A Fine Line

It's inevitable. You're placed in the same office. Your work space is side by side. You're asked to collaborate on several projects each year. Conversations that were once solely about work responsibilities begin to slip into the ease of familiarity as you share some of the frustrations about working with particular clients or about similarly long commutes. The fine line between coworker and friend continue to blur.

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According to the Huffington Post, having friends at work can create loyalty to the company, increase overall job satisfaction, and increase job passion. But what happens when the friendly coworker breaks your trust by sharing personal details or harshly judging your personal choices in front of others?

I would classify my office as, overall, being a high performing late stage small team. When I was hired just over two years ago, the office had recently gone through filling two positions and it was said that years ago, the office climate was very tense and uncomfortable. Upon filling my position, the office team of 8-10 people remained relatively unchanged for around a year. During that year, our team learned about each other and we somewhat established our social dynamic roles. Morgeson, DeRue, and Karam (2009) would agree that creating a supportive social climate is important, as research shows that social roles are critical in the team context. Franz (2012) also states that trust is built through a knowledge exchange, so a desire to develop relationships is understandable.

Despite the increasing functionality of our team, our high performance started to hit a plateau. Funk and Kulik (2011) said that performance can be hindered by groupthink, isolation, decreasing organizational attention, and the addition of new members. I started to notice the difference in our relationship when new members were added to the team; the coworker felt that a summer intern was a close enough friend with whom she could share my personal business.

Franz says "when communication processes fail, trust is often lost" (2012, p. 133). Most certainly, a communication process failed and the resulting isolation has led to a different reduced interactions. Now, I don't eat lunch with her any longer, don't share details of my private life, and restrict communications to work-related only. Moreover, I'm left with the sense of confusion as to whether the late stage high-performing team I thought we once had is, in truth, only in its storming phase.

Additional References

Franz, T. (2012). Group dynamics and team interventions: Understanding and improving team performance. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

Funk, C.A. & Kulik, B.W. (2012). Happily ever after: Toward a theory of late stage group performance. Group & Organization Management, 37(36). doi: 10.1177/1059601111426008

Morgeson, F.P., DeRue, D.S., & Karam, E.P. (2009). Leadership in teams: A functional approach to understanding leadership structures and processes. Journal of Management, 36(5). doi: 10.1177/0149206309347376