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In an office full of new coworkers, someone suggests going out for pizza. One person is extra hungry and gobbles up a slice too fast, burning the roof of his mouth in the process.
Has something like this ever happened to you? It’s an embarrassing moment at first, but later on, it becomes a story you joke about at the office — and possibly, it could mean much more.
Forming memories around shared experiences, whether something fun like grabbing a pizza or as emotionally straining as an employee strike, has a way of binding people together. But, as Binghamton University, State University of New York Assistant Professor Matthew Lyle helped uncover in a new study, it could also motivate those performing different roles within the same company to socialize more and strengthen their working relationships.
The study’s results could help managers understand the importance of encouraging shared memories in cross-occupational coordination at their workplace. In other words: it’s a good idea for employees to form shared memories with their colleagues.
“One major takeaway from this research is that, for larger projects involving people in different occupations or experience levels within the same company, you’ll need some kind of shared experience that enables them not only to work more effectively together but also be more comfortable sharing their ideas,” said Lyle, an expert in organizational strategy. “It could also be like a double-edged sword in a way because, if the event is strong enough to bring people together, it could also disrupt established groups.”
The study, “‘We Can Win This Fight Together’: Memory and Cross-Occupational Coordination,” was published in the Journal of Management Studies.
How a strike in South Korea helped researchers
Lyle and fellow researchers framed their study around the case of a 170-day strike in 2012 at a South Korean public broadcaster, which they anonymized as “TelvCorp” for the study. Over the years, the broadcaster employed multiple occupations and garnered prestigious awards, won primarily by reporters.
The strike happened after reporters viewed action by South Korea’s then-recently-elected conservative government in 2008 as a threat, believing their CEO had been replaced by a pro-administration figure to gain more favorable coverage. The new CEO, a former TelvCorp employee, was accused by staff of promoting executives and managers to monitor news programs and remove content perceived as critical of the government. Reporters decided to strike.
Lyle’s study noted that TelvCorp’s non-reporters were initially hesitant to participate fully due to their memories of reporters having been self-serving and ego-driven during past strikes. However, the CEO’s decision to fire union leaders, which those across occupational boundaries discussed and commonly remembered as a “call to arms,” catalyzed intense collaboration. These different groups had become what researchers call a “mnemonic community,” or group that remembers together, that endured long after the strike ended.
Unfortunately, the news was not all positive. Lyle and fellow researchers found a divide had emerged between those who went on strike and those who didn’t.
“When the strike was over, the situation became more complicated because things were unlikely to go back to the way they were at that workplace,” he said. “Now, there’s a new group after the strike, with some people saying they could no longer see colleagues who chose an opposite side in the strike as good people.”
How this research helps improve office teamwork
While Lyle and his fellow researchers reached these conclusions by studying a single organization, he believes there are lessons to be pulled from their analysis that might broadly aid organizations.
For instance, Lyle said a strong, perhaps unorthodox experience is more likely to encourage collaborative work. For example, in describing a hypothetical company retreat, Lyle mentioned how remembering “when Jenny fell off the rope swing, or when Jim face-planted trying to do that” could form a core memory that makes members more willing to work together.
While Lyle admitted those types of memories may sound juvenile or unnecessary, they form the basis of shared memories that help when people sit down at work to decide how to tackle a problem together. The gobbling of the hot pizza, then, could become a memory with lasting implications.
“When you’re in the in-group, you’re more likely to help each other out and have each other’s backs,” Lyle said. “We know we can create those things artificially, but why not create them around some shared experience that makes a memory, that makes people want to work together?”