Jul 8, 2026 · 22 min · 13 segments
Workplace cliques are often dismissed as gossip, favoritism, or ordinary personality conflict. But they can also be understood as structural features of organizational life. This episode of…
Which is most of us, let's be honest.
Totally.
So we're pulling from a really fascinating stack of materials today by the theorist RJ Starr, specifically an essay titled Clique Formation and Factional Structures in Organizations, and a very pointed manager training presentation called Cliques and Factions: What to Recognize, What to Do.
Okay, let's unpack this.
We have to start with the environment that allows these shadow structures to form in the first place, right?
Yeah.
You have to understand the soil before you look at the plant.
The foundational premise across all of Starr's work is that every single organization, no matter the size or the industry, runs on two parallel systems simultaneously.
Okay, so what's the first one?
The first is the formal system.
This is the one printed in the employee handbook.
The official rules.
Right.
It dictates authority, who reports to whom, what the policies are, how performance is measured.
It's documented, it's visible, and it's highly rational.
But running right alongside it, you have the informal system.
And this one isn't written down anywhere.
Nowhere.
It's entirely unwritten.
It governs belonging, trust, loyalty, influence, and, uh, social protection.
So the formal system is like the official roadmap, but the informal system is the dirt paths and shortcuts people actually use to get around.
That's a classic way to look at it, yeah.
But reading Starr's work, that analogy actually feels a bit too passive.
It feels, um, more like the human body to me.
Like, the formal system is the skeleton and the organs, but the informal system acts like the immune system.
Which is most of us, let's be honest.
Totally.
So we're pulling from a really fascinating stack of materials today by the theorist RJ Starr, specifically an essay titled Clique Formation and Factional Structures in Organizations, and a very pointed manager training presentation called Cliques and Factions: What to Recognize, What to Do.
Okay, let's unpack this.
We have to start with the environment that allows these shadow structures to form in the first place, right?
Yeah.
You have to understand the soil before you look at the plant.
The foundational premise across all of Starr's work is that every single organization, no matter the size or the industry, runs on two parallel systems simultaneously.
Okay, so what's the first one?
The first is the formal system.
This is the one printed in the employee handbook.
The official rules.
Right.
It dictates authority, who reports to whom, what the policies are, how performance is measured.
It's documented, it's visible, and it's highly rational.
But running right alongside it, you have the informal system.
And this one isn't written down anywhere.
Nowhere.
It's entirely unwritten.
It governs belonging, trust, loyalty, influence, and, uh, social protection.
So the formal system is like the official roadmap, but the informal system is the dirt paths and shortcuts people actually use to get around.
That's a classic way to look at it, yeah.
But reading Starr's work, that analogy actually feels a bit too passive.
It feels, um, more like the human body to me.
Like, the formal system is the skeleton and the organs, but the informal system acts like the immune system.
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