Make the cast the best of colleagues, not the best of friends.

distinction — attributed to Jason Alexander

Alexander loves ensembles and loves the comradeship of ensemble work. He also knows that a director's job is not to engineer friendships. It is to make people who work together respect and support each other. The Seinfeld cast were not social friends. They did not vacation together or have weekend dinners. They were work friends whose stated goal was to make each other brilliant in the workspace. When friction came up, they could say it is not personal, it is business, and mean it. The distinction protects the work when the inevitable disagreements arrive.

For directors, managers, and team leads who feel pressure to manufacture social cohesion. The Seinfeld example illustrates that professional excellence does not require personal closeness.

team-dynamics, professional-relationships, ensemble, seinfeld