Editorial & Commentary

FRIENDSHIP IS TABOO IN MODERN ORGANIZATION

Editorial

by Mark Vernon

"Well, friendship plays no part in the workings of this organization," she declared emphatically. She is the managing director of a medium-sized media company and she meant that it is meritocratic. In her company, no one receives preferential treatment based on affection. Neither is it plagued by cliques or gossip. As for herself, the chief wielder of power, she rigorously enforces the Chinese walls between her work colleagues and personal friends: Never the twain shall meet.

     But, I countered, an organization needs friendship to humanize it --in the chat over the printer, the shared lunchtime sandwich in the park, or even the email venting frustration at a colleague. Such things make for loyalty and productivity. And surely a media organization would understand that friendship nurtures creativity. If trust, cooperation and goodwill disappeared, her best ideas would too.

     She was not persuaded. And no doubt many bosses, perhaps most, would share the concern. Consciously or not, they sense that friendship is full of ambiguities that are tricky to manage, and may even be antithetical to the values that the modern organization should foster.

     The most obvious ambiguity is its close association with the ugly accusation of nepotism. In short, friendship is thought unethical. Hiring on the basis of friendship is discriminatory (for all that --offering a job to a qualified friend is arguably sensible inasmuch as you know them better than anyone you merely interview). Similarly, the complicity of the friends associated with recent corporate scandals has probably permanently tarnished the value to business of what might be called "golf-course friendship." Of course, corruption must be opposed. But is the quiet chat now too easily misconstrued as collusion; the conversational tip as a calculating tip-off?

     A second worry is that friendship in the organizational setting may be as destructive as it is constructive. The humanizing chat over the printer or sandwich in the park may be as much a site of conspiracy as the email about a colleague. Or take a matter such as teamwork. Teams are exhorted to be friendly. But friendship, as opposed to general friendliness, has little to do with teamwork. For one thing, teams are formed and dissolved as the projects they tackle come and go. They are short-term and antithetical to friendship. Alternatively, think of the infamous off-site away day. Who has not been on one where the thing that united the team was not the higher values to which they were supposed to aspire, but the mutual loathing of the facilitator or boss who was inflicting the collective agony?

     Another problem has to do with sex. The issue here is that the presence of personal friendships invokes one of two fears. In the mixed-sex case, the concern is that a friendship might lead to a close friendship which might lead to an affair or a relationship. In the same-sex case, the fear, particularly amongst men, is that it might look, well, a bit gay. Friendship in this guise seems just too difficult to handle.

     Finally, one might point to the problem of using friends. As Dale Carnegie's infamous book How to Win Friends and Influence People gratuitously makes clear, work friends are highly vulnerable to being used. Thus he advocated cultivating friends in order to climb the greasy pole, perform favours or simply get things done. The matter has had a bad name ever since.

     But for all that friendship is a tricky subject to broach, it is clearly a powerful force in the organization. Consider the fact that employees are becoming increasingly promiscuous in their employment choices: Is not friendship a powerful motivator to stay? I was recently talking to a partner in a large consultancy who confessed that it was only his loyalty to his friends that kept him loyal to the firm. If it was not for the feeling that he owed them something, rather than the organization, he would have long gone.

     Alternatively, think of the increasingly fragmented working days that people have. They are on the move, corresponding more and more via technology. So they have less and less time to form, or feed, the interpersonal understanding that depends upon speaking face to face. Worse still, friendship is arguably the best antidote to the misunderstandings and disputes that readily arise when people use blunt, electronic means of communication.

     One components manufacturer takes the point a step further. He tells me that his company has actually lost business because online procurement does not allow him to develop relationships with his customers. Professional friendships were essential to convey the quality of service on which his business depends, and these are now largely gone.

     In other words, if friendship plays no part in the official workings of organizations, it could be time to rethink the taboo. The flatter, network-like modern organization could well do with it.

Mark Vernon is a freelance journalist, broadcaster, and media consultant. His most recent book The Philosophy of Friendship was recently released in North America by Palgrave. He lives in England.