Of office friendships and you!
HERE'S a riddle - who are the people you spend a major part of your day with? With whom do you share your wishes and woes, joys and sorrows, jokes, gossip and even your lunch? It is your co-worker, of course! Let's face the facts. You spend a major part of your waking hours with your colleagues. So, it is but natural that you form a close and personal bond with them, which often leads to friendships that can last a lifetime.
We develop genuine friendship not because of the benefits it might offer, but because we get a sense of affinity with the other person. Friendship develops out of mutual interest and common experience. That is why friendships can develop faster at the workplace because the common thread of work promotes a feeling of connection. Further, the professional goals and aspirations are common too.
Friends at the workplace act as professional and emotional supports; give valuable feedback and provide an insight into the company. They also help increase one's productivity and generally make life a lot happier at the workplace.
Office-friendships also help nurture creativity and enthusiasm in work as you laugh, relax, brainstorm, share contacts and experiences together. They also benefit your career in other ways: friends may help you get a job, inform you of a new position, or even bring you a new customer.
However, a majority of us shy away from forming deep, close friendships at work. This is because somewhere at the back of our minds, we hold that we should not mix our professional and personal lives. Added to this are views that close ties at work can also complicate matters - friends might be competing for the same promotion or increment. Such friendships also carry the risk of hurt feelings because of the emotions one invests in them. Refusing a friend's request can be a lot more difficult than saying "no" to an acquaintance. And, when work-related conflicts arise, your personal relationship might cloud the issue. The other disadvantages of having close workplace friendships include increased gossip, office romances and distractions from work.
This kind of friendship can also bring up stressful issues of conflict. Promotion of one friend over another affects the relationship. It also leads to blurring of authority lines, which would otherwise have been very clear-cut if such a friendship had not existed in the first place. Or the co-worker, with whom you share every kind of information, both professional and personal, can betray your confidence by divulging it to others. Such behaviour can sometimes impede your career growth.
Therefore, before you enter into a workplace friendship, you have to think of the stakes involved. The right group of friends can make a positive influence in your career, but the wrong group can put your job in jeopardy.
Workplace friendships involving the boss and his/her subordinates also spawn problems. Befriending the boss might make others question your motives. As a boss, if you are close to a junior, you can be accused of favouritism. Such friendships also have the tendency to fizzle out fast; you are friends only as long as you are working together. It needs a deeper level of intimacy if it has to last.
Given such disadvantages, casual friendships at work are more sensible. It might even develop into a close friendship. Casual friends will make that extra effort to be there for you, as long as you do not ask too often or too much of them.
Even if we have great friends at work, there are certain dos and don'ts that you should follow to make such friendships valuable. In her book "Who's That Sitting at My Desk? How to Succeed by Mastering Work
Relationships", sociologist Jan Yager lists the dos and don'ts of office friendships:
Dos
Be an active listener
Show interest in your friend and also his or her business interests and concerns
Don't badmouth your friend to anyone
Update your knowledge of your friend as you keep him or her aware of the changes in your life and career
Guard against harmful or destructive friendships
Remember the "fun factor" in friendship so your friends will want to be around you, and genuinely care about helping you succeed.
Tell facts as they are, tactfully.
Laugh, share lunch or schedule an activity after work.
Take his or her feelings into consideration before you act.
Don'ts
Do not reveal business confidences that would be a violation of trust and ethics if revealed to anyone.
Do not reveal family secrets that put someone else in your family in any level of jeopardy.
Do not air any negative feelings about the boss, co-worker, company, president, customer, or client.
Do not make comments that are racist, sexist or against any religion or culture.
Following these rules will make workplace friendships valuable and your job interesting too!
HEMA GOPALKRISHNAN
faqs@cnkonline.com
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