PART 4 WORK AND FRIENDSHIP

Primarily all of the six men and women who work for me are good friends. Working with friends adds a whole now dimension of loyalty, commitment, and purpose. In the beginning, they were casual friends, but they have become close friends over the years. It's a lot of years, twelve years. As an aside, you don't know how artificial these friendships are till they no longer work for you. -A. Wilson, multimedia producer

Genuine friendship develops not because we think there will be a benefit from it but because of an almost tangible feeling of connection that recognizes an affinity between two people. Friendship's built on mutual Interest. Built on personality. Built on common experience. That is why friendships can develop in the workplace very nicely. We have a lot of common experience. -Nella Barkley, president, Crystal/Barkley Corporation

Chapter 11
HOW FRIENDSHIP ENHANCES YOUR CAREER

People get promoted as much with the approval of the people they work with as the people who are their bosses. -Harold Burson, Chairman, Burson-Marsteller public relations

In May 1994, when Ogilvy & Mather managed to acquire IBM's multimillion- dollar advertising account, the main reason was the friendships that 46-year- old Rochelle Lazarus had built up over 20 years, according to Laura Bird's article in The Wall Street Journal. Bird writes: "For all the crowing about Ogilvy & Mather's global network and advertising prowess, it was largely the quiet efforts of Rochelle Lazarus, president of the agency's North American operations, that helped Ogilvy reel in International Business Machines Corp.'s $400 million-plus advertising account."

Over and over again in the dozens of interviews I did with executives, entrepreneurs, small business owners, outplacement and human resource professionals, and freelancers in a wide range of industries and company settings, what I heard is how vital friends--casual ones are safest, but carefully managed close or best ones will help--at work and in a profession are in providing a sounding board, and emotional support, giving valuable feedback on performance, sharing information on the inner workings of a company or field, increasing productivity, or even helping get a foot in the door in the first place. Furthermore, approval from friends is a fundamental source of work-related satisfaction.

Success in many careers is based on relationship building, and nothing builds a trusting relationship faster than the elusive and magical relationship known as friendship.

Relied upon and used, not misused, wisely and properly, friendship helps you enjoy your work more; it is also a relationship that may help you succeed faster. J. Oliver Crom, president of Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., a corporation with offices in every major American city, Canada, and 70 foreign countries that teaches Dale Camegie's principles of making friends first advanced in 1936, points out that today it is more important than ever before to work on relationship-building skills in the workplace. Says Crom: "People do not want to be sold a product or a service. They want to deal with people who they think have their interests or who care about them."

Practically everyone would agree that friends are vital during the formative and school years, but there is little known about friendship at work and in the business world, or how friends contribute to a successful career. Part of the reason is what career consultant Nella Barkley calls the "leftover attitude that you should not mix your personal life with your professional life."

Another explanation is that workplace friendships have been less accessible to college-based researchers. To help fill that void, I conducted a study of human resource professionals randomly selected from the database of the Society of Human Resource Management. I conducted two surveys; 257 men and women responded (140 women, 117 men). The response rates for the two surveys were 29% and 27%, respectively, an excellent response on a mail questionnaire. A wide range of companies and industries were represented in the sample, from hospitals and blood banks to insurance agencies and manufacturing companies ranging in size from a one-person consulting fin-n to a bank with 8,000 employees in Sioux City, Iowa, or the Kansas City office of an airline with 30,000 workers. In addition to tabulating those 257 friendship and work surveys, I did follow-up telephone interviews lasting 15 minutes to one hour with two dozen men and women from the sample. I also conducted three dozen additional interviews with workers, executives, outplacement experts, and psychologists, in a variety of business settings.

Some professions and jobs have to be more careful about keeping friendship officially out of the workplace to avoid any accusations of influence peddling. Those occupations include civil service jobs; school systems, where job openings and advancement are supposed to be based solely on merit and not favoritism; and the health care professions, where treating everyone the same is one of the ideals of medicine. Human resource professionals also have to be especially careful about workplace friendships since they are privy to confidential information as well as having hiring and firing job functions. But is friendship completely kept out of those settings? Busy doctors may find openings in their filled schedule if a friend has an immediate problem; failing to make the right friends in your department at a college, or with key administrators, may block an assistant professor's advancement. A 57-year-old manager of employee relations at a research and development company in Jacksonville, Florida, for example, has 10 close and 20 casual friends at work. His closest friend at work "affords me a sounding board and provides me advice." That friendship hasn't been at all detrimental to his work. By contrast, an employment/training manager at a bank in Chevy Chase, Maryland, writes: "I am well-known throughout the organization, but my friendships are not business-related. Although I participate in company-sponsored activities, I do not feel a need to look for friendships through work."

When workplace friendships are positive, it can make the workplace and the work better. Workplace friendships make work more fun; they enhance creativity. As Nella Barkley, author, with Eric Sandburg, of The Crystal- Barkley Guide to Taking Charge of Your Career, says: "Last night, two key people and I got together for a bit of dinner while we worked over some brochure copy and a design for the brochure. We were in the restaurant three hours. A waiter came up to us and said, "You look like you're having so much fun, what are you doing?" Over dinner, we got an innovative brochure design. We succeeded in attracting the waiter's attention because we were having so much fun. Creativity flows when you can laugh a little together, spin off each other's ideas, and relax."

But some are afraid to admit that friends play a factor in their professional success; they fear people will think they got where they are just because of their friends, not their talents. Yet in reality, both talent and friends are usually needed.

FRIENDS HELP YOU GET JOBS

Just how important are friends in helping someone get a job? Out of the 126 human resource managers in my second survey who answered that question, a whopping 37% got their current job through someone they knew, with the largest category being through their friends or a friend of the family (25%). (Only 3 persons out of 126 got their current job by directly contacting a company.) The second most common way of getting a current job, after friends, was through a newspaper advertisement (24%) followed by an employment agency or headhunter (23%).

One of the reasons so many current jobs are obtained through friends is that companies may encourage job referrals through a networking system. (Nineteen percent wrote that their company has a policy of hiring the friends of employees.) This may help explain why so many jobs never even get to the executive recruiters or newspaper advertisements: friends are recommending friends.

Marie Raperto, president of The Cantor Concern, Inc., in Manhattan, a search firm that specializes in public relations and corporate communications jobs, confirms that more jobs are found through networking--contacting friends and who you know--than any other way. "I think it's a good idea to call friends if you're looking for a job," says Raperto, who has been in the corporate public relations field for more than 16 years. "Any number of job candidates have gone to friends and gotten hired," she adds with conviction. Larry F. Ginsberg, an attorney practicing in Stamford, Connecticut, typifies the way friendship helps land jobs. Ginsberg says: "We have two very good friends, and they wanted to do wills. They asked me point blank if I'd feel comfortable representing them in a will scenario." Ginsberg said yes, just one of the numerous examples he could point to of how friendship actually translated into business over the more than 18 years he has been practicing law.

Of course you could get your foot in the door, or obtain new clients, without the help of a friend, but a friend certainly greases the way, quickly giving you access to the "inner track" in most situations. Quite often literary agents want to consider new clients who are recommended to them by other writers or editors. What writer or editor is going to take the time to read a manuscript before he or she has an agent applauding it? A friend. That same friend is the one most likely to provide the necessary referral, and endorsement, for the next step to occur. "If your agent can't get you in, sometimes a friend will get you in," explains MaryAnne Kasica, a screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles and grew up in Pasaic, New Jersey. "You don't get the job because you know the friend," MaryAnne continues, but you can get "in" because you have a friend. "It's the same as with agents. Agents don't get you jobs. They open the doors. You need someone to unlock the door. The friendship opens the door. What happens once you walk in the door is totally up to you."

The late screenwriter Carl Sautter told me how the editor for a TV series would give out assignments to those friends that he developed during his early years of struggle, when they would all get together for once-a-week meetings to read and critique each others' writing. In addition to hiring each other for actual job openings, they would tell each other the inside scoop on prospective employers.

How important who you know is for finding a new job-over all other methods--is confirmed by interviews with executive recruiters, and job seekers, as well as a survey of 351 job hunters polled by placement firm Manchester, Inc., as reported by Albert R. Karr in The Wall Street Journal. Of those 351 who were looking for a job, 60% found it through someone they knew-friends, former colleagues, and others in their field. (Only 17% used an employment agency, and only 15 % answered or placed a newspaper advertisement.)

"Networking is one step in a business environment that can lead to new friendships," says Irene Cohen, founder of Manhattan based Cohen Personnel Services. Cohen continues: "It's a way of outreaching away from your immediate environment, which could be very stifling, or you could have changed and you need to grow. It's beginning to meet new people and be exposed to other kinds of cultures. First of all, they have something in common, which makes it a heck of a lot easier to talk."

Friends are a paramount way of finding a first job: in my survey, 24% found their first job through someone they knew, such as through the job candidate's own friend or a friend of the family. For example, the 54-year-old male vice president of human resources for a manufacturing company based in Jersey City, New Jersey, found his first job through a family friend. A 38-year-old female personnel manager of an insurance company in Davenport, Iowa, also found her first job through a family friend. The next most common ways of finding a first job were through newspaper advertisements (21%), college-related services or teachers (20%), and employment agencies (14%), with 12% using their own initiative by knocking on doors, doing mailings to a professional association membership, or directly contacting the company. "How did you get your job?" I asked a young man soon after he graduated from a college in Washington, D.C.

"A friend's mother told me about the job," he replied. "Make a friend" is the phrase human resources and executive search consultant John Artise says they used to use when he was a vice president at outplacement firm Drake Beam Morin, Inc. It referred to "going out and building a nurturing relationship with a potential client," says John Artise, who is now a consultant with New York-based Arbor Group, a human resources management consulting and training firm. Artise continues: "You're more likely to be hired as a casual friend to someone. Even more likely than a close friend, where there may be a lot of problems." Artise provides the example of an executive who stayed in a job way too long---14 years--even though he was really wrong for the position, because he and the chief financial officer had been close friends since their school days. When the friend became company president and evaluated his old friend's performance, he realized he had to fire him. But it took him several years to do that; he confided to Artise that if not for their close friendship, he would have fired his friend years before.

Health writer Mark Fuerst explains how a friend opened the door to his first freelance assignment: "In 1976, when I was a young staff writer at Medical World News, one of my colleagues, who was a friend, Lois, had gotten an assignment from Harper's Bazaar to write an article about eye care. She had done a similar story the year before and she decided she didn't want to do it again. She suggested my name to the editor instead, and I got the assignment. I liked writing it so much that I continued doing freelance assignments on the side for consumers while I continued writing news stories on staff for doctors. I'm thankful for Lois. She was a friend who became one of my best friends. Lois and I are still friends."

Although my research and observations confirm that friends do help friends to get jobs, there are some whose professional experience is contradictory to that conclusion. Executive recruiter David Wemer of David Wemer International, a firm that deals with searches for only the top-level jobs, says, "It's a myth to think friends can help you in business. The higher the level you are, the less likely you are to find a friend to employ you. Things are so competitive, they don't want to take the risk, in case it backfires."

BEFRIENDING UP, DOWN, AND ALL AROUND

"One of my best friends is someone I originally met in the workplace," says the director of resource development at a software manufacturing company in Cheyenne. She continues: "When you spend eight hours a day somewhere, it's real easy to develop real close friendships." Married, and in her early 30s, she maintains a best friendship with her former co-worker, speaking with her two or three times a week, even though they now have jobs at different companies and live an hour away from each other.

Same-level friendships are safest and easiest to maintain. By being at the same level, you eliminate the potential problems that may occur if one friend has to supervise, criticize, critique, or evaluate the other.

However, even though work or business friendships between equals are easier to maintain and potentially less complicated, they are also less useful to your move up the ladder of your career. If you befriend up, it might be more helpful, but also riskier. It is harder to maintain friendships of unequal status or levels--a manager and a subordinate rather than two co- workers--because of the disparity in status and the potential for supervisory problems. Yet the friendships between a higher-up and an underling provide the greatest opportunity for learning and growth in a company or in a profession. As Charles Peebler, President and CEO of Bozell Jacobs Kenyon & Eckhardt, the parent company for Bozell Worldwide Inc., an advertising company, says: "Certainly befriend at other levels than your own as long as you realize that you have a job to do and I have a job to do, and I will do my job, and I expect you to do your job. That means we do all the things that are required. There has to be some compartmentalization. I'm a person, but I'm also the CEO of a company."

Business executive and business owner Irene Cohen provides these insights into how your level impacts on the potential benefits and pitfalls of friendships at work: "Friendship can help if it's with a superior who has control over your destiny. It can also backfire, as with any relationship, if you push it too far, or something goes wrong and there's a miscommunication. You've not only jeopardized the friendship, you've jeopardized your income. I really think you deal with friendships in business in keeping with your own personality. If you are the kind of person who keeps friends a long time and you are a good listener, it's probably safer to establish friendships [at work]. But for most people, it's extremely difficult and extremely risky. Not terribly risky with your peers, but terribly risky with your superiors." What level you are at in a company may even determine how easy it is for you to have friends at work. A personnel manager in Tennessee points out that it is probably easier to have friendships if you are not that high up in an organization: "You are less threatening to other people. There is less friction, and you are more likely to be social in the work environment, truly social."

Thomas Horton, Ph.D., former president of the American Management Association, concurs that friendship aids the workplace. Says Horton: "My own feeling is that friendship is important. It's important to have a friendly, warm, open relationship at work. You can try not to restrict that to your organizational peers, but have friends above and below your organizational line. The sort of chit-chat that goes on is important to developing a feeling of teamwork." However Harold Burson, chairman of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller, supports the "it's lonely at the top" perspective when he says, "I think it's a lot easier to be very socially active at lower levels of the company than at the upper levels. One of the prices that you pay for being a CEO in a company is you give up a lot of the social relationships within the company. There's a line beyond which you cannot go."

Yet those in the middle, and on the way up, also have to watch their friendships. Befriending someone below you may give out the wrong message to upper management; you project the image of someone more comfortable befriending those with less power. Carefully befriending up may help get you to where you want to go. By befriending someone above you, you can learn about the job responsibilities and challenges at that higher level, giving you an insider's view to the next step in your career. The female vice president and director of human resources at a bank in Cleveland, Ohio, has found that close friendship with another higher-up woman in a different department is beneficial at work. She says: "It has allowed me to understand the culture of the company that acquired us." The friendship is based on mutual respect, liking each other, shared values, and emotional support. She continues, "Work friendships provide an outlet to complain in a safe atmosphere with people who can empathize."

Outplacement consultant Laurence J. Stybel, of Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire in Boston, cautions how befriending two levels up, over your boss's head, could cause trouble with your boss. He relates this anecdote about a client whose problems were caused by such a friendship dynamic: Joe is the marketing director. Bill, who is vice president of marketing, is Joe's boss. Harry, a marketing specialist, is new; his immediate boss is Joe. Harry and Joe do not hit it off, but Harry and Bill, who is two levels above Harry, become friends. As Stybel explains, "Joe sees Harry going into the vice president's office. He shuts the door. He hears laughter. He is taking him under his wing." Joe finds himself fenced in by a boss and a new employee who are now friends. He "waits for Harry to make a mistake and he fires him," Stybel continues. There is nothing the vice president can do for his fired friend because of the pecking order and culture in that organization. "Pick your friends wisely and understand the politics," Stybel concludes.

A public affairs vice president echoes the cautionary note about befriending up or down when she says, "Let's say a subordinate is a friend. This may cause problems because they probably feel they can take advantage of the situation. 'I can come in a little bit late because she's my friend."' By the same token, being discreet is essential with all types of work friendships; avoid discussing intimate concerns at work or revealing confidential information about each other or your family or friends, even in the less-than-private lunchroom or bathroom settings. Not only is it poor business protocol, it could put you or your friend's standing at the firm in jeopardy. Furthermore, it could create ill feeling among peers or other workers who perceive there is favoritism or influence peddling going on. Furthermore, be careful not to inadvertently misuse the information you are privy to because of your friendship: if you notice your friend/worker is falling asleep at a departmental meeting, avoid disclosing that he was out late last night with you and your other friends if he has been telling everyone that he was up late working on that report that was due today. It is also important to be careful that your friendship comes first, or you just might be accused of being manipulative and opportunistic. It is a delicate balance: you have to be helped because you are a deserving person who just happens to also be a friend. You cannot ask someone you are trying to befriend to do something for you, or your would-be friend might feel used and never become a friend.

Whatever their level, be careful to avoid misusing work friendships. That is what happened to Milton, a middle manager in the health benefits department. When his friend lost her executive secretary job, Milton gladly gave her several short-term assignments. But as the weeks wore on, Milton began to feel used. Just as he was about to say something, she surprised him by demanding that he put in for unemployment insurance for her, something that was not part of the original bargain. Her request put Milton's job in jeopardy, since he failed to go through official channels to hire her. Milton's friend then sued a betrayed Milton and his company, straining their friendship beyond repair.

(Cartoon by Tom Cheney is reprinted, with permission, on page 172 in Friendshifts®)

Some work environments may be more conducive to friendship than others. For example, real estate agents, who are usually in direct competition with each other, may find it hard to become friends with other agents within the same company or even the same community. To avoid potential problems---competition, indiscretions over privileged information--the president of a consulting firm belongs to a professional organization in New Jersey rather than Philadelphia, where she lives and works. In that way, she feels freer to befriend the women she meets, who are less likely to have regular business contact with her.

FRIIENDSHIP AND PRODUCTIVITY

Befriending customers or clients may make it easier and more pleasant for you to do your work and for you to be a success.

Casual Friendship Goes Far at Work

Most agree the ideal type of friendship at work is that of a casual friend. It is easier to keep a clear business head when the friendship is only a casual one; the stakes in maintaining it are smaller than for a close or best friendship.

The valuable contributions that casual friends make in the workplace include aiding productivity, fostering a greater sense of teamwork, providing a sounding board, and helping workers feel they are part of a corporate "family."

Casual friends--what outplacement executive Laurence J. Stybel refers to as "chums"--may help you get your job done. As the personnel director at a university in Missouri explains: "I develop casual friendships on the job that help me accomplish goals and utilize the formal organization. It also helps me avoid organization errors. I have survived long service in a highly visible and sensitive position because of awareness of trends in this large organization and keeping on good terms with all segments of the university. I avoid intrigue and organizational alliances. I try to encourage service and professionalism." He has casual friends at work; close friends are outside of his job. In that way, he has "maintained a reputation for fairness and impartiality."

"People work harder when they feel they're part of a family," writes a divorced executive secretary for a Georgia-based cruise line. "They build on each other's strengths and learn from each other. When you feel like people care about you as an individual, you go out of your way for them." Negatives of having friends at work? She continues: "The only time I see friendships at work being a problem is if the socializing gets out of hand. But I think a mature person would recognize that to be detrimental to getting your job done and would use common sense about it." She should know the importance of friends at work: she is presently working for the friend of a friend. A 36-year-old single personnel manager endorses work friendships: "Friendships make work more rewarding and enjoyable although friendships at work must be carefully chosen. Problems arise when the friendship aspect overrides professionalism, especially if there is a breach of confidence." Lucy Hedrick, a Connecticut book author who now works full time as a writer at a consulting firm, is an exception to the "casual is better" rule in that she successfully maintains a close friendship with her literary agent, whom she has known since 1986, that has not interfered with their agent/author working relationship. How? Lucy has always followed a strict protocol about keeping their close friendship and work issues separate. For example, over the years, if she and her agent were at a social dinner party together, if Lucy had a business question she needed answered, she would bring it up privately, perhaps in the kitchen, out of the earshot of other guests "so it didn't occupy dinner table conversation."

For those who are self-employed or who have a succession of jobs, such as independent consultants, actors, artists, writers, or temporary workers, all types of friends--best, close, or casual--who applaud your accomplishments can provide much needed peer support, recognition, and relationship continuity. As Jane Condon, a 38-year-old Greenwich, Connecticut, stand-up comedian and former journalist says about her best friends: "I've had these two writer friends since college who are still my best friends. One lives in Soho. The other lives in Sag Harbor on Long Island. So there is a bit of distance. [But] we always stay in touch. The one in New York came to Japan to visit when I lived there for five years. We have this wonderful little custom: when one of us accomplishes something professionally, we have a celebration. We go out to dinner at a fancy restaurant in Manhattan. We are just each other's biggest fans. We're always happy when one of us accomplishes something. "

Cliques

Just as casual friends, or a carefully maintained close or best one, may enhance the workplace or a career, cliques may lower productivity and, hence, be destructive in the workplace. In my second survey of 129 human resource professionals, almost half (46%) wrote that cliques were a problem at work:

• Cliques lead to favoritism, which creates morale problems.
• Negative employees are drawn to other negative people.
• Cliques sometimes perceive a problem where none exists, making rumors proliferate without foundation.
• Cliques cause excessive socialization at work, which causes resentment by those outside the clique.
• There may be an unwillingness to share information with those outside the clique.
• New employees may feel like outsiders if there are cliques.
• Managers and subordinates may get too close because of being in the same clique, so that productivity suffers.
• Clique members may receive preferential treatment, causing disharmony and jealousy.
• Cliques can be a powerful negative force that makes implementing new policies very difficult.

Work and Friendship Protocol

Here are some guidelines so friendship aids rather than hinders your workplace environment or career advancement:

1. Keep friendship and work separate as much as possible.
2. Be discreet about your friend's confidences.
3. If you feel your friendship puts you or your friend in a compromised position, discuss it and, if necessary, withdraw from any situations that might involve a conflict of interest.
4. Avoid gossip at work, especially if it involves information you are privileged to know because of your friendship.
5. Be aware of your company's policy about friendship; some companies have a pro- or an anti-fraternization policy about friendships at work or with clients or customers. As long as you follow those rules, friendship and work can co-exist. As J. Douglas Phillips, Executive Director of Strategic Planning at Merck & Company, Inc., in New Jersey, says, "I haven't seen friendship at work as a problem."
6. If a friend at work asks you a question that oversteps appropriate privacy lines, refuse to answer, getting out of it as gracefully as possible: change the subject, say you're still making up your mind, suddenly have something else to do, such as placing a phone call, go to a meeting, or say directly, "You know I'm not at liberty to discuss that."
7. As CEO Charles Peebler points out, do not misuse a business related friendship for "leverage."
8. At work, be careful that your body language, voice, or language is not too familiar when talking to your friend.
9. Avoid name-dropping or bragging about your friendships at work or in your profession. It will probably backfire, as you appear more opportunist than well connected.

The next chapter, Male and Female Work Friendships, explores, among other issues, the finding from this author's Society of Human Resource Management survey of 257 randomly selected members that men had twice as many friends at work as women in comparable positions. For credit card orders of Friendshifts® ($22.95 hardcover) call (toll-free) 800-431-1579.