Get VIP invites to recruiting events with popular employers! Sign up here.

Startup Advice: 3 Financial Tips for Long-Term Success

Female Woman Sitting At Interview

Own Your Job Interview: 11 Tips for Landing That Dream Job

5 Ways MBA Programs are Adapting to the Ever-Changing Business World

beach as home office

How to Quit Your Job and Make the Beach Your Office

browse:

First Time on Brazen?

Syndication and Content Partners

Brazen Life has partnerships with AOL Jobs, Business Insider, Lifehacker, Black Enterprise, Huffington Post, Levo League, Idealist, Media Jobs Daily, TalentCulture, Professional Women of Color Network, Tribune Media Services, Ragan and Trove.

Click here to learn more about syndication opportunities.

Spice Up Your Inbox!

Get invites to exclusive career events, networking opportunities and top career advice.

Tags

Connect

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
RSS

The Workplace Myth That Could Kill Your Career

Tweet Pin It Pin It

Category: On the Job

Tags: friends, getting along with coworkers

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1115497179 Angela Capullo

Love the article Shola!
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1381282808 Buffy Ansel
  
  This is a great read Shola. What you write about at the core and what I tell people in my seminars is that people and relationships go hand in hand. The root of what you are talking about is being connected to each other as human beings. No one can survive on an island of one. No one. Building and maintaining relationships is vital to our very existence. No matter the race or social class, we have as humans always been a part of a community. Thank you for sharing!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=25802987 Jennifer Hall

Love this, Shola! Great job!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1339846052 Todd Baumeister

Makes complete sense about how to be both successful and happy at work. Very well written and informative piece. Thanks!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=647786535 CarterFreeman Michele

Very good take on a issue many grapple with!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=582924852 Limari Rivera

Great article and I totally agree. I have met some great friends at work and they still continue to be my friend even after I have left that workplace. It is definitely invaluable and makes a difference. Good points.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1038693092 Tricia Kelley Ramsdell

So true! Great article!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=756884218 Pauline Prosper Pratt

This is really food for thought. I used to this having friends at work will give me the reputation of being too social and not serious but you have really good points. I will marinate on your perspective and try to take your advice. Who knows maybe it will lead to a promotion.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=832800320 Jesús Gerena

Great article Shola and right on, for the last 10 years I have had the privilege to work with some of my closest friends, this has been very intentional. I only hope I have the opportunity to continue to do so for many more years more.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1317158356 Liz Sanders-Kosiba

“Friends Make Mondays Feel Like Saturdays”… I love this! Some of my best friends are from work. It’s nice to go out with them AFTER work too, for drinks or pool or whatever and talk (rant?) about our bad days and our bad customers It’s a nice support system.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=643256323 Kathleen McGrath McQuillan

Spectacular, as always! I think there is a fine line, though, when having friends at work. When someone is the boss, as I am, I can certainly build strong relationships, but I would not necessarily go to those people with my most recent heartbreak. kwim?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1424403505 Griselda Ocampo

This article is so spot on! Some of my best friends I met at work and I actually enjoyed working.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=660487515 Ronald Burt

Great article. Worked on Wall Street for 8 years. This should be required reading in all training programs… especially this –> “It’s all about who you know.” (Reality: it’s all about who likes you and who respects you.)
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1324957580 Sarah Thompson

I agree, in fact I would take it a step further and say that it is also good to be friends with your boss and/or direct reports. There is this belief that you should never share anything personal with the people that work for you, however as you said if people like you they are willing to help you. Without employees that will help you will not be a successful manager.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1581090041 Kurt Martel

First of all, NOTHING goes well with strawberry milk. Particularly taste buds.

As a bit of a social economics geek, it is great for me to see a cultural shift in American workplace toward paying attention to something microeconomists have been talking about for decades: Utility (or, happiness). Miserable people make really poor employees.

Look at the emergence of the term “Karoshi” in Japan. There is more to life than working your fingers to the bone in misery, and developing friendships is just as healthy at the workplace as it is outside the workplace.

Well written article Shola. Keep them coming!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1134520082 Amanda Gonzalez

so true….”friends within arms reach” is how I refer to it, great article
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1198681992 Greta LaMountain Biagi

As always, this article shows insight and gives great perspective. You are my work place go-to guy.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004370822719 Zachary Cordina

significant, accurate points written constructively. Great article that talks with,not at.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=600032559 Clarence White

Well put Shola,

A lot of us spend the majority of our wakened hours with co-workers rather than family. It would be miserable to spend than time in perpetual conflict. #gottalikethemGuys/Gals
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1422847578 Julia Sanchez

I’ve seen a lot of articles about the connection between engagement and having friends at work, but this is the first I’ve seen that explains what it means to be a friend at work. This is a helpful guide for how to interact with colleagues, and for managers to understand how their staff should be interacting.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=535916545 Meg Rosa

Articles just like this should be mandatory reading before hiring a new employee and also mandatory reading for current employees. If more people actually behaved like this with coworkers, work places would be far more efficient and tolerable. To me it seems like common sense, but I have worked with plenty of people who only look out for themselves. Doing that doesn’t allow anyone to feel good. Shola this is well written and highly effective. I hope this article gets wide spread exposure and people follow through with what they read.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=783632572 Barbara Saunders
  
  I agree with you that some people are just pills. But something else goes on in workplaces, I think. They are artificial cultural environments that often don’t have a place for the spectrum of perfectly reasonable behavior. An illustrative example: I worked at a nonprofit where most of the “successful” and well-liked managers did not delegate well. People basically did things “the way we’ve always done things around here” and managers simply praised or punished and did their own set of rote tasks. There were three former employees who had gone on to leadership positions in the field – thought leadership, entrepreneurship, and another nonprofit organization. I was surprised to hear that my coworkers labeled all of these people “LAZY.” Because their idea of “not-lazy” was doing work oneself. As for as they were concerned, delegation = not doing your own work. The blanket instruction to “get along” doesn’t account for the problem of the way workplaces can become distorted, closed cultures.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1480945717 Sarah Bardell

Could not agree more
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1051644316 Tami K Goodrich

Well written, well said. You are a talented man.
Pingback: The Workplace Myth That Could Kill Your Career (at Brazen Life) - Cubepiphany
Pingback: 5 for Friday: Workplace Happiness Edition | Job Opportunities For You
Pingback: That’s what friends (at work) are for | Before You Light That Match
Pingback: 3 Tips To Being Better at What You Do
NopeNope

If you really believe the people you work with are in any way, shape, or form your friends, you are fooling yourself, and the consequences of your belief will drastically impact your career.
Do you meet any of these people after work? Have you been to their houses, met their spouses, gone bowling or played tennis or anything like that? Would you lend them money? Do you know how much they make, what their last raise was, and what they *really* think of the boss? No? Then they’re not your friends. They’re people you work with, people who you are competing with for raises and promotions and the position of last man standing when the hatchet falls. Have lunch with them, be friendly, but remember that the work world is a shark tank.
Pingback: The Workplace Myth That Could Kill Your Career (at Brazen Life) - The Positivity Solution
Pingback: 3 Tips To Being Better at What You Do | inPharmacyJobs

Ready to be Brazen?

For invites to upcoming recruiting events, plus brazen career advice, Sign up for our newsletter!

Interested in writing for us? Learn more here.

Interested in advertising on BrazenLife? Learn more here.