Tele was first identified by JL Moreno (1889 – 1974) as the flow of feeling from one person to another. Tele has qualities of attraction, drawing people closer together; rejection, i.e. not chosen or moving away from the other; or neutral, where there is no movement.

Tele is both a fact and a concept. Tele, meaning ‘at a distance’ can be measured and displayed using representation methods; with lines or arrows to indicate direction of choice, distance to indicate intensity (strong or weak) and symbols (+ positive, moving towards, choosing – negative, moving away or not choosing , 0 as neutral).
Tele is a two-way flow of feeling, having both an outgoing flow and a retrojective flow received from the other. Emanating from the limbic system, tele enables us to gain insight to, appreciation of and feelings for the makeup of the other person – tele creates interpersonal chemistry, hitting it off with another without ‘knowing’ them, personality clashes, or just negative vibes.

These emotional flows of feeling between people form the psycho-social networks of relationships of attraction, repulsion and neutrality. These networks can be mapped and made visible to group members. Forming the emotional and psychological geography of a community, these networks greatly influence what occurs in families, and within and between groups, organisations and societies. 

Tele comes from the field of sociometry, the science and art of measuring relationships within and between people and groups. Specifically sociometry provides a measure of companionships, and changes in companionships on specified criteria.

The concept of tele and the tools and practices of sociometry enables us to explore the nature of relationships between people and entities: teams, business units, organisations and customers, and make the invisible, visible.

Positive and negative tele

Where there is strong positive mutual tele between two people, there is increased vitality and a capacity to create. If this relationship develops over time, these two people will be emotionally close, and will be significant to one another whether they are geographically close in life or not.

Where there is strong mutual negative tele in a relationship, these two do not choose one another on specific criteria; they ‘reject’ one another. Simplistically, we can say, there is a personality clash, or they don’t’ get on. Negative telic relationships can be represented by space or distance between the people concerned. Frequently in work groups, people with negative tele are expected to work alongside one another.  In other areas of life, there is more choice. There is no value judgement in positive or negative tele, or forces of attraction and rejection.

How do we apply the principle of tele in organisations?

Positive mutual relationships are at the basis of good working relationships, work and communication flows e.g. people choose each other to problem solve, to consult with one another, share information and ideas or to collaborate in a project. 

Mutual tele is evident when two people move towards one another based on particular criteria. Criteria are situational, and may be sociotelic, where skills, attributes or function influence choice e.g. intellectual acumen, working with conflict, the Chief Financial Officer, mastery with facts and information, or the criteria may be psychotelic, where qualitative criteria influence choices, e.g. being trustworthy, approachable, open, a good listener. Distilling tele to criteria of like or dislike overlooks the sensitivity in relationships and that natural gut response of one person to another.

As groups develop, people get to know one another by making connections; usually to do with shared experience e.g. being the eldest in a family, being adopted, having children, immigrating from another country, liking action movies, enjoying a good argument, early death of a sibling or parent, disliking exercising, being passionate in doing a good job, interest in the intricacies of technology, or driving vintage cars. There are a myriad of shard experience and interests, which can become known, and create links between people.

Connections between people occur naturally, and at other times, these connections need to be facilitated. When links are not facilitated, people create false ideas and assumptions about others – they create untested conclusions about and expectations of people and their perceptions may be negative.

Group development occurs when positive connections are created between people. The more mutual positive connections there are between people, the more creativity, flexibility and shared approach to problem solving occurs. People feel valued, involved and included and find it easy to make their best contribution.

Where there are positive mutual connections, there is greater vitality and spontaneity.

Spontaneity is the capacity to approach familiar situations in a new way, and approach new and unfamiliar situations adequately, i.e good enough.

There are five facets of spontaneity:

• Vitality
• Adequacy
• Originality
• Flexibility
• Creativity

When there are strong negative telic relationships, the work of the group grinds to a halt, and one or more individuals become isolated within the group, and the 'work' then becomes the rebuilding of positive relationships. Sociometrists map relationships and investigate the maps (sociograms) with those involved.

Sociogram of tele relationships in a work group

An example: Let's apply this concept to three groups in a company; sales, production and corporate finance. Sales are positive to corporate finance, corporate finance is positive to sales and has a neutral relationship with production. Sales have a weak positive relationship with production however production has a negative relationship with sales. We are aware that Sales tend to sell more than production can produce creating problems between customers and the production team. The relationship between Production and Finance was seen as neutral. There was little interaction. We can map our perceptions of these relationships.

Mapping the telic relationships with group members in both individual and group settings, displays the informal network of relationships between people and teams. These informal networks connect people; they are the glue within groups. Mapping and exploring informal networks assists people and groups identify unproductive rifts between people. New behaviours and new role relationships are relevant to enable new solutions to old problems.