Organizations find that knowledge often gets ‘stuck’ within the different professional cliques. In a health care setting, for example, nurses talk to nurses and doctors talk to doctors, and knowledge has difficulty passing between these two professions. However, all organizations have individuals who can act information ‘brokers’, bridging the gap between the professions.
Friendships in the workplace lay the foundation for collaboration and learning. Friendship cliques, however, can also produce fissures that only people with personalities of the diplomats in the organization can span.
