Broadened Contacts, Not Deepened Ties or Absorbed Hours: Where Time Freed from a Difficult Working Relationship Goes, and Employee Improvement Ideas

Abstract

Among 356 employees in seven organizations who scaled back contact with a colleague they found persistently difficult while keeping the contact their shared projects required, we compared where the freed time went over the next three months, using messaging and meeting metadata. Employees who spread it across three or more new regular contacts in at least two other departments ("broadened," n=118) had 0.86 improvement ideas per person advanced to pilot over nine months by a review panel blind to group, versus 0.70 for employees who spent it on colleagues they already worked with closely ("deepened," n=131; a 23% gap) and 0.67 for employees whose freed time went into solo work ("absorbed," n=107; a 28% gap). Once the number of distinct departments in each employee's regular contacts was taken into account, the broadened–deepened gap fell from 23% to 6%. A reference sample of 142 employees who reported no difficult relationship but added a similar number of new cross-department contacts in the same period reached 0.84 ideas per person. Broadened employees paid for the new contacts in the short run: over the first three months they closed 41.2 of their own work items a month, against 44.1 for absorbed employees (a 7% gap), a difference that had closed by months seven to nine.

1. Introduction

The usual story about stepping back from a colleague you cannot work with is a story about the person stepping back. They regain energy, they stop dreading certain meetings, and they are better off. That story may be true. It is also incomplete, because the hours do not disappear. They go somewhere.

Where they go could matter more than the stepping back. Improvement ideas in organizations tend to come from people who see more than one part of the operation, and a person who redirects freed time toward unfamiliar colleagues sees more of it. We wanted to know whether employees who broadened their contacts after reducing a difficult relationship produced more improvement ideas than those who deepened existing ties or simply worked alone, and whether contact breadth, rather than the reduction itself, accounted for any difference.

2. Method (Summary)

Employees in seven organizations (two manufacturers, a logistics firm, an insurer, two software companies, and a regional utility) completed a baseline survey that asked whether they had a working relationship they found persistently difficult. Those who did, and whose metadata showed contact with that colleague falling by at least 40% over the following three months compared with the three months before, were eligible. Contact tied to shared projects, identified by project codes on meetings, had to continue. Of 417 eligible employees, 356 fell into one of three patterns and 61 with an intermediate pattern were excluded.

Messaging and meeting metadata (counts and participants only, no content) classified where freed time went. "Broadened" employees added three or more new regular contacts, meaning two or more exchanges a month, in at least two departments other than their own (n=118). "Deepened" employees increased contact mostly among people they already exchanged with weekly and added no more than one new regular contact (n=131). "Absorbed" employees showed no increase in contact with anyone (n=107).

The primary outcome was the number of ideas each employee submitted to their organization's internal improvement program that a review panel advanced to pilot within nine months of baseline. Panels saw ideas without submitter names or group. Secondary measures were the share of submitted ideas with a co-submitter from another department and each employee's own work items closed per month, from task-tracking records. A reference sample of 142 employees who reported no difficult relationship and added three or more new regular contacts in at least two other departments over the same three months was drawn from the same organizations.

3. Findings

Broadened employees had 0.86 ideas per person advanced to pilot, deepened employees 0.70 (a 23% gap), and absorbed employees 0.67 (a 28% gap). Deepened and absorbed employees did not differ meaningfully. The reference sample, who had no difficult relationship to step back from, reached 0.84.

Adding the number of distinct departments among each employee's regular contacts to the comparison cut the broadened–deepened gap from 23% to 6%. Of submitted ideas, 36% from broadened employees had a co-submitter from another department, against 29% from deepened and 28% from absorbed employees.

Broadened employees closed 41.2 of their own work items a month over the first three months, against 44.1 for absorbed (a 7% gap) and 43.0 for deepened employees. By months seven to nine, broadened employees closed 45.0 items a month, absorbed employees 44.6, and deepened employees 44.3.

4. Discussion

A common account treats the difficult colleague as the obstacle and distance as the cure. On these numbers, the distance did little by itself. Deepened and absorbed employees reduced the same relationship and produced ideas at about the same rate as each other. What separated the broadened group was breadth: once department count was in the comparison, most of their advantage went with it, though department count and group membership overlap by design. The reference sample, who reached a similar rate without stepping back from anyone, points the same way. None of these employees cut the difficult colleague out of shared work, since eligibility required that project contact continue; the reduction applied to everything around it.

Why would breadth matter more than closeness? Close colleagues tend to see the same problems in the same light. A new contact in procurement or field support sees a different set, and an idea that spans both may need someone who has heard from both. The co-submission figures fit this reading, though they cannot prove it.

That breadth was not free. For three months, broadened employees closed fewer of their own items, and the time their new contacts gave them came out of those contacts' weeks as well. The return reached people beyond the employee: a piloted idea is a change to someone else's process, often in the department where the new contact sat.

5. Limitations and Future Directions

Employees chose where to spend freed time. Those inclined to seek out new colleagues may also have been more inclined to submit ideas, which the reference sample cannot fully rule out. Excluding 61 employees with intermediate patterns sharpened the contrast between groups and probably widened the reported gaps. Because the broadened group was defined partly by contacts in two or more other departments, adjusting for department count overlaps with the group definition itself; the drop from 23% to 6% shows that breadth and group membership travel together more than it isolates breadth as the cause. Metadata showed who was contacted, not what was said, so we cannot tell which conversations led to which ideas. Idea programs differed across the seven organizations in how readily they advanced ideas to pilot. A follow-up will test structured cross-department introductions offered to a random half of employees who report a difficult relationship.

Editorial Note

This report underwent CfAHC's Rapid Review Protocol, including AI-assisted literature cross-checking and a two-reviewer human sign-off.