Interest Cliques
Inside teams, as well as across teams, cliques form in organisations. One of the reasons for this type of informal union is the attempt to represent shared interests, which are not recognised by following the conventional ways (another reason is resistance against the interests of others.). The main means by which such cliques work is in the sharing of (unofficial) information, of personal (informal) relationships within the organisation, the (informal) provision of resources as well as the targeted spreading of rumours, which accommodate the chosen interests or discredit the representatives of counter interests.
The formation of such cliques can be neither prevented, nor is it dysfunctional as such. They are a proven way of pursuing interests outside the formal structure of an organisation. For teams, as well as for the entire organisation, they can be an indication of shortcomings in the formal decision-making processes. They can also indicate that team members experience powerlessness, feel insufficiently heard with their technical arguments or that routines have established themselves in the interaction patterns of the team, which only allow an insufficient factual engagement with the goal processing methods.