In a small business a clique is two people: you and someone who knows things before everyone else. According to the source, a manager never forms or favors cliques, and he judges each person in the group solely by their worth to the whole group. Two more clauses follow in the same part of the code, one on protecting what already exists and one on passing on reasons.
No cliques
The third clause of the manager's code is a sharp one. It asks the manager to embrace the organization and to act only for the organization as a whole, never forming or favoring cliques.
In a big organization a clique can be a whole department. In a business of six, a clique is two people. It almost always happens without anyone intending it. There is a veteran you like thinking out loud with, and slowly he knows what is coming a month before everyone else.
The price lands on you. The others stop telling you what they see, because they already know the decision was made somewhere else.
Suppose a garage owner shares his expansion plans only with his head mechanic. The other two mechanics hear about them from a supplier.
Or a shop owner who always consults the same employee. After six months the rest of the staff have stopped offering ideas. The same owner, after setting aside five minutes every morning where everyone hears the same thing, sees the ideas come back within two weeks.
What you judge by
The clause goes on to give a single standard. The manager judges each individual in the group by one thing only, which is what that person is worth to the whole group.
The word solely clears a lot out of the calculation. How pleasant someone is, how many years they have been around, how much they agree with you: none of these enter the judgment.
On paper that sounds cold. In practice it protects exactly the people who need protecting. The quiet employee who produces a lot and speaks rarely is credited for what he does, and loses nothing to the colleague who shines in meetings.
Suppose an owner promotes whoever talks the most in meetings. Within a year he discovers that his real producer has left.
Or a crew boss who builds a table of what each person actually delivered this quarter. The two people she rated highest are not at the top of it.
And the other side: a bakery owner who keeps an inefficient employee for seven years because he was there from the start. It costs her two shifts a week, every week.
Protect what already exists
Two more clauses cover what the manager has to guard. One says to protect all the affinity in his charge and to have an affinity for the group himself. The other says to protect all established communication lines and to complement them where necessary.
Affinity here is narrower than liking. It means closeness, and the willingness to share a room with someone.
The verb the source picks is protect. Guard what already exists against erosion. Creating something new is a different job. In a small business that erosion is quiet. Two employees stop talking to each other. A channel goes silent because someone once didn't answer. An old habit disappears and nobody decided to end it.
The less comfortable part sits at the end of the first clause: the manager needs affinity for the group too. Contempt for the people and protection of them don't go together.
Suppose an owner notices that two employees only ever speak through him. He gives them one joint task, and the line between them opens back up.
Or a kitchen manager who stops answering the team group chat. Within a month the chat is dead, and daily reporting dies with it.
Pass on the reason with the decision
The twelfth clause separates a good manager from someone who just relays orders. According to the source, the manager should require his subordinates to relay, within their own spheres of management, the whole of his true feelings and the reasons for his decisions.
A limit follows, and it matters just as much. The reasons may be passed on, expanded and interpreted only so that the people those subordinates govern understand more.
So explaining is allowed and changing is not. An interpretation meant to clarify belongs to the job. One meant to soften the decision, apologize for it or distance yourself from it turns it into somebody else's decision. In a business of ten people or fewer you are usually both the manager and the one relaying, so this rule applies to you twice.
Suppose an owner tells his team that it was decided upstairs, about a decision he made himself. The team understands there is no one to talk to about it.
Or a partner who passes along a decision made by the other partner and adds that personally he disagrees. It gets carried out halfway, and late. Once he starts saying he would not have chosen it himself, and here is her reason, and it is a good one, execution goes back to full.
What the booklet has on this
The chapter this article draws on includes two exercises, the clique and the reason. It also has a self-check, and it belongs to a booklet that helps you write your own code in five to ten lines.
A clique of two forms without anyone intending it, which is why it is easy to miss. Its result is the part you can see: a team that has stopped bringing you information.