Social glue: Defined
Social glue occurs between people as a result of common experiences, stories and rituals – be that at work or in a social capacity. When present, social glue fosters a sense of mutual understanding, respect, and camaraderie within the team, developing relationships beyond superficiality. The resulting cohesion strengthens connections – ultimately lending a helping hand to achieving success.
Cultivating social glue
Social glue starts from the top. It’s essential for a leader to explore what motivates each individual member therefore, as well as understanding the constraints and capabilities of employees plus what each member values – be it personally or professionally. Setting well-established team goals can often be a key starting point to encouraging social glue, but it is also important for team members to work on their interpersonal connections – going beyond the structures of the organisation within which they work.
Providing (appropriate) opportunities to socialise can be a key way to help nurture those connections so a team’s connection can go beyond just completing the tasks at hand. It creates an additional and much-needed extra dimension to help team members to get to know each other. It creates a space for a team to have fun and build genuine relationships. Offsites are a good opportunity for building an authentic camaraderie, while also providing the chance to have bigger-picture thinking sessions.
What’s important to keep in mind, though, is that social glue is not the product of social cliques, or ‘enforced fun’. Plus, a mutual understanding between team members is not going to be created by people oversharing or by leaders simply demanding it. Additionally, it’s also vital to be aware of the negative effect the wrong sort of social glue can have. If not appropriately directed, it can make a team become too insular – separating them from a wider company.
A high performing team, however, manages to find the balance between a common identity built on deep and meaningful bonds, and being happy to work in conjunction with other teams as and when it’s required.
Social capital within a company
As social glue reinforces the team’s fabric, the social capital of both individuals and the collective team grows. Crucially, that helps a team become more efficient and productive as it allows more effective distribution of effort, as well as having a shared clarity of focus.
Furthermore, there is another element to social glue. When people are comfortable with one another, they are more likely to ask harder questions – helping to whittle out any areas of weakness, to demand more from each other, and simply to trust that everyone is in alignment when it comes to the pursuit of team goals.
Putting that into a real-world context can help emphasise the power of social glue. Imagine a marketing agency tasked with setting up a client’s website, which, when the website went live, had many problems with links, text, imagery and copy. The team could fall prey to blaming one another, or other teams around them. However, if they have a strong mutual understanding, they are more likely to take ownership of the problems and have a thorough and honest debrief about the root causes so it doesn’t happen again.
Using Goldcrest Partners to help
Simply understanding what social glue is, and why it is so vital to create a high performing team capable of every success, is a great starting point. But it can be hard to achieve in practice. Plus, it is not something that can be created overnight. Strong social glue, based on genuine relationships between team members, takes time.
However, that process can be sped up with the right input from a leader.
With Goldcrest Partners, you can help nurture your team’s social glue more quickly. We have a wealth of experience in working with teams to make them closer knit and to have a common understanding – either through running offsites, or in supporting the implementation of other tools at a leader’s disposal.
Doing so can make all the difference to a team’s output. As a result, it’s imperative to take a proactive approach to encouraging social glue. For, when it binds, it can have a truly transformative effect on your team and its collective endeavours.
