A philosophical question; can friendship and business mix?

Dave Dibbens gives his opinion . . .

 

Can friendship and business mix? Families and businesses certainly mix, but that is a case of blood being thicker than water rather than friendship. That said, there are excellent examples of organisations being forged from friendships – Hewlett Packard in that famous garage by, eponymous friends, Dave and Bill. While also in the tech sector Apple started by friends the two Steves – Wozniak and Jobs with Ronald Wayne. 

 

Arguably, friendship and business mixing is like selling your old car to a friend – only to find it has a mind of its own. Outside your care it’s now both a totally unreliable money pit and a friendship buster. This is when friends don’t understand that it’s ‘nothing personal just business’ and maybe this offers a lesson for friendships and business.

This article explores the friendship and business mix to see if it can work, and if not, then why not?

Firstly to consider the interplay where friendships develop and grow: 

• In daily business people work together and often play together as one organisation
• Business creation where friends form businesses they go onto manage
• The business of selling – where people buying from people they like, which in turn causes a migration (or metamorphosis) from respect to friendship.

Today our western society is a ‘me culture’ focused on like-minded hedonism where the ‘girls from accounts’ go out together on Friday night. Clearly friendship in the workplace does flow into some private lives.

Arguably in 80% of cases this business follow-on is more intense as couples enter relationships with work colleagues. This is as true for Rupert Murdoch as it is for Joe Smith in Accounting and suggests that from a personal perspective business and friendship, assuming we have this feeling for our partners, exists and is positive in a broad sense.

Wendi Deng Murdoch, a smart woman of Chinese heritage, met her husband Rupert Murdoch, Head of News International through her work and provides, we might well assume, a high-level inside track to the Chinese psyche and world’s fastest growing market, besides being a loving wife to Rupert and mother to their two small children.

What of friendship and business creation? Consider a small innovative Software Company I knew in a past life as an illustrative model. Established by two like-minded people with their own inherent skills, but very different backgrounds they decided to, ‘Go for it’. Not initially in friendship but mutuality of goal, business symbiosis, each supporting the other. Was this friendship? Perhaps - but here’s the rub – in business what starts as mutuality can lead to friendship but only with clear division of labour and agreed governance on both sides.

However, businesses pressures are now so great that the mutuality of interest will seldom blossom into friendship. There may be a ‘relationship’ based on convenience, but this can hardly be described as friendship in the usually accepted meaning of the word. For small businesses friendships seems compromised by an initial focus on survival. Once that’s overcome, this might evolve into pressure for short-term growth and rapid returns to financial backers. These pressures cause fun and friendship to quickly leave the business stage. This leaves each stakeholder to reflect on the conflicts of business, friendship and family – pointing perhaps to a situation where family is also the business and friendships have to develop outside.

So if people buy from people they like, can this business relationship develop into friendship? A complex question. One answer from UK pub culture goes farther, where the landlord serving his customers is seen as ‘a mate’, business is interwoven with friendship. So in that instance business and friendships do mix but is that just the secret of running a successful bar?

Outside the pub and the ‘girls from accounts’ can business and friendship mix? The answer is unclear. Relationships in business still thrive despite corporate HR policies. As for mutual friends growing multinationals this needs a special talent. Few have it. To conclude; relationships can certainly flourish but it seems unlikely that real and deep friendships can sustain boardroom pressures where mutual respect and performance are perhaps more valued than the elusive chimera of true friendship.

David Dibbens, is a director of 6 Data Limited and freelance specialist in data-analysis and continual improvement in global IT services.