The Delicate Balance - Friendship and Work
The Delicate Balance - Friendship and Work
H/T David Amerland
Entering into a work relationship with a friend requires the utmost in professionalism. At times, the best business decision is to keep the friendship and refer the work.
Wise words from Ammon Johns.
#friendship #workdecisions #professionalism
Originally shared by Ammon Johns
Lovable Nightmares
One of the hardest won lessons in my career has been that many of the people you can like the most can also be the biggest nightmares to ever work with. Conversely, I've done some fantastic work with or for people that I didn't like so much on the personal level.
The fact is that many of us love an underdog. There's something about a lame duck that is still game for any challenge that just seems to resonate with the human spirit (us hairless apes). But when it comes to business, the tiny dog that always picks laughable fights with bigger dogs that don't know how to react to this yapping thing they could swallow in one bite is not a smart bet.
I may be more prone to this in some ways than others. On the personal level I love a disruptor, a person unafraid to challenge the status quo. I like people who are personal, and passionate, even when it makes them make personal decisions instead of rational ones, and rant where reason would get better results. And I'll give a soft-hearted wry smile to a lame duck every single time.
But there are only so many times you can let a likeable but unreasonable person drag your name or reputation, directly or indirectly, into their PR nightmares. There is only so much 'cuteness' in the chihuahua that aggressively plays the rottweiler. Then the novelty wears off and you are faced with the fact it is just an unpleasant, unrealistic, unruly, and undisciplined, mutt that is savagely psychotic, and only tolerated because it is so ineffectual.
If you have a friend who is the 'lovable rogue', forever tilting at windmills and railing at things with passion, and above all, you know they are 'wrong' but they are such fun with it that you laugh, do yourself a huge favour, and keep the friendship far away from your business, so that you might keep the friendship.
The people you like are the hardest to work with, in many cases, because you allow them so much leeway. You only get into situations where you wish you'd had a contract, or a better defined one, or had stuck to your guns, with your friends - because with the folks you don't like there was no temptation or expectation otherwise.
I'm not saying never work with friends or family. But I am saying always, always, work to professional standards, and that's often far more easily remembered with people we don't like enough to be tempted otherwise.
Have standards, and stick to them. Anyone you work with, or for, should be working with you because they respect your work, your ethics, and those standards. Anyone who wants to work with you at a friend level without that professionalism, is obviously someone who wants that leeway and forgiveness of a friendship ... and that will be an issue somewhere down the line.
H/T David Amerland
Entering into a work relationship with a friend requires the utmost in professionalism. At times, the best business decision is to keep the friendship and refer the work.
Wise words from Ammon Johns.
#friendship #workdecisions #professionalism
Originally shared by Ammon Johns
Lovable Nightmares
One of the hardest won lessons in my career has been that many of the people you can like the most can also be the biggest nightmares to ever work with. Conversely, I've done some fantastic work with or for people that I didn't like so much on the personal level.
The fact is that many of us love an underdog. There's something about a lame duck that is still game for any challenge that just seems to resonate with the human spirit (us hairless apes). But when it comes to business, the tiny dog that always picks laughable fights with bigger dogs that don't know how to react to this yapping thing they could swallow in one bite is not a smart bet.
I may be more prone to this in some ways than others. On the personal level I love a disruptor, a person unafraid to challenge the status quo. I like people who are personal, and passionate, even when it makes them make personal decisions instead of rational ones, and rant where reason would get better results. And I'll give a soft-hearted wry smile to a lame duck every single time.
But there are only so many times you can let a likeable but unreasonable person drag your name or reputation, directly or indirectly, into their PR nightmares. There is only so much 'cuteness' in the chihuahua that aggressively plays the rottweiler. Then the novelty wears off and you are faced with the fact it is just an unpleasant, unrealistic, unruly, and undisciplined, mutt that is savagely psychotic, and only tolerated because it is so ineffectual.
If you have a friend who is the 'lovable rogue', forever tilting at windmills and railing at things with passion, and above all, you know they are 'wrong' but they are such fun with it that you laugh, do yourself a huge favour, and keep the friendship far away from your business, so that you might keep the friendship.
The people you like are the hardest to work with, in many cases, because you allow them so much leeway. You only get into situations where you wish you'd had a contract, or a better defined one, or had stuck to your guns, with your friends - because with the folks you don't like there was no temptation or expectation otherwise.
I'm not saying never work with friends or family. But I am saying always, always, work to professional standards, and that's often far more easily remembered with people we don't like enough to be tempted otherwise.
Have standards, and stick to them. Anyone you work with, or for, should be working with you because they respect your work, your ethics, and those standards. Anyone who wants to work with you at a friend level without that professionalism, is obviously someone who wants that leeway and forgiveness of a friendship ... and that will be an issue somewhere down the line.
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