Many Gen X employees I know operate under the perception that if they just put their head down and work, then good things will happen. They’re sort of right. But to lead, they’re going to have to start making friends with others—coworkers, subordinates, bosses, vendors, and clients—for a variety of reasons, including:
- Making sure there is a foundation in place for the day when a philosophical disagreement about how to run a department/division/company/partnership threatens to topple the whole thing and send you back to square one.
- Making it possible for people to send you opportunities. People who don’t like you—or don’t know you—won’t. It’s as simple as that.
- Protect yourself from the risk of a protracted job search should you ever find yourself on the wrong side on a termination.
- “The toes you step on today may be connected to the ass you need to kiss tomorrow.” Best to be nice to everyone just in case.
Often, employees not yet at the manager ranks, and managers who haven’t fully mentally vacated their old functional jobs, will challenge me on the concept of “making friends.” Their challenges generally takes one of the following forms:
- It is inappropriate to befriend a subordinate because then I’m playing favorites.
- It is inappropriate and unethical, and maybe even illegal, to befriend a vendor because they’ll expect favors.
- It is inappropriate and unethical, and maybe even illegal, to befriend clients (especially when operating in an RFP setting), because we have to play by the rules.
- It is inappropriate and disingenuous to befriend a boss because I should be able to get my next job on the merits.
All of these have some truth to them, but none of them are as black-and-white as some would think:
#1 is a straw man. It’s almost impossible to avoid the perception of favoritism amongst subordinates. Look up “Leader Member Exchange Theory” for an understanding of why.
#2 suggests that friends always ask friends to do unethical things for them. It’s just not that clean; I would hope that you have friends who are principled enough not to ask for favoritism, and I would assume that at least some of your vendors are principled, too. Am I being naive?
#3 is short-sighted. If the only time you interact with your clients is during the RFP process, and you’re not taking an interest in how your products/services are helping them do their jobs better/faster/cheaper, then you deserve to lose the business.
#4 is like saying, “There’s this girl I like, but instead of asking her out on a date, I’m going to just act really cool every day until she notices me and asks me out.” Get the job on the merits, yes. But never forget that you are one of many, many people who merit the job, and so you’re going to have to sell yourself, too.
Bottom line: Gen X, you need the benefits of relationships more than you need to avoid their risks. Get out there.
Make friends.
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I'm Jason. I make people shine. My mission is to help 1 million people tell their stories better. 
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Jason – Do you think there is a propensity towards ‘leave me alone and let me do my work’ among Gen X? I have not really thought about it much, but I kind of think there may be. Interesting and solid post for sure.
Steve—opinion? yes. It’s like we rejected—en masse—the buddy system put into place by our elders, blaming it for the (many, many, many intractable) political problems we inherited from their generations, but we did it before technology was really able to replace it with the zero-horizon Rolodex that social media provides. So we retreated into our corners and now we snipe at each other all day long at work and go get drunk with the same five friends at night and wonder why our world is falling apart and we can’t get anything done.
Jason, timely post – was just mentoring a graduate last nite on similar theme. I do think to some extent this is just as relevant for GenY. Taking it further, their challenge seems to be understanding the difference between quantity and quality – that is # of Linkedin/FB contacts determines popularity and social skills. As i told him, technical skills may get you the job, interpersonal/social skills determine how far/fast you move. However, you said it far more eloquently – have shared your post with him!
hey jason, all strong reasons to build relationships. i laughed when i read # 4, as i got an early lesson from a mentor about just this. she told me people leave jobs, but they don’t leave town. that’s true in philly and it’s true elsewhere, particularly now that “town” is the world.
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@Geeta—I find it’s less about understanding the quality/quantity trade-off and more about figuring out how to go from quantity to quality. Whereas older generations started with a few connections and then simultaneously built networking breadth as they solidified their relationships with a close few, younger professionals can easily amass a great number of connections… what they need is the ability to sift through those connections to ID the few gems. I picture the issue as someone dropping me in the middle of the Library of Congress without teaching me how to research: I know the answer is there… but how do I find it?!
@fran—So true. I have so many clients where at the top, this executive used to work for that one, or this guy now supervises his former boss, or someone gets brought in via a merger and now manages a former coworker once again, etc.
Right on, Jason. Relationship building and befriending are vital to long-term success (and failure when appropriate). Thank God I bucked the Gen X un-befriend trend in the workplace and business and encourage others to do the same. Otherwise I’d be a stay-at-home dad. But of course there’s nothing wrong with that because befriending other adults at daycare and the playground and elsewhere are critical to parent/child developmental skills. Okay, I’ll stop now.
Interestingly, being raised in the business world by a Gen Jones’r, I was taught that networking and socializing with your coworkers, subordinates, boss, clients, etc. was the way to build business, partnerships and friendships. after all, you spent most of your life with these folks.
In the post college corporate HR world (going to school later in life, we’re talking 1999) I had more than a handful of young GenX superiors who absolutely freaked at the idea of what they now termed “fraternization”. Out of fear of lawsuits or what, they totally forbade anyone not on the same “level” from interacting in anything other than a business transaction.
I agree that we need, as a generation, to get out of the cubicle and remember that your subordinate might give you some keen insight if you take them to lunch or buy them a beer occasionally, and that there’s no way to keep everyone happy on the “favoritism” charge. And occasionally schmoozing with a boss is not a bad idea as long as you remember moderation.
Networking is networking is relationship building in any light.
Its taken me a while, but I’m making better friends, and tossing those fears (instilled by Gen X peers against my upbringing) right into the junkyard.
What if you hate being around people?
@Kevin—Stay-at-home moms and stay-at-home dads are as different as pro baseball players and little leaguers, and we both know it, don’t we.
@Tammy—Gen Xers have historically fruk out at the thought of allowing humanity to cause any bending of the rules, haven’t we. Interesting thought.
@Thomas—If you hate people, then trust me, you’re no picnic either. But you might just be a good coaching client!