I want to share two cool facts that I learned from the book High Conflict, by Amanda Ripley.

Fact #1: The word “categorize” comes from ancient Greek and originally meant to accuse. 

That is, the linguistic origin of the idea of putting things or people into groups has an embedded negative connotation. If I’m in one group and you’re in another, one of us is a bit tarnished or diminished. There’s something wrong with one of us — or possibly both of us, if there’s a third group out there!

Fact #2: In the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes, the actors in gorilla costumes and the actors in chimp costumes self-segregated at lunchtime, sitting at different tables. They reported feeling more comfortable with people who shared their pretend roles. 

Think about that. Despite the presumed enormous similarities in people who put on ape suits on a Hollywood set for a living, the differences in costume (and by extension species) created a powerful salience that told them, “I am this and you are that, and we are different, and I feel safer with my own kind.”

Cohesion Creates “Thems”

There’s a ton of social science research on how separating people into arbitrary groups creates powerful impulses of “Us against Them.” (Amanda Ripley does a great job of summarizing them — get her book if you’d like to go down that rabbit hole.)

So what about team cohesion? 

In order to get things done, organizations need to organize in teams. And for teams to succeed, they need cohesion: to feel safe in the in-group, to have each others’ backs, and to root for team members to succeed.

Which begs the question: How do we avoid the downside of cohesive teams, the creation of “Thems” who are not “Us,” and who therefore are less trustworthy, less noble, and less deserving of respect and generosity.

Which is to say, everyone in the organization who’s not on your team. And all your vendors and clients. 

How can we benefit from the magic of teamwork without paying the price of silos of tension and suspicion?

Here are three suggestions:

Rather than forcing people to identify with a single team, put them on multiple teams with people from other primary teams. 

Create cross-functional teams that operate at the same time as day-to-day teams. 

If you have recreational leagues, make sure they include members from all units and divisions within your organization. 

In any sufficiently complex organization (that is, any one I’ve ever seen or worked with), different functions are set in structural conflict with each other. 

Business Development promises the moon to get the sale, and then Operations grumbles at what they have to deliver at a discount price.

Marketing wants to share these amazing testimonials, and Legal cautions against false advertising or violating confidentiality clauses.

R&D wants to allocate money to innovation, while Quality Control wants to keep improving the current model.

I’ve seen these natural tensions turn into nasty internecine fighting, with the different factions “categorizing” each other in very accusatory terms. 

And I’ve run workshops and facilitating meetings where the two groups came together to look at the issue from a structural perspective, and forms alliances to turn the dynamic itself into the problem that they collaborated to solve. 

Top-down decision making and power structures can not only pit teams against teams in other functions, it can pit different levels of oversight against each other. 

“Those turkeys in management have no idea what the customer wants,” the Sales team fumes.

“The sales team is targeting the wrong market segment because it’s easy to get appointments with them,” the Senior Leadership Team decides. “Do something about it, Charlie” (Chief Revenue Officer).

One solution is to create feedback and governance loops across different levels of the organization, as in the example of Sociocracy. (Check out Sheella Mierson’s work with the Sociocracy Consulting Group if you’d like to find out more.)

When there’s a Operational Leader from the SLT at all Sales meetings, and an elected representative from Sales at all the SLT meetings pertaining to sales issues, feedback can flow back and forth. 

This can dramatically reduce the “Us vs Them” tensions inherent in top-down organizations by allowing information and governance to be distributed among different levels. 

And ideally, those levels are characterized by perspective more than power. If you’re the scout on the hill with the binoculars and I’m the repairer of walls in the citadel, we’re glad for each other’s existence. And the differences in our perspectives enhances our value to each other.

What do you do to mitigate the “Us vs Them” dynamic and create camaraderie and shared purpose?

And have you considered issuing gorilla suits for all your employees?

Looking for help in creating aligned purpose and high trust and safety in your organization? I’m happy to chat. Find me at askHowie.com.