Work teams with friends perform better

Workplace teams that include friends perform much better than groups of acquaintances or strangers, a study has found.

Researchers analysed the results of 26 different studies. They found that teams with friends were particularly effective when the groups were larger and when their focus was on maximising output.

"Working with friends is not just something that makes us feel good - it can actually produce better results," said Robert Lount, professor at Ohio State University in the US.

The study was led by Seunghoo Chung, a doctoral student at Ohio State. The results appear online in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and will be published in a future print edition.
 

The researchers analysed studies about teams that used participants with established friendships and that included teams with non-friends or acquaintances as a comparison group. All the studies also clearly measured task performance.

In the end, the 26 studies they analysed included 1,016 groups with 3,467 participants.

Overall, results showed friendship groups had a clear performance advantage, whether the tasks required brawn or brains. The advantage was found in all age groups.

The larger the teams studied, the bigger the positive effect of friendship groups, the study found.

"Friends can coordinate tasks more effectively. They know each other's strengths and weaknesses and can figure out how to break up the work in the most efficient way," said Chung.

Findings showed that friendship groups did better in tasks where the goal was to produce the most output, but did not have an advantage when the goal was to find the optimal solution to a problem.

When the goal is maximising output, the biggest issue is often keeping people motivated, and that's where friends are helpful, Chung said.

"When you're working with friends, you tend to be in a better mood and can work through the adversity and strain that sometimes comes from having to produce a lot in a short time," Chung said.

However, when the goal is coming up with the best answer to a problem, there may be an upside to working with strangers, Lount said.

People who are not friends may be more likely to constructively disagree, to talk about the pros and cons of a proposed solution, and be less likely to just go along with the crowd.

Overall, Lount said the results suggest that managers should consider (non-mandatory) social events and team- building exercises that encourage friendships.

"When employees are having fun together, it may have long-term benefits for productivity," he said.

"As a manager, you must balance allowing friends the opportunity to socialise, but also making sure that they don't spend too much time at the water cooler," he added.

The bottom line is that managers should look for ways to build teams around groups of friends, Chung said.