I gave a client's boss a copy of DeMarco & Lister's "Peopleware" to read. I was younger and more innocent at the time and thought it would persuade him to change some of his incredibly damaging management practices. He'd produced an incredibly adversarial fear-based working environment that was killing productivity.

For those who've read the book (and if you haven't you should... now... seriously....) this guy was the poster-boy for the Teamicide chapter.

He came back to me after the weekend telling me how much he loved the book. Could really see how it could help the organisation. Would be making changes this week. I walked away feeling smug.

What was the lesson he drew from the book? Of all the lessons that he could learn?

In one chapter there is a brief section on how to spot jelled teams where they mention signs like going out for a drink together after work.

So he decided to take the company bowling on Friday nights.

Attendance compulsory.

Correlation. Causation. So easy to confuse.

(At this point I'm less smug.)

Let us say the result of mandating adversarial teams working fifty hours weeks socialise around a competitive game where alcohol was available was not ideal. During week 1 there was shouting. Week 2 resulted in a fight. There wasn't a week 3.

On the bright side it was the final straw the caused some folk to resign :-)