7.3 Week 7 – Lesson 3 (7.18)

Blog – Week 7, Lesson 3 (Activity 2)

This kind of situation happens quite often in South America: promotions can be seen as “who you know” rather than “what you deliver”. I’ve personally seen teams in retail and services split into cliques after a manager repeatedly promoted a small inner circle (people who socialised together outside work). After that, communication broke down, productivity dropped, and good employees started leaving.

Steps to get to the root cause

1. Listen first 2-4 weeks: short 1–1 meetings with everyone to hear their version of what happened.
2. Map the breakdown: identify where communication fails (handoffs, approvals, campaign work, reporting).
3. Review promotion decisions: what criteria were used, what evidence supported them, and where bias may have appeared.

Low-cost measures to restore normality

1. Reset fairness: publish clear, objective criteria for performance reviews and future promotions.
2. Transparency rules: document decisions and keep notes so people can see “why” outcomes happen.
3. Mix the teams through work: small cross-project squads with shared goals (so cliques can’t operate in silos).
4. Rotate opportunities: rotate who leads meetings, presents to leadership, or owns key tasks, so exposure isn’t limited to a few.
5. Short pulse checks: weekly 5-minute team check-ins + monthly anonymous feedback to spot issues early.

Conclusion: My focus would be rebuilding trust through fair processes, consistent behaviour, and redesigned workflows—not expensive perks. Some improvements can show up quickly, but rebuilding trust fully usually takes a few months. Once employees see that opportunities are not based on friendships, communication improves and turnover drops.