Im going to analyze some Peter Bregmans Essay about having friends at work

when youre the boss!

Bregman is the CEO of a company that strengthens leadership in people and in
organizations through coaching programs.
By the way Im going to mention 2 good examples of Bregmans Essay:
On the one hand we have Girish; he had a friendship skills problem. Girish had
several direct reports as his close friends and he didn't hold them accountable
in the same way he did with his other direct reports. Often his close friends
didn't do what he asked and they weren't delivering the results that the
business expected to be delivered. This was obviously affecting his leadership
and reputation.
On the second hand we take Bills case. He chooses not to have friends at all to
protect his leadership. He avoids friendships at work because he had a hard
experience. And his team would like to be closer to him.
Once he realized that he was hesitating to make decision, and because of that
he had to make a hard call for the good of the business: he fired one of his
direct reports, who was actually a friend of his and his family. This was
obviously painful.
Both scenarios, despite of being opposites, expose how the friendship skills
affect ones leadership. For example: In the Girish situation, the rest of his team
doesn't understand why Girish allows his friends to take advantage of him and
they resent him and feel disengaged by Girishs apparent unfairness. And in
the Bill situation, his team doesnt receive the mutual commitment and needed
trust.
Then again, you may be asking yourselves, what exactly does this have to do
with our empowerment class?
Well Bregman came up with 4 golden rules in order to have this tricky
friendships at work when youre the boss.
First of all youll need to have a clear and
business objectives. This means no matter
friends) have objectives to accomplish and
with your decisions or not, you all have
purpose of the business.

super-strong commitment to your

what, you and your team (or/and
whether some people may agree
the commitment to achieve the

The second rule is the way you handle strong emotions, I mean, you have to be
prepared to hear empathically, sometimes feel resent by your direct reports
and maybe without knowing it youre going to make your team get passiveaggressive. But listen, thats not your problem to fix! The way the business
performance doesnt depend on how they feel, but on the way you need the
organization to be lead!

The Third rule talks about developing friendship skills, what It means is that
you have to manage a dual role: the friend and the business leader. These skills
are based on unwavering integrity, empathic listening, clear speaking, and
strong boundaries.
And the fourth rule is about being prepared to lose a friendship. Bregman tells
the reader that its better to have a lot of friends in order to help you absorb the
shock of losing a friend who cant actually handle your decisions. But this makes
more sense if he would just say: Create an atmosphere of false friendship, in
which youre the only one who knows this is no real friendship, but just a game
we all play in order to keep you guys comfortable in order to work for me and
make money! So thats why you are actually prepared to lose the friendship,
because you know the truth behind business and friendship, and now you know
the trick. The business itself is the trick! I mean: the super-strong commitment
to your business objectives
So all 4 rules summarized to one: Emotional courage!

Why EMOTIONAL COURAGE?

-

Emotional courage to keep the commitment with your business

objectives
Emotional courage to make hard decisions that everyone may not like.
Emotional courage to develop some friendship skills.
And emotional courage to keep in mind what business is and to be
prepared to lose the friendship.

So, To close this analysis, Im just going to say a famous quote: its all about
business
Thanks

1.- STRONG
COMMITMEN
T TO YOUR
BUSINESS
OBJECTIVES

4.- BE
PREPARED
TO LOSE
FRIENDSHIP

GOLDE
N
RULES

3.FRIENDSHIP
SKILLS

2.- BE
CONFORTAB
LE WITH
STRONG
EMOTIONS
(EI)