Is Your Organization Digging Trenches or Building Bridges?

We’re surrounded by entrenchment. In the U.S., we constantly hear of lawmakers unable to pass collaborative legislation because they’re entrenched in increasingly polarized positions. Stories of failed mergers and acquisitions populate the business press, as leaders attempting to blend cultures and groups remain entrenched in their way of leading and “their” group’s ways of working. And for those of us just trying to complete our own work, how often have we been derailed when other groups of people (those accountants, those marketing folks, those leaders) were entrenched in their view of the problem?

Entrenchment happens when an attitude, habit, or belief becomes so firmly established that it morphs from “what I believe” into “who I am,” and it makes change difficult and unlikely. In organizations, we often see the beginnings of entrenchment in groups and teams when individuals categorize themselves and others into subgroups. Subgroup entrenchment happens when group members believe that there are clear clusters of team members who have shared, specific views. This type of entrenchment is based on perceptions that a division between “us and them” exists, regardless of whether it actually does. Entrenched divisions are often seen as a state of being — that they’re fixed, stable, and not fluid. Most importantly, they’re often imbued with ideological significance, and this is where problems arise.

The Paradox of Entrenchment

Decades of research show that the perceived divisions across subgroups, sometimes called “faultlines,” can increase negative forms of conflict and decrease open communication, team commitment, innovation, and performance. The more entrenched subgroups feel, the harder it is to see across the divide and consider the perspective of the “other.” Unsurprisingly, this leads to higher potential for increased polarization and worse outcomes for the overall team.

That said, there’s an upside to entrenchment. The subgroups themselves can be quite content working together. Working in a small team with impenetrable boundaries can increase a sense of belonging, cohesion, and implicit acceptance. For example, marketers and accountants may have trouble working together, as each subgroup has different training and an implicit language, but enjoy interacting within their own teams for those same reasons.   

Organizational leaders can harness the benefits of subgroups while avoiding the potential pitfalls of entrenchment. Before building bridges across the divides and engaging subgroups in more positive ways, the first step is to understand the key divisive forces at play.

How to Spot Entrenchment

First, leaders must be acutely aware of the potential for (or the actual) division in their teams, based on a number of different attributes and identities. Not all subgroup types have the same effect — some can fuel innovation and constructive conflict, while others can be divisive and trigger polarization. Look out for subgroup types based on the following factors:

• Spatial presence. Team members experience shared events differently depending on their location and the richness of interaction it allows. For example, in hybrid teams, remote team members may not be able to participate in group interactions as often or as vigorously as those who are co-located, creating a natural faultline. For those who are co-located, sharing informal and nonverbal behaviors allows members to quickly find things they have in common and hold side conversations, which can result in subgroups with different levels of shared information, trust, and commitment to plans of action.
• Surface-level characteristics. These are factors like gender, race, age, and language. Subgroups based on these characteristics form most readily in face-to-face environments because similarity to other members is readily apparent. These subgroup types are generally associated with negative outcomes, as individuals from one subgroup infer and assume values of the other person or subgroup — for example, based on stereotypes associated with superficial characteristics. These assumptions cause reluctance and frustration in communicating across subgroups that ultimately results in more conflict and lower levels of performance.
• Knowledge bases. Things like educational and functional background, previous work experience, and expertise predispose people to communicate in certain ways or to have certain mindsets. For example, in product development, the concerns of marketers may be very different from the concerns of the R&D team. Despite this, with good leadership, they’ll benefit from making the effort to understand one another and challenge their thinking, and this type of subgroup engagement is likely to lead to a positive outcome.
• Deep-level identities. Our values, beliefs, religion, and ideas about morality pose the greatest risk of divisiveness because they’re based on our core assumptions about ourselves and the world, and being confronted with others who don’t share them can feel threatening. These subgroups typically take longer to emerge, yet in times where political divides and social movements permeate workplace interactions, the divisions lurk closely beneath the surface. Once these subgroups manifest, they’re likely to be easily entrenched and polarizing and can have destructive effects on team outcomes.

Second, observe how team members engage and interact with one another in both the physical and virtual worlds to uncover who might be part of various subgroups. Ask yourself: Who talks to whom? Who aligns or continually disagrees with whom — despite the idea being discussed? Who chats together during virtual meetings or turns off their camera when someone from the other group is speaking? Who engages in informal interactions such as coffee discussions or inside jokes? These patterns of interaction offer important cues about whether subgroups exist, who might be aligned, and what information or attributes they’re aligned on.

Third, be mindful that, when subgroups emerge within a team, it’s likely that the team’s leader, by virtue of their demographic attributes, knowledge, experience, and values, is more aligned with one subgroup over the others (which may not be obvious at first glance). This alignment, coupled with the leader’s influence, has the potential to shape how these subgroups interact.

How to Combat Entrenchment

From the moment a subgroup is formed, it creates a history of its own — a shared identity and subculture that contains stories of triumph, loss, and sometimes intense emotional experiences that can be personal in nature — even if the interaction is purely virtual. Our research highlights that the longer we work in our particular subgroups, the more similarities we begin to find and create between us, which ultimately strengthens entrenchment.

Leaders can use several strategies to help weaken the boundaries between subgroups in order to resist entrenchment. At the core of these strategies is to encourage not only perspective-taking, but also empathy, care, and identification with the “other side.”

• Shake things up. Shuffling around team membership (for example, through job rotation or project allocation), changing up workstation locations, being intentional about breaking out virtual and co-located employees in meetings, and bringing in new team members with different experiences and backgrounds helps break down the perceived divisions of existing groups. These actions offer a chance to question “the way things are done around here,” but be aware that they can also leave those who were once entrenched in bonded teams feeling lonely, disoriented, and grieving a meaningful team identity. To avoid this, pre-frame the team shake-up in a positive way — for example, “We’re moving resources around to help the team meet their goals even more quickly.”
• Focus on shared goals and shared adversaries. Reemphasize the overall team’s shared purpose and goals and their urgency by outwardly measuring them. For example, assigning a complex joint project between two departments or assigning members from different subgroups to work together on a new and challenging task helps provide a common goal and purpose that overrides those of the subgroups. If this isn’t enough to dissolve what can feel like fixed divisions, identifying a common adversary (such as a competing company’s counterpart team) can encourage two groups to coalesce with emotion and energy. It’s important to monitor any negative emotions that might emerge toward that adversary to ensure that they’re perceived as healthy competition.
• Spend time together. To find things in common with members of other subgroups, people need to spend both formal and informal time together. Points of similarity found here can help members identify with those on the other side — for example, maybe both a woman and a man on a team are parents. This is more difficult in times of remote work, so you need to be intentional about organizing informal interactions. You might begin each meeting with a request that each person share a personal win or challenge. Informal connection time also needs to be regarded as important. Hold informal work meetups during business hours so employees don’t feel like they’re adding more virtual hours to their already long days.
• Engage bridge builders. When groups are deeply entrenched, it may be useful to engage “boundary spanners,” or people who can cross boundaries and still be seen as “one of us” (for example, by sharing several identities with multiple groups). Research shows that boundary spanners can act as cultural brokers between different groups — they can “speak both languages” and be accepted by each group and actively play a role in reducing entrenchment and polarization.
• Experiment with identity play and paradox mindset. Identity play is a process of experimenting with different identities and the mindsets that accompany them. For example, how might you and your employees experience living a day in someone else’s shoes? When confronted with your “view of the other” at work, as often as possible, reflect on and challenge your core assumptions of what’s right and the values on which those views may be based. Ask your team members to consider for themselves: What if I were one of the members of the other subgroup? What would life look like, feel like? How would I see my own team or division or interest group through their eyes? When debating a decision, ask subgroup members to practice responding as if they belong to the other subgroup. Learning to adopt and practice a paradox mindset where individuals can truly see themselves as members of both sides and derive energy from the tensions between them can support this process as well.

In difficult times, where our morals and values are tested and challenged, the path of least resistance is to become entrenched in the safety and comfort our views, values, and groups. To create and empower a high-performing team and organization, leaders need to learn to become bridge builders.