In many team coaching sessions, the question arises of how to deal with situations in teams in which there are 'cliques' or 'ingroups' and 'outgroups'. As a leader, team member or facilitator, you may notice the different groupings. You see that some team members talk to each other more than others because they may be friends outside of work or share the same interests. In team coaching sessions or workshops, they sit or stand together or form small groups to work together.

Moving away from theory-based assumptions

It is often assumed that the presence of subgroups in teams is a sign of 'lack of cohesion' or conflict in a team. I think this is a theory-led assumption: we think we know what a perfect team should look like - take any of the more common models - and compare our team to this 'ideal' model. In doing so, we forget that no team is ideal, that every team is made up of different people who work together differently and that every team has different tasks and therefore needs different ways of working together. So it might not actually be a problem at all - the team members might simply get on well with the cliques or subgroups. As long as everyone is comfortable and willing to do their best, you should simply ignore the problem.

Observe, don't interpret!

If it does seem to be a problem: communicate your observation in concrete, observable terms. And very important: stick to your observations and do not interpret them!

Hold back with your personal interpretations: Avoid statements such as "We have problems with exclusion in our team" or "There is no team cohesion", but share what exactly you observe: "We hardly do anything together as a whole team. Usually Fred, Martha and James do things together, and Rick, Paula and Anne work together. Sometimes we end up with different views on where we want to go as a team. For example, last week, one half thought we had to finish the project on Thursday and rushed like crazy, while the other half understood that the deadline was next Monday and took things very calmly. This led to misunderstandings and upsets. Can we talk about this?"

In short: Observe - don't make accusations. If you interpret anything at all, interpret that everyone has good intentions.

Solving problems in dealing with subgroups in a team

Ask exactly what the team wants instead of falling into 'blame games'. It's natural that some people prefer to work together and not have other people in the circle. So invite the team to paint a comprehensive picture of how they want the specific collaboration to work: how do they all feel they work well together as a whole team? Get specific details from each individual team member.

Experiments welcome

The next step is to invite the team to experiment and observe!

I love the 'secret mission' experiment. I can't remember who I learned this from - either Ben Furman or Daniel Meier - so please forgive me if I'm misquoting. Here's how it works: Each team member finds a 'secret mission' for themselves. Everyone does something to help the team work better together, but keeps what he or she is doing a secret. After a while, everyone comes together and guesses who has done what for the team.

In a team workshop I ran, I asked the team to take a piece of paper, write their respective names on it and then pass it around the table. All the other team members were asked to write under the name on the paper what they thought that person had done for the team. When the paper went back to the person who had written their name, everyone was surprised at what they had observed. You could feel the energy and joy rising in the room. One team member had the idea of using a 'fake' email address to send compliments to all colleagues every week.

It is therefore possible to improve team cohesion even when cliques have formed. It is important to hold back with your own interpretations and tackle the situation undramatically if necessary.

The author

Kirsten Dierolf, MCC, President of ICF Germany and Managing Director of the SolutionsAcademy.

© ICF/SolutionsAcademy

Kirsten Dierolf is MCC and President of ICF Germany (International Coaching Federation) as well as Managing Director of SolutionsAcademy, an internationally active training institute for ICF-accredited training courses. Dierolf has been coaching since 1996 and has been training coaches since 2008. She has worked in 37 countries on all continents (except Antarctica) and is the author of the book 'Lösungsfokussiertes Teamcoaching' and numerous articles in (specialist) journals as well as co-author of 'Der Lösungstango'.