hobby." Ideally, new alliances are formed.

How often it actually plays out like this depends on the culture of a company, says Crowley, who counsels on the psychological and interpersonal challenges faced by people who work together. "Every company has its own culture - its own society, its own ethics, its own values and its own behaviors that are acceptable and unacceptable. If it's a friendly work environment, cliques may still exist but tend to be of a softer nature."

She suggests that the tightest cliques are made up of younger employees, those whose schedules readily accommodate the activities that serve to glue members together. Dana Kinney, drawing from her experience as an editor for a Northwest publishing company, agrees. "There are groups of 20-somethings and early 30-somethings who hang out outside work, go to happy hour, go out on weekends. Often groups of singles hang out more than other groups."

Until last year, Kinney herself belonged to the singles constituency. When she became involved in a serious relationship, however, she started seeing less of these people outside of work, and noticed a subsequent drop-off in invites. But because she'd already formed sincere friendships with the singles, she never felt shunned. "Like if I wanted to still go out with them, the door's open."

The hard part? Breaking in. "There are groups made up of people who have been here longer than others, and they aren't very inviting of new people," says Kinney, who admits to being guilty of this in the past.

Patience is a Virtue

According to Karen Foster, Ph.D., how to best go about gaining admission to a group will vary from office to office. Foster, a licensed psychologist and executive consultant with Corporate Psychology Resources, a performance management consulting company split between Seattle and Atlanta, recommends that you start small. Make "a concerted effort to engage at least one person, preferably someone you have found some connection with in the past." By initially solidifying one or two relationships, broader acceptance may occur naturally.

For Lynn Roberts, previously a development director for a Bainbridge Island-based nonprofit, it didn't happen overnight. "It took about four months of sustained friendliness and reaching out to people to build trust and relationship." And tenured employees were the most reluctant, although they did eventually come around. "On the surface, they [new hires] were welcomed, but on a deeper level, there was almost an initiation period where they had to prove themselves, both in terms of work values and willingness to be part of the 'family.'"

James suggests quietly observing, grooming your approach, before taking any action. "You have to get the lay of the land. You have to understand who the players are and what their different agendas are, because you're dealing with people on a lot of different levels," she says. "Ask yourself, 'What's their role in the office?' 'What power do they have to influence change?' 'How are employees relating to one another?'"

An obvious statement, but: Don't forget to try. Herrod mentions a situation wherein an employee got upset about being excluded from the general activities of her work group. Turned out, the snub was largely because this individual didn't make a clear effort to interact with other members of the group, effectively isolating herself. "Sometimes," says Herrod, "if the group is going for coffee, even if you don't want to, you kind of have to go. You have to go to the group as much as you expect the group to come to you."

What's in it for Me?

But wait - back up. Ask yourself, Why was it I wanted to be a part of this group again? In your quest for acceptance, is it possible you've lost sight of this important detail? Make sure you've accurately identified the clique's social currency, reminds Crowley, and decide if you like it. "Some cliques are based on suffering, complaining and commiseration. Recognize this, and if you don't like these things, don't join."

What's tough is when gaining admission stands to help you on a professional level. If earning the trust of a handful of well-connected coworkers - people who may be inclined to speak to your aptitude down the road - appears advantageous, how far do you go? "If they all play golf and you don't, do you learn? There are a number of hurdles to joining in certain activities that might score you an 'in,'" James says. "Sometimes you say, well, this will help me get to know these people on another level, this will benefit me in my career. Because business is personal. The reality is, we like to do business with people we trust."

And if your advances are less than appreciated? Don't 'go tell,' not before taking matters into your own hands anyway. Jansen brought up the woman at her book signing, a woman who admitted to taking her misery straight to the manager. "I would've recommended that she go to each person independently, not as a threesome, and say, 'I want to talk to you about how we can have a better relationship.' I felt bad for her, but she shouldn't have gone to her manager first."

Heart of the Matter

In the end, you may toil on the periphery, either by choice or by sentence. If your distress is just too great, there's always another job. But if you can tough it out, or as Jansen says, "develop a functioning immunity," all the better. Consider it your own one-woman operation. "It's almost like you're giving them [clique members] back what they're giving you: You're excluding them in a way. You're saying 'you're not good enough.'" She continues, "All you can ask for is respect. You don't have to be best friends with everybody, and you probably don't want to be."

Kristen Elde has written for national and regional magazines. Article copyright Kristen Elde, 2006. First published in Seattle Woman Magazine. Reproduced with permission.


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