What makes a good team? Good colleagues. And what makes good colleagues? Jokes, gossip and swear words!
Work occupies a good part of life. Might as well make it a pleasant moment, with rich human relationships. Moreover, these rich human relationships allow… to work better! This is confirmed by a study by Front, conducted in the United States in July 2021. This American computer software company sought to understand what makes an effective team. As it turns out, the more good times a team member has together, the better their job.
And it also involves things not exactly professional: gossiping, talking about their readings, making more or less good jokes, or swearing like carters. Ron Friedman, the motivational psychologist who conducted the study, explains that “Close relationships spark a host of behaviors that at first glance don’t look like hard work at all.”. In these behaviors, we intend to take breaks to tell each other the latest gossip, using sometimes flowery language.
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To be efficient, allow yourself to swear!
Because teams that talk about things not related to work develop authentic relationships. They share the good times and the bad, and don’t hesitate to tell each other what’s going well or not. 82% of top performing teams give each other compliments, compared to 71% of other teams. 54% of the best performing teams make jokes, compared to 38% of the rest.
46% of top performing teams use sarcasm among themselves, when only 36% of other teams do. When it comes to complaining, it happens naturally in 35% of top performing teams, compared to 27% for other teams. Finally, 38% of successful teams allow themselves swear words in their exchanges against only 27% of other teams. You know what you have to do to improve performance …