The Dangers of “Mandatory Fun”

A few years ago upper management at the organization where I worked decided that people in my department did not connect enough socially. Recognizing that loneliness and a lack of connection are serious workplace issues, they arranged a weekly gourmet lunch for us, creating a comfortable, relaxed venue where we had the time and space to bond. It was a simple and, on its face, noble idea. But within three weeks I stopped going to the lunches (and soon after that, they petered out altogether). My decision had nothing to do with my colleagues, whom I liked quite a bit. I stopped going because the conversation always turned to work. The personal downtime that I’d previously spent pondering Minnesota Timberwolves box scores, personal rankings of Stevie Wonder albums, or nothing at all had been absorbed into my workday. And I didn’t like that. The leaders in my organization had correctly identified the problem, but they missed the mark on a solution. They are not alone; companies routinely hold mandatory social activities that are awkward at best and alienating at worst. As the typical work-life balance shifts ever more toward the office, companies need to consider a new approach that encourages connections outside the office to help employees recharge, reenergize, and reengage. What Stops Us from Connecting at Work Office holiday parties, workplace mixers, and organizational retreats — complete with trust falls and the like — have become the stuff of cinematic parody. Beyond the general trivialness of such activities, their ability to establish genuine social ties often fails because of several basic psychological tendencies. Common ground. At those workplace lunches, my colleagues and I succumbed to one of the tendencies — what psychologists call the common information effect. This is the inclination of people with different expertise, interests, and experiences to immediately gravitate to topics they have in common. In our case, the topic was work. For an activity that was intended to help us connect with one another and develop new bonds, focusing on what we already had in common was hardly useful. Many of us have experienced social functions at work that end up being complaint-and-gossip sessions that just make us feel worse. Birds of a feather. Homophily, a related phenomenon, is the tendency of people to seek out others like themselves. It serves some useful purposes — it makes it easier to break the ice with people we don’t know very well, for example. But several studies show that homophily has a downside, preventing us from reaching out to people who aren’t like us, especially when it comes to race. Research led by Ohio State professor Tracy Dumas shows that participating in work-related social events generates social connections among coworkers only if they are of the same race. In a related study, Columbia professors Paul Ingram and Michael Morris examined a mixer attended by 100 business executives who were primarily based in New York City. Although the event was advertised as an opportunity to meet new people, attendees associated mainly with those they already knew, and most joined groups that contained at least one member of their own race. Muddling relationship types. It’s also difficult to create real social connections at work because doing so requires us to mix different relationship types. In 1979 the psychologists Margaret Clark and Judson Mills identified two types of human relationships: communal and exchange. The foundation for communal relationships is providing to others on the basis of their needs; we typically form these relationships with friends and family. In exchange relationships, a person gives in anticipation of receiving something in return. Not surprisingly, this is the type of relationship we typically form with colleagues. Mixing communal behaviors with exchange relationships — often the implicit function of work-driven social gatherings — can be discomfiting. When one person in an exchange relationship adopts communal behaviors, by disclosing vulnerabilities, asking for emotional support, or, worse, making romantic overtures, the other person may want to run for the exit. There’s a time and a place for mixing business with pleasure, but for the most part, crossing the line often results in shared awkwardness, not closer connections. Co-opting Leisure Time Despite the abysmal track record of many if not most attempts to engineer social connections at work, companies continue to promote all manner of activities and events. This causes a broader problem: the creeping intrusion of the workplace into every facet of our lives. Numerous commentators have described the increasing tendency of employers to co-opt our leisure time, including in an HBR cover story last year on how to survive the “24/7 workplace.” Many organizations today expect employees to be constantly available for work and to prioritize work over other important aspects of life, including parenting. In such cultures, employers increasingly blur the line between work and social lives. Stroll through the headquarters of any well-funded tech company, and you’ll see “perks” ranging from well-stocked kitchens to gyms, meditation spaces, physical therapists, and play spaces (foosball, Ping-Pong, and similar activities), all designed to encourage employees to bring elements of their outside life into the organization. The goal may be to reduce loneliness by building social connections among employees, but it’s possible that by keeping us away from genuine communal relationships, this encroachment of work into our personal lives is driving much of our isolation. Two recent books expound on companies’ desire to control their employees’ social lives outside the workplace. James Livingston’s No More Work and Elizabeth Anderson’s Private Government describe employers’ capacity to determine our employment status on the basis of whether we have consumed alcohol outside work, tweeted a disagreeable statement, or even attended — or declined to attend — a political rally. Anderson also addresses companies’ tendency to interfere with their employees’ social lives, stating, “Employers unilaterally determine work schedules [such as split shifts that] wreak havoc with the private lives of workers: they can’t arrange child care…and [workers] are left with unpaid junk time on their hands in the middle of the day, often hours from home, and with no opportunity to spend it with friends and family.” It’s likely that such policies inhibit or damage communal relationships, making loneliness on the job even worse. Another take on the corporatization of social life can be found in Andy Merrifield’s The Amateur, in which he relates how leisure activities including gardening, working on one’s car, and sculpting have become increasingly professionalized. Merrifield describes this trend as a societal pressure to turn things we enjoy doing into lines on our CVs. When hobbies become jobs, he writes, “The job, in simple terms, transforms a labour of love into a loathing of labour.” The same is true of our social lives: Even for people who are naturally extroverted, being forced to be friendly in a work context may sap the intrinsic joy of affiliating with others. Merrifield, like Livingston and Anderson, is an academic in the humanities. In my world, that of business schools and corporations, their views are uncommon — even, in many places, nonexistent. In my world “engagement” is a buzzword on par with “disruption.” In my MBA classes I’ve taught plenty about engagement. And countless companies and organizational scholars preach the importance of motivating employees and making them feel more connected and less lonely. But as the epidemic of loneliness in and out of the workplace has spread, I’ve decided to try something different: disengagement. Let people go home, let them spend time with their families, let them head to the bar and check out Tinder, let them play in a band and record an album. Rather than mandating “fun,” give them a day off, and watch their social lives flourish and their loneliness fade away. The Big Idea

The Dangers of “Mandatory Fun”

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