Consider this scenario:

A dirty street. A bleak, late afternoon. The street is empty. You spot a person across the road. Same race, same height, same clothing, same hairstyle. For a split second you’re alert, but then you carry on, feeling no sense of danger.

And then you come across another person. Different race, different physiology, different clothes, different hairstyle. You feel your body tensing up. Your jaw tightens. After you’ve passed them, you relax. And you feel a little bit ashamed – am I scared of them just because they look different to me?

Same street. But the rubbish collectors have now ended their strike. The street is clean. The sidewalks seem wider. The two abandoned cars have finally been towed away. You pass a person in the street. Same race, same height, same clothing, same hairstyle. Not even a fleeting sense of danger. You pass another person – different race, different physiology, different clothes, different hairstyle. “I love the mix of people in this town”, you think to yourself.

A simple story, but one that illustrates the facts uncovered by recent research in The Netherlands. As reported in The Naked Scientist, researchers in Utrecht cleverly used a strike by cleaners at the train station to prepare the perfect setting for their experiment. I quote from the article on the NS website:

“Asking a mixture of white men and women to take part in a questionnaire, the researchers invited the participating commuters to sit on one of a line of six chairs, a seat at one of which was already occupied by either a white or black assistant. Unbeknown to the volunteers, the researchers were watching which seat in the row they elected to sit on.

When the station was messy at the height of the strike, the participants sat, on average, 50% further away from the already-seated individual compared with when the station was tidy – but only if he was black. When the already-seated individual was white, there was no difference between tidy and messy days and the participating commuters left an average of two empty seats between themselves and the person already sitting down.” (To read the whole article, click here.)

This difference in behaviour between chaotic and orderly surroundings cannot be ignored in organisations. In chaotic surroundings, we will try to create our own stability, our own order, sometimes resorting to stereotyping to simplify our thinking.

Whereas the application of this to the physical work environment is obvious (please, tidy up after yourself), it’s worth taking it one step further, applying it to the “inner world” of the organisation or team, especially in times of change.

How might team members cope in times of uncertainty?
How might their relationships change? Might there be more polarisation? Might “cliques” start to emerge?
Is there anything that can be done in order to reduce this perception of chaos?

A complex issue, but an ever present one.