At the business school where I teach, we have different academic divisions.

There's accounting, there's finance, there's marketing.

You get the idea.

I'm in the management division, which means that most of the people I interact with are also in management.

But when I first started, there was another professor who worked in the finance division.

She facilitated one of our new

employee training sessions, and I loved her teaching style. I saw how masterfully she took control of the

classroom, and I wanted to learn more about her approach and her journey as a business school professor.

So I reached out and asked if she wanted to go to lunch.

That was the start of a lifelong mentorship and a lifelong friendship. She continues to be one of my

biggest supporters and I continue to learn from her in and out of the classroom. But I'm also aware

that this support wouldn't have come if I hadn't actively sought it out

outside of my discipline.

And that leads me to wonder, in what ways do our workplace structures hold us back from building

the healthy networks we need to succeed.

I'm Madhupacanola. This is TED Business, a podcast from TED. Our speaker today,

organizational behavior researcher Eric Quintain, has seen it all from workplaces that are more siloed

like mine to open spaces that facilitate more interaction across teams. Every style has its

pros, but they each have real cons too, especially when it comes to relationship building. In today's

talk, Eric lays out four very different traps that can lead to relationship burnout in different kinds of professional settings.

Whether you're in a workplace where everyone knows each other or a workplace where everyone's a

stranger, he's got you covered, along with tips on how to improve your working relationships.

...