Eating pizza with colleagues isn’t just fun, it can improve your teamwork skills

A new study from Binghamton University reveals that eating pizza with co-workers, or sharing memories, can improve teamwork. Credit: Binghamton University, State University of New York
In an office full of new co-workers, someone suggests going out for pizza. One person was so hungry that he ate a slice in no time, burning the roof of his mouth in the process.
Have you ever had something like this happen? At first it’s an embarrassing moment, but then it becomes the butt of office jokes and maybe even more.
Forming memories around shared experiences, whether it’s something fun like eating pizza or emotionally stressful like an employee strike, can be a way to bring people together. . But as Matthew Lyle, an assistant professor at Binghamton University and the State University of New York, finds in a new study, people who play different roles within the same company are motivated to be more sociable and strengthen their working relationships. There is a possibility.
The study, “‘We Can Win This Fight Together’: Memory and Adjustment Across Occupations,” is published in the Journal of Management Studies.
The results of this study may help managers understand the importance of encouraging shared memory in cross-functional coordination in the workplace. In other words, it’s a good idea for employees to form shared memories with their colleagues.
“One of the key takeaways from this research is that when large projects involve people from different professions and experience levels within the same company, they not only collaborate more effectively, they also feel more comfortable sharing. It’s their idea that there needs to be some kind of shared experience that allows them to do that,” said Lyle, an expert in organizational strategy. “If an event is powerful enough to bring people together, it can also disrupt existing groups, so it can be a kind of double-edged sword.”
How South Korea’s strike helped researchers
Lyle and his colleagues focused their study on the 170-day strike at South Korea’s public broadcaster in 2012, anonymizing the station as TelvCorp. Over the years, the station employed multiple professions and won prestigious awards, mostly won by reporters.
The strike occurred after reporters saw the actions of South Korea’s then-newly elected conservative government in 2008 as a threat. Reporters believed the CEO had been replaced by someone close to the regime to get more favorable coverage. The new CEO, a former TelvCorp employee, was accused by staff of monitoring news programs and encouraging executives and managers to remove content deemed critical of the government. The reporters decided to go on strike.
Lyle’s research found that non-reporters at Tervcorp were initially hesitant to fully participate because of memories of reporters being selfish and ego-driven during past strikes. It was done. However, the CEO’s decision to fire the union leader was discussed across the board and is commonly remembered as a “call to arms,” fostering intense collaboration. These various groups became what researchers call mnemonic communities, or groups that remembered together, and persisted long after the strike ended.
Unfortunately, the news was not all positive. Lyle and his fellow researchers found a gulf between those who participated in the strike and those who did not.
“Once the strike ended, the situation was unlikely to return to normal at that workplace and the situation became even more complicated,” he said. “Now, after the strike, a new group has formed, with some saying they no longer see their colleagues who chose the other side in the strike as good people.”
How this study can help improve teamwork in your office
Although Lyle and his fellow researchers reached these conclusions by studying a single organization, he believes there are lessons to be learned from the analysis that could help organizations broadly.
For example, Lyle says that powerful and perhaps unconventional experiences are more likely to foster collaboration. For example, in describing a fictional company training camp, Lyle says that by remembering “when Jenny fell off the rope swing, or when Jim got faceplanted trying to do it,” members became more active. We discussed how we can form core memories that will lead us to cooperate.
Lyle acknowledged that these kinds of memories may sound childish and unnecessary, but they form the basis of shared memory and help people decide how to tackle problems together at work. Then munching on a piping hot pizza can become a memory with lasting meaning.
“When you’re in an in-group, you’re more likely to help and support each other,” Lyle said. “We know we can create these things artificially, but why not create them around shared experiences that create memories and make people want to work together?”
Further information: Sung‐Chul Noh et al., “We Can Win this Fight Together”: Memory and interprofessional coordination, Journal of Management Studies (2024). DOI: 10.1111/joms.13146
Provided by Binghamton University
Quote: Eating pizza with colleagues is more than just fun. May Improve Teamwork Skills (November 12, 2024) Boost Retrieved on November 12, 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2024-11-pizza-coworkers-isnt-fun- .html
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