It is not easy to get to the bottom of an organization’s culture. Culture cannot be decided and is therefore not easy to discuss. Fortunately, organizational sociology provides a heuristic that helps to investigate the relevant phenomena. We call them the searchlights of organizational culture.
In this series, we present these searchlights. This article discusses collegiality.
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The phenomenon of collegiality comprises the latent norms and expectations prevailing between members of an organization. The issue is therefore essentially one of the social manners expected among, as a rule, all the organization’s members, even where personal acquaintances or likings have no part to play. These social manners apply to new colleagues in the neighboring department just as much as to employees in the regional branch – even if there is little or no contact with them on a daily basis.
Collegiality: Latent norms of general interaction between
organizational members that go beyond formal expectations.
Collegiality is therefore a decisive factor in social interaction. A newcomer in an organization will very soon notice what can or cannot be expected of colleagues. This covers issues workers will sort out themselves and those they will sort out in the presence of superiors. It also covers another question: What mutual support is covered by the framework of collegial norms, and do
expectations still apply when an employee’s own duties suffer as a result?
As an informal phenomenon, collegiality will soon be learned – or the failure to learn will quickly become evident through frictions in everyday routines. But in most cases it is not explicitly communicated. However, once internalized through observations, personal conversations or the odd gaffe or two, collegial norms form a solid point of reference for an organization’s members.
Here, the role of the people involved is paramount. Naturally, any expectation of personal favors – e.g., the willingness to have successes attributed to others despite one’s own contribution or standing in for others at a moment’s notice – may increase almost arbitrarily the more personal liking or personal familiarity (and often trust) develops (see also clique formation).
An organization’s corpus of collegial norms is, in principle, accessible to all its members – at least with regard to similar hierarchical levels or work relationships. Although friendships offer opportunities for exclusive advantages, collegiality is common property and therefore does not
commit anyone to specific gratitude.
Anyone who covers up for a colleague’s mistakes in front of customers or managers will not normally find a bouquet of flowers on their desk. And what is much more important, you can only, to a limited degree, request some favor in return without affecting the personal relationship.
What function does collegiality perform for an organization?
What purpose does this phenomenon serve if it operates both below the threshold of the formal rules and independently of in-depth personal relationships?
First of all, collegial norms act as a kind of buffer to safeguard problematic idealized concepts of an organization. It is assumed (i.e., the organization assumes) that the ability to work in a team is possible, even when shared resources are in short supply. An expectation of this kind cannot be
explained logically since a shortage of resources is generally more likely to lead to increased competition. When coveted individual work stations are in short supply in an open-plan office, or if only some and not all of a team’s good ideas for projects can be financed, it would hardly be surprising if individuals’ strategies to advance their own interests tend to be less than conducive
to a balanced team chemistry. Collegiality acts here as a mechanism to limit potential conflicts by means of shared norms.
Moreover, this not only applies to restricted project budgets. Competition for notoriously scarce promotion opportunities is alleviated by expectations about collegial conduct. If an inexperienced colleague is promoted, it may personally rile the rival candidates, but collegiality “rules” generally act to limit their expressions of annoyance. Disgruntlement is not generally expressed
in the form of open sabotage in the presence of shared bosses or customers.
Examples may prove the rule, but they always lead to any infringement of collegiality norms being informally sanctioned by third parties as well, even if they feel that the personal grievance is understandable.
The norms of collegiality can also perform a social control function, even in the absence of any formal validity. It is hard to believe that of collegiality, which is normally described in purely positive terms, but its functions also include replacing formal hierarchical control. Collegiality based expectations can subject people to stress, e.g., because it is clear that people will not let
each other down regardless of staff shortages, inadequate equipment or totally excessive demands on an individual’s own workload. Instead, people work together to smooth out failings in the formal structures, the customer’s hair-raising expectations, or the CEO’s unfair deadlines so that colleagues or their own team are not left looking bad – even beyond the boundaries of what can
be formally expected or even permitted in terms of personal effort.
This is often functionally beneficial for an organization (see also “Useful illegality”) because such over-commitment conceals structural defects or a lack of realism. Nevertheless, such forms of collegiality can quickly become a personal endurance test.
What consequential problems does this entail?
Despite all its functions, collegiality obviously brings consequential problems in its train as well, and they have to be understood if a company wants to shed light on its own organizational culture. What the precise problems are and how they are expressed in concrete terms can only be described in an actual case. However, the fundamental mechanisms are evident across very
different organizations.
Colleagues’ behavioral expectations can easily create conflicts of loyalty. Employees repeatedly find themselves in situations where they have to decide which behavioral expectations they will disappoint: the formal ones determined by the organization, or the collegial ones created informally. For example, when and under what circumstances do you report the misconduct of a colleague who is working at a machine without the prescribed personal protective equipment?
When do you point out errors in the content of a colleague’s presentation at a Board meeting? Do you join in the obligatory informal extension of the lunch break in the canteen, or are you the spoilsport who wants to send the Steering Committee the project report by early afternoon?
There are no generally accepted answers to such questions, at least not without disregarding normative values. After all, the organizational world is full of grey areas where participants constantly have to assess whether the formal or informal consequences of their behavior carry more weight.
These questions should be considered:
- In what cases do you back each other up?
- What unwritten laws define your interaction with each other?
This article is an excerpt from the white paper “Nail the pudding to the wall! How to analyse, discuss – and successfully influence – your organization’s culture”. The full whitepaper is available to download free of charge here.