Whatever common knowledge might suggest, in organisational teams familiarity does not breed contempt. Instead, it tends to facilitate interpersonal attraction and cohesiveness (Harrison, Mohammed, McGrath, Florey & Vanderstoep 2003). Scholars have documented that familiarity has a positive effect on productivity in coal mining (e.g. Goodman & Leyden 1991), reduces accidents (Goodman & Garber 1988) and leads to better decision making (Jehn & Shah 1997). Harrison et al. (2003) found that teams comprised with members familiar with each other, either before joining the team or because of time spent working together after the team was formed, outperformed teams comprised of total strangers. In that sense it can be argued that interpersonal familiarity allows teams to focus on the task at hand instead of focusing on getting to know each other. On the other hand familiarity has been found to contribute to reduced negotiation (Peterson & Thompson 1997), poorer decision making and lower performance when membership changes or attrition occurs (e.g. Hollenbeck et al. 1995a).