Informal relationships in a team: why they are important and how to manage them

Many years ago I joined a company as a developer and soon witnessed something odd. Another department’s teamlead called up one of his subordinates in the middle of the day and told him: ‘Here, come and get this money and go to a store and grab me some drinks and snacks, will you?’. Just like that, bold as brass.

I thought: Gee, that’s weird. This situation happened several more times. After a while, I realised that this kind of behaviour was the norm in this company. Teams formed alliances against one another, the environment became somewhat toxic with lots of staff gossip, and top management didn’t seem to care at all. Even though I was doing interesting stuff and the terms weren’t bad, I decided to leave — the moral environment was unbearable.

I wasn’t the only one who thought so: I found out recently that this company doesn’t exist anymore. Right then I realised how important it is to cultivate good, informal relationships at work and how drastic the effect of bad relationships on business can be. I also concluded that the ones responsible are line managers, no one else since they are the ones in constant touch with their team members.

But most IT teamleads are engineers or developers themselves and don’t have a background in psychology or management philosophy. This is probably why managers tend to have quite a narrow view of their tasks: solve business problems, stick to a plan and so on. They simply don’t get why they should bother to babysit the adults they work with.

I’ve been working as a teamlead for the past 10 years, 7 of them at Badoo which recently became Bumble. Not long time ago, I gave a talk on how to build informal relationships to my team and I thought that it would be good to share with more people my thoughts on this topic with more people :)

Problems with informal relationships

There are four main symptoms of unhealthy informal relationships.

New faces don’t stay

I’m sure that changing jobs is stressful for most of us. Newcomers find themselves in a very uncomfortable, unstable situation — partly because their experience and skills have not yet been acknowledged in the new group. If this person had been well-respected and important in their previous workplace, this contrast will likely be even more painful.

What do we usually do to get noticed? We show initiative, right? But newcomers’ initiative is sometimes out-and-out discouraged, by saying things like: ‘What do you think you’re doing? We know better’.

Besides they are often left out of informal gatherings as well — lunches, birthdays and such. Dealing with work stress is twice as hard when there is no one to talk things over with.

These are the reasons that some of them just move on.

Working with strangers

Not actually knowing your colleagues is another problem. This is usually the case between departments. Workers aren’t acquainted with their internal customers; for example, product managers don’t know development teams that well, etc.

The worst-case scenario is when the managers don’t even know people they are leading nor their expectations, and therefore are unable to motivate them effectively.

Informal leaders oppose formal ones

There are informal leaders in every group. Like everyone else, they pursue their personal goals, but with one distinction — they are able to draw others into helping them get there. When an informal leader’s goals conflict with a company’s general direction, this kind of person can get rather toxic. They may even quit their job and entice others to leave with them.

Lack of unity

The aforementioned problems lead to lack of unity. A quick look at these photos and captions and you’ll see what I mean.

Many employees don’t know what their colleagues actually do. Consequently, they don’t value their contribution. Lack of unity affects teamwork: coworkers don’t complement one another and their performance suffers. Miscommunication means inflexibility. Managers have trouble motivating and training their juniors. This leads to people leaving.

And we want everything to be okay, at least like this:

Or better still, like this:

What can we do about it?

Is there some way to set informal relationships right and make them work for the good of your company? I’m going to tell you what we at Bumble have done and are continuing to do. There are three key components:

• Corporate culture
• Constant teambuilding work
• Reacting to disruptive behaviour.

Corporate culture

Corporate culture is a set of core values that shape an employee’s mindset and establish rules of engagement. It is what unites group members, distinguishes the company from all others and makes its employees proud. These values need to be shared by as many of a company’s employees as possible.

Core values are not set in stone. They can be modified or updated in line with evolving company strategy. You can’t simply make them up or emulate those of other companies. Nor should you invite in external experts hoping they will create these values for you — values must be born inside the company.

Here’s an example of a pseudo-culture, which is of no use to your business:

Once upon a time, I worked in a digital marketing company. There was a cult of personality: every room was decorated with boss’ portraits and quotes. Every worker was supposed to be passionate about making the world a better place. In place of normal greetings, the customary battle cry went up: ‘100 billion is our destiny!’ It seems funny now, but back then it wasn’t funny at all.

But getting back to Bumble. At some point we held a brainstorming session and drew up a list of our values, which are the following:

But the list itself is not as important as the way we apply it.

1. We use it during the hiring process — it helps us determine if the applicant is ready to share our basic values.
2. We use it to evaluate new employees during their probationary period.
3. We use it at our quarterly and semi-annual staff reviews.

How do we evaluate the applicants at job interviews? We ask them specific questions. For instance, we explore applicants’ attitudes towards past mistakes to find out how self-aware, and self-critical they are and whether or not they routinely learn from their mistakes.

We monitor their reactions to questions they don’t know the answer to. Some of them start squirming, change the subject or give up right away. We prefer it when a person tries to reach the answer logically and then, if they get stuck, admits they don’t have the answer. This way we can see that this person is capable of admitting their faults and that’s perfectly acceptable.

We ask them if there is anyone they helped career- or progress-wise, and what kind of help that was. This is a sign of their openness to the world and a willingness to help others.

We enquire if there is anyone they have learned from recently. This indirectly tells us:

• if this person likes learning new things
• how grateful this person is to their associates for their time and knowledge.

We are also interested in circumstances surrounding applicants’ quitting their last job. Not only do we care about their reasons for leaving, but also about the way they handed over their duties to their successor — whether they carefully prepared everything or just walked off and left things as they were. This shows how responsible they are, or not.

Applicants often tell us they quit their last job because of their desire to grow. But what stopped them from doing that at their previous workplace, we wonder. Some of them will simply blame others — bad boss, thick colleagues and so on. This question helps us determine if applicants are proactive, are able to recognise their problems and are willing to take action to resolve them.

Constant teambuilding work

Once corporate culture is in place, teambuilding work needs to begin. I subdivided this work into several areas:

• Working with informal leaders
• Working with newcomers
• Working with troubled employees
• Effective one-on-one meetings
• Considering personal factors
• Fighting disunity

Informal leaders

Informal leaders can be a valuable tool in teamlead hands. Through them we can communicate company goals to other group members.

No pushing, only selling
Trust is the most important thing when dealing with informal leaders. Don’t act authoritatively or tell them what to do and how to do it. You have to convince them that their task matters, that solving an issue would help their company. Or treat them as experts: ‘Look, there is a problem. What do you think we should do?’. By doing that you confirm the leaders’ authority, which is their main tool and weapon.

Acknowledging and giving credit
Give timely credit to your informal leaders. This advice is suitable for dealing with every employee, but with informal leaders praise is even more important.

Don’t diminish their authority
Don’t question your informal leaders’ authority, don’t criticise them in public or mock them. They are not your opponents: the actual person in charge and the informal leader operate in different camps. One has multiple levers of power, the other only has the respect of his associates.

Accept their feedback
Take an interest in informal leaders’ feedback concerning other employees or internal processes. They value this kind of trust, it confirms their authority.

Make them formally responsible
Whenever appropriate, you should give your informal leaders formal responsibilities. In the long run, it prevents them from joining the opposition and also fulfils their ambitions.

Working with newcomers

On the one hand, newcomers bring something fresh, interesting, effective and possibly unknown. On the other hand, they might also undermine corporate culture. For example, they can hold values that are considered unacceptable in your team.

What do we do at Bumble?

‘Soft’ onboarding
On day one every newcomer is allotted a supervisor — a Lead or an experienced coworker who is ready to answer any question they may have, at any time. We don’t expect them to rush into battle right away and don’t ask for much. In the first few weeks, we let them get up to speed, all while maintaining close contact with their supervisor.

Regular feedback
Every beginner looks forward to feedback, because it is their only point of reference, their only way of knowing if they are doing everything right. In the first two months, Bumble newcomers have weekly one-on-one meetings with their teamleads and discuss issues as they arise. Criticism is a sensitive matter. Newcomers need assuring that making mistakes is normal, especially during this early period. It is helpful to involve an HR manager — giving feedback to your boss is much easier through an HR specialist, than face-to-face.

Inclusion in socialising
Don’t leave a newcomer out in the cold. If you’re having lunch, invite them. If you’re celebrating someone’s birthday, invite them. At first, they may turn down your invitations, but they’ll come on board soon enough. This way you’ll be making them feel like they’re really part of the team and not an outsider.

New initiatives
New initiatives are also a delicate matter. It doesn’t mean that you should necessarily do whatever your new employee suggests. The burden of proving one’s value, changing the company’s internal status quo weights on newcomers. If for some reason their initiatives don’t cut it, try to explain to them why, in a clear manner — treat them as fellow professionals.

Help
Having access to help is very important for those who start a new job. It’s in everybody’s interests to help them adjust and start performing real tasks as soon as possible. Some newcomers are afraid to ask for help because they think their questions might seem stupid to others. They may have asked a question quite recently — if they go to their supervisor once again others might think they are unprofessional. At Bumble, we stress that there is nothing wrong with asking for help if you’re stuck. If you’ve been looking for the answer for an hour or so and have hit a brick wall, go and talk to someone — otherwise you’ll only make things worse.

Working with troubled employees

We term troubled employees as those who work counter to corporate culture and company values: those who systematically make insulting remarks, undermine their managers’ authority etc. What can you do about such people?

Find out the real reason for the antagonism
It might be an accidental insult or a simple ‘me against the world’ attitude. You need to ask the person directly. If you can’t get to the bottom of it this way, try talking to those closest to them — maybe they will be able to shed light on the matter.

If motives are clear, try negotiating
You may have to bargain. If you can’t deal with a troubled employee directly, involve an intermediary — for instance, an experienced HR specialist — firstly, to talk to you in private, secondly, talk to the other party in private, and then come up with an appropriate solution.

Get them transferred — i.e. to a different unit
Some conflicts are the result of a character clash — two people just don’t like each other and that’s all there is to it. In such cases, try transferring one of them to a different department providing the person is not against it. This way the company won’t be losing a valuable asset.

Exclude them from any important processes
If the aforementioned suggestions don’t work, try excluding them from any important processes. This will offend their authority and likely bring them back to their senses.

Terminate the employment contract
If that doesn’t work either, there is only one final option open to you — let the troublemaker go. Constant conflict will damage your leadership effectiveness.

Effective 1-on-1 meetings

Remember, we’re talking about informal relationships only, here. I think holding regular one-on-one meetings with staff members is a great foundation for trust-based relationships between a leader and juniors. Besides business itself, one should discuss other business-related matters as well.

• Let your employees speak freely. Maybe there is something bothering them and they have prepared a speech. Don’t interrupt them.
• Discuss both work-related issues and those that are not directly related to work process but may affect it.
• Ask about the person’s relationships with their coworkers, make sure everything’s okay. If there is any trouble, offer your help — or more precisely, ask if you, as a leader, can be of any help in the matter. Most importantly, don’t forget to actually deliver the help, if help is needed.
• This one is taken from Maxim Batyrev’s book ’45 Manager Tattoos’. At the end of the meeting, when all the agenda items have been dealt with, ask your employee if there is anything else they would like to discuss. Some people save the most interesting points until the end.

Consider personal factors

When you develop trust-based relationships with your employees, they will unhesitatingly tell you their personal problems: childbirth, health issues, mortgage problems, divorce etc. We are all human — bad stuff happens.

How do competent managers help resolve such situations?

• Give a break — a temporary transfer from complicated projects to low-priority, routine ones may help.
• Grant a leave of absence.
• Review your employees’ motivations for working. If they are paying a mortgage, finances will be top of their list. If they deserve a bonus, consider giving them one.

Change their work schedule to flexitime. For example, if someone’s child is starting kindergarten, shift their start time to a bit later in the morning. Why not?

When managers are attentive to their staff’s personal circumstances, their staff value them for it. Conversely, when someone knows that their manager is aware of their personal problems but doesn’t care, it leads to bitterness and resentment.

Fighting disunity

Let me tell you about how we at Bumble deal with it.

Sharing meals
I was surprised to learn that people in some companies go to lunch in pairs or even one by one. This is such a waste! While we’re waiting for our meal, there is so much we can discuss, so much we can learn about the people we work with. If your office premises are big enough, set up a dining room as we did. During lunchtimes people from different departments sit next to each other and talk about all kinds of things. This is great for teambuilding.

Teambuilding activities, corporate parties with families
We hold regular teambuilding activities. Every quarter we all go out together — e.g. to a bowling alley or for a game of pool or just to a good old-fashioned bar. Participation is strictly voluntary. We pick a day that suits the majority, asking newbies first and trying to involve them as much as possible.

Our corporate parties are truly huge events, sometimes lasting three days. Last year, some team went to Krasnaya Polyana, Sochi. We took our families with us — I know, this is a questionable matter. There are some downsides — first of all, budget-wise. Families may also slightly detract from the teambuilding element. Some people prefer spending time with their families rather than their colleagues, but we tried various formats and finally settled on this one. Firstly, people who bring their family are easier to lure out if their loved ones are coming too — and most of our workers are married. Secondly, people make new friends. Families that meet at our corporate events quite often start friendships that spread into their everyday lives.

Sports, camping, rafting
This is a quite simple but very effective teambuilding method. We have athletic, triathlon and table tennis teams at Bumble. Every year we go rafting. In my opinion, this is one of the most powerful teambuilding techniques — extreme conditions help people learn entirely new things about their coworkers and even about themselves.

Hobby clubs
Those who are not into sports may be interested in checkers, chess or quizzes. Three years ago our employees started a band. Interestingly, at that point some members of the band couldn’t even play an instrument. They recently did a gig in the office and it was awesome! I remember feeling so proud of them.

Hackathons
Another simple way. People from different departments come together to try and resolve an unconventional problem — not necessarily work-related. Pizza, beers and brainstorming all help people to open up and tell each other things they would never say during a normal day in the office.

Reacting

Our final section is dedicated to various destructive events that contradict basic corporate values, and consequently affect a team’s moral atmosphere.

Undue familiarity
If a manager and a junior get too friendly, they risk overstepping boundaries. Managers must always remember they’re senior (even while partying or drinking) and put a stop to any inappropriate behaviour right away.

Disrespectful words or actions
This is unacceptable and very destructive. This is what poisons the air in your office. Deal with it as soon as you hear or see something. By all means, try to establish the cause, be it personal displeasure or a work issue. Getting to the bottom of it will help in preventing such behaviour in the future. Some people may be trying to pin their mistakes on other people or teams. Developers blame testers, testers blame developers, and on it goes. One of the reasons is that people don’t know what other departments actually do and therefore don’t value their part in the company’s success. One way to help tackle this is, for instance, by creating a newsletter or internal meetup? Highlighting team achievements. This way your staff will be know who does what and what their merits are.

Rumours
Where is lack of awareness, rumours abound. Lack of awareness is a void that gets filled with wrong information quickly. As soon as a manager hears a rumour, they should communicate the actual state of affairs as clearly as possible. After the event it may be a good idea to consider creating dedicated channels for such information — newsletters, digest, regular seminars etc.

Conclusion

Here’s a recap on how to make informal relationships work for the benefit of your business:

• Develop a corporate culture. Hire people who will share your company values; and help all your employees understand those values.
• Engage in regular teambuilding activities. Create and expand formats that will help people forge positive informal relationships.
• React to disruptive behaviour. Remember that as a manager you are a keeper of your company’s culture.

And finally, get to know your staff! Wisely weave informal relationships into your professional ones. This will help you see the bigger picture and therefore make well-informed decisions.