The Case for Having Work Friends

There’s a piece of workplace advice that makes the rounds every so often: Your co-workers are not your friends. And if you’re the boss? Apparently, you should be even more careful.

Keep your distance, don’t get too personal, and maintain boundaries. They believe if you become friends with the people who work for you, it might be harder to have difficult conversations and accountability can get blurry. I understand the argument.

I also call bull$%*#.

I believe some of the very best teams are built when people actually know each other, care about each other, and yes, they actually become close friends.

In fact, our team is incredibly tight-knit. We know what’s happening in each other’s lives outside of the office, and we spend time together after hours. We’ve been there for the celebrations, and we’ve been there when life gets really hard. And lately, life has gotten really, really hard.

One member of our leadership team has a parent who is seriously ill, another is helping care for a parent after surgery, and I recently spent weeks caring for my husband through a prolonged illness and surgery. So, guess what happened to the company while all of this real life was happening?

Not one darn thing. The work got done.

The efficiencies didn’t come from everyone ignoring what was happening and powering through. Quite the opposite. We talked openly and honestly about it. Someone could say, “I need to handle this today,” and someone else could say, “I’ve got you covered.”

We tag-teamed and shifted things around thanks to our head of operations. And what’s even more magical is we covered for one another without keeping score. But most importantly, nobody had to pretend everything was fine when it wasn’t. That’s what friendship can do for a team. And you know what, this isn’t just my opinion. There’s actually some pretty compelling data behind it.

Gallup has studied workplace friendships for decades, and its research found employees who have best friends at work are seven times more likely to be engaged. More recently, Gallup analyzed data from more than 180,000 teams and found that doubling the number of employees who have a best friends at work could be associated with 24% higher-quality work and 12% higher profitability.

Yep, that doesn’t surprise me at all because innately when people trust one another, they ask for help, and they can step away when life requires it.

Compare that with a culture built around fear.

If someone believes admitting they’re struggling will cost them an opportunity, disappoint the boss, or somehow be held against them later, what do you think they’re going to do?

They hide it. Unfortunately, hidden problems don’t magically disappear. They usually become BIGGER problems.

Now, there is one pretty big caveat to my philosophy: You have to have the right team to begin with.

You need people who recognize that being given grace also means being ready to give it when someone else needs it. How do you find those people? Well, that’s another blog..

For this one, I’ll simply say this: I’m not interested in leading a company where everyone leaves their humanity at the door when they come to work since life doesn’t operate on business hours. 

I’d much rather build a company strong enough to handle life’s challenges than one where everyone is afraid to admit they need help.