In a world of inspirational memes and #girlpost Instagram posts, it’s easy to forget that we all get stuck at work, or feel like we can’t find a way forward at times. Sue Unerman is the Chief Transformation Officer at MediaCom and Kathryn Jacob OBE is the Chief Executive at Pearl and Dean. Together they wrote The Glass Wall: Success Strategies For Women At Work And Businesses That Mean Business LINK TO AMAZON WITH SITE STRIPE. Each week answer your work questions with pragmatic, honest advice that’s proven to work…
Q: Can you be close friends with work friends? I really like the people I work with, but it feels like drinking with them and going out together is blurring the boundaries. It’s much harder to ask them to do things because they increasingly see me as a friend. I want to be their friend, but not if it stops them from listening to me.
Kathryn: When you say you are socialising and drinking with them are you staying out late? Getting drunk? Flirting? Waking up the next morning not able to remember who said what to who and if you should be embarrassed? There is nothing wrong in having drinks with your team as long as it doesn’t become your regular Friday night routine and they become your only main friendship network. You can have a strong connection and affection for people that you work with but your primary role is to manage them and to help them meet their goals and expectations.
Sue: You don’t specify whether these are colleagues at the same level or the team you manage or a bit of both. In any respect Kathryn is right, you need to stay professional. I’m afraid that the truth of it is that you will be judged by your work colleagues as much in the pub as in the office. You can’t have two personalities, they don’t stop thinking about you as someone they work with just because you have left the office, you are not Dr Jekyll in one place and Mr Hyde in the other. Most workplaces encourage you to bring your whole self to work, however they usually don’t mean the self that might sometimes end up dancing on a table.
Kathryn: Have you considered gradually limiting your exposure outside of work? Don’t suddenly stop going out with your colleagues but alternate with seeing other friends/going to the gym/getting away from work. I am concerned that if your social life is built too much around work you aren’t looking after yourself. We all need some decompression time away from emails/meetings and interruptions so that we can gather our thoughts and fulfil every part of our lives, home and work.
Sue: The other problem with having too much emphasis on friendship at work might be that you don’t feel able to say something that you think might be unpopular. What if someone asks your opinion and your opinion is that the work isn’t good enough. You must absolutely find a way to express this without upsetting them but as Kim Scott in her book Radical Candour explains you are not helping your colleagues if don’t tell it to them straight and if you wrap up your reasonable criticism in too much sugary coating. It is a good thing to criticise and build on a point of view positively. It is going too far if you can’t ever say anything constructively in opposition to someone else’s point of view without a fear that they won’t like you as much as a result. Remember these are predominantly your colleagues and you aren’t paid by your employer to be the most popular person in the office.
Kathryn: I have a rule which is that I don’t go to leaving parties. Primarily this is because if I go to one person’s party and not another then I look like I have favourites. You have to put yourself in the position of someone who doesn’t enjoy the pub and who works for you too. How excluded are you making them feel and are you creating a clique that damages your workplace environment. I once mentored a young woman who said that she felt that she would never get promoted in the company she was at because two of her colleagues played five-a-side football with their line manager and therefore had so much exposure to him socially She felt that no matter how hard she worked or how well she did she was being held to an impossible standard clouded by his familiarity with her colleagues. After all they probably showered together! The last thing that you want is when you do promote one person over another is that anyone thinks its because they are mates with you rather than because you’ve made a good judgement. Remember the cliché of the old boys’ network – modern business practice finds it abhorrent and you mustn’t get sucked in.
Sue: Just surrounding yourself with buddies has another problem. There’s a movie called The Intern, which (spoiler alert) ends with the star Vince Vaughan being chosen for a job over another applicant because he passes the ‘airport test’ – being fun to be stuck in airport with overnight. Well, that’s very warm isn’t it? But it implies that the culture has a specific shape and style. That if you don’t fit the culture then you won’t get on. This might be about going for drinks, or it could be for example having an annual ski holiday. There are people who are very good in the workplace who don’t drink, who don’t ski, who hate karaoke. If the workplace doesn’t welcome everyone then it will miss out on the benefits of diverse points of view. So it’s great that you like your work colleagues, but you’re right to keep boundaries. Better for you and for your career, and for the business that you work in.
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