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Sometimes the thing that brings us together also pulls us apart. Sort of like a zipper.

My team-bonding outing to a paintball park didn’t go so well. Although I usually pride myself on my athleticism, one of my employees described how shooting paintballs at me “was like shooting at f-ing Bambi.” My coworkers and I dressed in fatigues, wore military-style helmets, carried heavy guns loaded with paintballs, and shot at one another for what seemed like days. In retrospect, I’m not sure how this was supposed to be a team-building experience. I was covered with bruises and was truly angry with my coworkers for physically harming me. I could barely walk for a week.

My company-sponsored golf outings weren’t quite so bad. At least I didn’t suffer physically afterward. But I was new to golf, and a good number of my male colleagues took golfing extremely seriously. I worried that my short drives would slow down my foursomes, but rushing only made things worse. It’s not that I expected girlie activities, but something a little more gender neutral might have been nice. Had we headed out for a group dinner, a hike, or a field trip to a local museum, I would have felt much more comfortable.

Even the Morgan Stanley getaway exclusively for female executives was held at a golf resort and came with mandatory golf lessons. Giving Morgan Stanley the benefit of the doubt, the goal was to teach women a skill to help us fit in better with our male colleagues and clients. Let’s teach the women to be more like men, so they’ll assimilate better. There has to be a better way.

There are steps the organization can take to bring employees together, but they need to proceed with caution, lest they make things worse. Of course organizations should encourage employees to network, and company-sponsored events are a great way to encourage socialization. Sponsoring outings where men and women can socialize together in a nonthreatening environment can help establish bonds that help both employees and the organization. But common sense suggests the activities should be chosen carefully with both genders in mind. For me, shooting paintballs was equivalent to taking the men in the office for mani-pedis. Gender-neutral activities offer the best environment for both sexes to get to know one another.

Social gatherings are a great start, but sometimes such gatherings break down by gender. Women gravitate to other women, and men to other men. There’s nothing wrong with everyone doing their own thing, but it doesn’t promote cross-sex networking. Activities that force interaction encourage men and women to get to know one another without suspicion.

When done right, team-building activities can be valuable network builders. But once again, organizations need to proceed with caution. The term “team-building exercises” may bring to mind activities like “trust falls,” where employees are asked to fall backwards and trust that Jimmy from accounting—who is standing directly behind you—will catch you before you crash to the ground. From blind obstacle course driving to sumo wrestling in fat suits, there are a plethora of companies willing to set up “valuable” team-building opportunities for your work group.

However, I believe the best team-building exercises are the simplest. Creating environments where employees are encouraged to network within the workplace is the best way to get men and women to interact. You probably have heard by now about the many perks offered to the employees at Google. To name a few, this trendsetting organization provides free breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks to all its employees. The organization is equally innovative in the methods it utilizes to get employees mingling with one another.

For example, Google researched how to best encourage networking in the cafeteria.2 They installed long tables, so that employees who don’t know one another are forced to chat, and they even established the ideal length of the lunch line. It turns out, waiting three or four minutes in line for your lunch is considered optimal—any longer is a waste of time and any shorter isn’t enough time to meet new people.

Although the goal of the Google lunch line is networking of all employees, it’s also ideal for cross-sex networking and breaking down the sex partition. There is no danger in the lunch line. No one is going to think John and Judy are up to shenanigans because they were spotted next to each other in the lunch line. It’s a safe place for men and women to network.

Further encouraging employees to network, Google implemented TGIF company gatherings on Friday afternoons, where company highlights are discussed and new employees are introduced. The meetings are accompanied by snacks and beer, and employees are encouraged to socialize after the presentation. But as frequently happens with organizational attempts at networking, senior engineers became hard to find at TGIF meetings. Once again, recognizing the importance of having all employees engaged in networking activities, Google took steps to remedy this problem. At one TGIF meeting they handed out thousand-dollar cash bonuses to employees to entice them to attend.3

From lunch lines to TGIF meetings, Google makes networking part of its organizational culture. They don’t just talk about networking or have an annual dinner, they make changes to the work environment that encourage employees to interact with one another. Networking is an organizational priority at Google, as it has to be if the sex partition is to be dismantled.

Another key element to the success of networking initiatives is that top management must be on board. In business school at MIT, if the professor called on a student who couldn’t come up with an immediate answer as to how the particular company we were discussing could get out of its particular mess, there was thankfully an answer that applied to all situations. Whatever the company’s problem, and whatever the ultimate fix, the solution always “needed to have the backing of senior management.” It was almost comical how frequently that answer was given by flustered MBA students trying to come up with something intelligent to say about the problems of a besieged corporation. But it always worked. The professor would nod positively and move on to his or her next victim.

The success of this pat response was due to its underlying truth. Backing of senior management is needed for the success of almost any organizational initiative. Thus, it’s no surprise that backing of senior management is key to the success of networking efforts. It is essential that senior management not only approve of networking solutions but also participate. If networking is deemed an important part of the corporate culture, senior management should not have separate dining rooms or secluded office space. To emphasize the importance of networking at Google, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin attend the weekly TGIF meetings.

Exhibiting a similar commitment to networking was former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Whitman didn’t work from a cushy office on an executive floor, she worked from a cubicle. Why? The corporate culture was one of open collaboration, and if the CEO didn’t conform to this culture then it would send the wrong signal to employees. As a fellow cubicle dweller, Whitman sent the message that all employees were supposed to interact with one another. In other words, the networking priority had the backing of senior management.

Women-Only Activities: Thanks but No Thanks

What about women-only networking activities? In addition to the golf outing with female execs, at Morgan Stanley we occasionally had women’s dinners and lunches as a way for female employees to connect. The organizers of these same-sex events should be lauded for recognizing the problem women face establishing networks, but the same-sex nature of these social events raises some questions.

First off, what is suggested by offering such events? As far as I know there were no lunches, dinners, or weekends for male, black, Asian, handicapped, overweight, brunette, or gay employees. Indeed, no other employee category had their own events. Unfortunately, separate events for women reinforce stereotypes that women are different from men in some fundamental (nonbiological) ways. It suggests that women have some difficulty networking that needs to be filled by the organization. Well, that’s partly true. They do have trouble networking, but not with other women.

For years scholars have cautioned about isolating women at work, and have instead called for the importance of cross-gender ties. Researcher of social networks in organizations, Professor Daniel Brass describes results of his own work, “Encouraging women to form networks with other women in the same organization may be unnecessary, or, at worst, nonproductive. In terms of acquiring influence, the results of this research suggest that both men and women be encouraged to build contacts with members of the other gender.”4 Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter suggested that if women’s networking events turn into “peripheral social clubs” they can “reinforce stereotypes about women’s greater interest in talk than in tasks.”5 Similarly, Professor Herminia Ibarra concludes from her research “that women are likely to benefit from the development of greater ties to their male colleagues.”6 Cross-sex lunches or dinners would provide far greater benefits to women than segregated supping opportunities.

Some organizations go as far as to offer women-only management training programs designed to boost the career potential of female employees. The goals of these programs are, once again, admirable. In addition to imparting managerial skills to the women who participate in these programs, they offer a forum where women can discuss experiences that are unique to women in the workplace. The women may be able to support one another in discussing what it’s like to be one of few females in male-dominated management.

However, the same-sex nature of these programs is again problematic.7 Although research has shown that these programs provide women with some new leadership or management skills, researchers conclude they “serve to exclude and isolate women further from the male-dominated management ranks.”8 A primary career obstacle for female managers lies in their lack of ties with senior male managers, and offering women-only management training perpetuates the isolation instead of offering new networking opportunities. Furthermore, since the programs are made up of women, they don’t exactly provide a realistic environment for the women to practice their newfound management skills (there are no men there). And most important, by segregating the women, these programs once again perpetuate stereotypes that men and women are so different they cannot be trained together. Or worse yet, they send a message that women are such poor managers that they need special help.

By contrast, mixed-sex management training programs allow men and women to obtain leadership skills without isolating women from the men in the organization. Often these training programs require participants to break out into small groups to discuss a particular topic. This provides an ideal opportunity for cross-sex networking.

If your organization has women-only events to promote networking, they should be lauded for their good intentions. However, you may want to explain the value of cross-sex networking to the planners of these events. Once they are aware of the sex partition, they may be willing to focus more on cross-sex networking events.

Formal Mentoring Programs

Formal mentoring programs are another avenue for bringing men and women together without fear of misinterpretation. Recall that starting in elementary school, children avoid cross-sex friendships because they fear their friends will think they’re dating their cross-sex friend, or that they “like” or “love” their cross-sex friend. However, there was one situation where children comfortably interacted with cross-sex classmates, and that’s when the interaction was directed by a teacher or other adult. If the teacher directs boys and girls to work together, then the danger that peers will think they have sought out the opposite-sex partners themselves is relieved. Without the fear their interaction will be perceived as “liking” the other, the mixed-sex pairs can then work together comfortably.

Organizations can learn from these children’s behavior. Creating formal mentor programs where mentors are assigned to their protégés eliminates fear that the relationship will be misinterpreted. If Sam is assigned to mentor Sally, he is required to meet with Sally on a regular basis. Others won’t question Sam’s motives for mentoring Sally or meeting with her, and Sally won’t get the wrong idea when he asks to meet with her. Sally need not fear that her coworkers will think she’s sleeping her way to the top, or that Sam will get the wrong idea when she asks to meet with him.

Unfortunately, the assigned, formal mentor relationships do not typically have the intensity and level of commitment of more spontaneously created, self-selected mentor relationships.9 However, formal relationships are a start. Once cross-sex mentor relationships are accepted as a norm in the workplace, the forming of more spontaneous and self-selected cross-sex mentor relationships will be regarded with less suspicion.

Better Networks Lead to Better Productivity

This may seem like a lot for an organization to undertake to help employees establish networks. Fortunately, stronger networks benefit everyone, especially the organization. Certainly any organization desires enhanced productivity, and establishing connections between employees actually results in increased productivity for the organization. It’s a win-win situation. However, instead of trying to increase productivity by encouraging networking, organizations often concentrate their efforts on hiring employees with the greatest intelligence, relevant experience, and highest levels of education. These traits, referred to as human capital, undoubtedly can help organizations outperform their competition.

However, organizational leaders may be surprised to learn that social connections are just as important to the organization as human capital. Often referred to as social capital, the social networks or connections within the organization enhance the organization by allowing the strengths of different individuals to be combined. Solving complex problems often requires knowledge and expertise from different specialty areas. Social capital allows for the combining of resources to solve such problems. Individuals or teams that may not have the knowledge to complete their task alone must turn to their network for help. Since the collective knowledge of a network is greater than the knowledge of any individual, bigger networks often translate to more extensive knowledge bases and increased problem-solving skills.10

After examining productivity in three organizations, researchers found that social capital was related to productivity in all three organizations, but human capital was related to productivity in only one.11 In other words, social capital was a better predictor of productivity than human capital.

What does all this mean for the organization? Creating opportunities for networking will not only help break down the sex partition but also will enhance the networks of all employees. These enhanced networks can improve productivity and impact the bottom line for an organization. Team-building exercises and other organizational attempts to bring employees together are well worth the effort.