Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:55: Don't take friendship for granted

00:04:01: The value of friendships at work

00:05:29: Separating a friend from a best friend

00:07:02: The three Ps that challenge friendships

00:09:36: Transitional vs transformational friendships

00:11:19: Friendship career conundrums…

00:11:33: …1: creating friendships remotely

00:20:27: …2: managing friendships

00:31:29: …3: friendship in a competitive environment

00:35:11: More About Me activity

00:37:26: Starting a business with a friend

00:40:51: Final comments

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we talk about a different topic to do with work and we share some ideas for action and tools to try out that we hope will help all of you, as well as us, navigate our Squiggly Careers with that bit more clarity, confidence and control.  And this week's topic is friendship at work, and it is a topic that has had a lot of interest and we've had loads of questions from people when we talked about this being something that we were potentially going to cover. You know when your worlds align, because you know you're going to talk about something? 

It was so interesting today, I was on LinkedIn and Reid Hoffman, one of the co-founders of LinkedIn, has been posting a bit more content, because they've updated their book, The Start-up of You, which apparently, Helen, came out 20 years ago.

Helen Tupper: That's a bit daunting, because we've got an original copy! S

arah Ellis: How old does that make you feel?  I was like, "Oh my God!"  Anyway, that came out 20 years ago, they've updated it, so he's obviously getting his opinion pieces out on LinkedIn, and he's just delivered a speech at a graduation ceremony in the US and it was so interesting, because he chose to talk about friendship.  So, the thing that he picked as being important for career success, and he said lots of people ask him about mentoring and for lots of other bits of advice, but his points are basically that friends, real friends, will tell you what you need to hear, and also you can end up almost all helping each other. 

You know that "givers gain more" type mindset? So, we'll link to it as part of the show notes, and when we post the podcast, just because it's worth a watch.  And also, he clearly doesn't want to do too much of a formal graduation ceremony.  So, I quite like the fact that he gets out from behind the sort of bit more formal pedestal, and just starts chatting to everyone.  So, it's good, it's worth 90 minutes of your time, if you can find a bit of a moment to press pause during your week.

Helen Tupper: And I think it's been quite useful as well to dive into this topic of friendship, because I think it is something that I take for granted, because Sarah and I haven't always worked together, by any means, but we have worked on a side project that has now become our jobs together.

Sarah Ellis: We haven't always been friends!

Helen Tupper: Well, we weren't ever not friends, oh my gosh!

Sarah Ellis: Sorry.  Helen's had a really long day and I was being a bit mean there really.

Helen Tupper: So, the background to that, everybody, we might not be friends for much longer; the background to that is that we met 20 years ago, and we weren't instant friends, because we're quite different people. 

But my point that I was trying to make was that we worked together on something, a side project that's now become our job for ten years, and have been friends throughout that time.  And I think therefore, I sort of take the role of friendship at work for granted, because I haven't necessarily needed loads of friends in the career that went alongside our side project, because I always had a go-to friend at Amazing If. I do have some really strong friendships outside of work too, so it's been really interesting to reflect a bit more deeply on what friendship looks like at work, and how it forms and why we need it, just to maybe think about my own career community and my over-reliance on certain friends.

Sarah Ellis: Are you going to ditch me; going to try and find some new friends?!

Helen Tupper: Well, I might develop my friendship circles as a result of this podcast!

Sarah Ellis: You'll phase me out!

Helen Tupper: There's a really nice quote as well, actually.  I came across the work of Julie Beck, who writes something called The Friendship Files for The Atlantic, which really she interviews people about their friendships, quite interesting.  And there's a quote in an article that she wrote which says, "Friendship is a relationship with no strings attached, except the ones you choose to tie, one that's just about being there as best as you can", and there is a lot in that.

Sarah Ellis: That's a lovely comment.

Helen Tupper: It's so nice, isn't it?

Sarah Ellis: So nice.

Helen Tupper: Because, you know your family, I mean you're stuck with them!  But friendships, you choose, and actually it's about being you.  True friendships, you don't have to be some perfect version of yourself, if just be there as best as you can, I think is a lovely thing to aim for, rather than feel like you have to be some super-human friend to be of worth to other people.

Sarah Ellis: So, there's lots of evidence and data to support why friendships at work are so important.  You have a better work/life balance and you feel less stressed, and I suspect that is because you  have that go-to person that Helen just talked about where, when you probably feel like you need someone to talk to or a different perspective, your friend can give you that. 

When you have friends within the organisation you're in, we are much better at information-sharing and ideas, which also makes sense, the conversations you have over coffee, or where you're just chatting to somebody, and it does predict performance. I found this really interesting, because Gallup, who do lots of engagement surveys, have a question that's something along the lines of, "Do you have a best friend at work?" and they actually say it's one of the questions that people are really sceptical about, which you understand, because that feels like, "Is that a thing that, as an organisation, we should be aiming for or encouraging?" 

And I remember, because I've done these surveys in some of the organisations I've worked in.  I remember answering that question, so when I read this I was like, "Oh, yeah, I remember answering that!" One of the things that they have found consistently is the people who answer yes to that, it predicts performance, because you have a much stronger sense of affiliation, you take more positive action to benefit businesses.  But unfortunately, for the majority of people, only about three or two in ten strongly agree that they've got a best friend at work.  So, for most people, that isn't our reality.

Helen Tupper: The thing that I find a bit challenging with that statement, on the cynical side, you know, the cynic, but as you said, "It's been a day!" but it's the term "best friend" at work.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it feels a bit like I'm back in primary school.

Helen Tupper: Yeah.  It feels like you're in primary school, and also it sets a pretty high bar, doesn't it?  Have I got a friend at work versus a best friend at work?  I think there's a different scale there.  And, when we were diving into the detail of friendship, there are certain levels of friendship that are useful to reflect on. Think of a scale and on one side, you've got a stranger, so someone that, "I know of you", and this is first-impression friendship, if you like; and then you go all the way to the other end of the scale, where a friendship is very intimate, and that's more like, "I connect with you, personally, intuitively", and by intimate, it doesn't necessarily mean it goes beyond that.  But that is the level of best friend.  And they say in the research, that's usually for the rest of your life.

Sarah Ellis: Pressure!

Helen Tupper: I know, the pressure!  So, I feel a little bit like, "Did they intentionally use the 'best friend', or did they just slip that in there?" because I think it has as significant impact on the research outcomes.

Sarah Ellis: I would guess it's very intentional, given they're research- and insight-based; they would have really thought about how they phrase and frame those questions.  But like you, I wonder whether maybe it's also some cultural context, because I also find it uncomfortable that I feel like I'm being asked to choose; so, "Who's your best friend?"  And yeah, that just feels a bit mean, doesn't it? But some of the reasons that a friendship is challenging, there are three Ps that we've seen in what we've been reading.  One of the Ps is to do with the last couple of years, and that is proximity.  We do know that proximity helps us to create friendships, as in I'm sitting near someone, or I see someone face-to-face regularly, and perhaps we end up forming a friendship, because you go out for a coffee together, or you end up just seeing each other around, and it's that more informal friendship, that over time builds.

When I think about some of the friends that I have had at work, often that is how they've happened.  It's not necessarily been the person you're working with the most, it's just been, "Shall we just go and grab a coffee?" you need a bit of a break.  Then you get to know someone, then get to know someone a bit more, and you either gel or you don't; those relationships either get stronger, or they perhaps stay slightly more superficial.  So, proximity is an interesting one, and we're going to come onto some almost conundrums around friendship, and I think the remote hybrid one is an interesting one, so we're going to talk about that. Secondly, I'm cheating a bit with the P here, because it's deprioritised.  I feel like I have turned into Helen, we've switched roles today; I'm like, "It must be three Ps!"  But we are finding that friendships are becoming secondary to transactional relationships.  That's because we are busy and people for you, friendships, are a luxury, because we all recognise that really good friendships take time and attention to build, and so perhaps we just don't see work now as a place to make friends.  Maybe we feel like, "Well, I have my friends outside of work, and that's all I need". 

It's almost what you were describing, Helen, it's like, "Well, I've got some other friends, so maybe that's not what I'm looking for in my day-to-day; and also, I've got so much to do, I feel like I can't create that space for almost one more thing". The last P is patience.  So, you need about, apparently, 80 to 100 hours of knowing someone, spending time with someone, before you get close to friendships.  And apparently, it's 200 hours, is the number, before you get to best friends.  So also, this is not someone where you can switch it on and just say, "Well, if you do these things, it's going to equal friends".  There's no friendship equation that we're going to be able to talk you through.  I also think there's got to be something about almost not whether it's luck or just, you know finding the right people in the right place, sometimes you might just not get that chemistry.  So, it's an interesting question about how intentional can we be about creating friendships at work, and that's what we're going to go on to explore now.

Helen Tupper: You can't help, can you, but think about your own friendships when you're doing this and again, this beacon of being a best friend and that being something quite hard to aim for.  Because, I think about the quality of my friends I've had at work, and I think there's a difference between transitional friendships, so people being there for me as best as they could be, if you take that earlier definition that we had, that have been there in a particular company I've worked for at a particular time, or who were maybe coming back off maternity leave at the same time as I was, and there was something in that shared experience in that shared moment that made them a really important transitional friend for me.  Now, are they a best friend for life?  No. 

Were they very important and valuable to me at that moment?  Yes. So, I think there are these transitional friendships, which I think are really valuable and meaningful at those points in time in your career and life; and then, I think there are more transformational friendships, which last far longer, and those are the ones where maybe you both grow together and you go through transitions in work and life and you support each other through them.  But I think transformational friendships are few and far between, but I don't personally think that you should reduce the value of some of those transitional friendships too.

Sarah Ellis: No, I think you're right.  I don't think it's as binary as, "Well, if it's not a best friend, then it's not worth it", which actually you do start to think that, I think, when you read some of the articles and some of the research; it sort of leads you in that direction.  But then, some of the ideas for action that we're going to talk about now, I think give more of that sense of, "Well, it is okay to have some friendships in the here and now, without putting the pressure on ourselves to be like, "Will you be my best friend?!"  So, I think we've probably got to move away from that, because I think that might hold us back a bit.

So, let's talk about three interesting friendship career conundrums.  So, these came from all the different themes and topics that people were asking us, and we've tried to combine the ones that we think will be most helpful.  So, friendship conundrum number one is, "How can we create connections across remote teams?"  So, maybe you're 100% remote, or maybe you're thinking about hybrid, which most people are thinking about at the moment. So, the idea for action here is to find "deep fun".  Deep fun is a bit of borrowed brilliance from some work by a researcher called Jacob Morgan.  And the way that I learnt about it is I was listening to Dan Coyle talk to Bruce Daisley on his podcast, Eat Sleep Work Repeat, and he talked about this idea of the difference between shallow fun and deep fun.  I was a bit prickly when I first heard about this, because I don't like any kind of --

Helen Tupper: Fun!

Sarah Ellis: -- fun to be forced on me.  No, to be forced on me, not just any kind of -- well, I always get a bit worried that my idea of fun is often quite different to everybody else's idea of fun.  So initially, I was like, "I'm not sure about this".  But essentially, what Dan Coyle was talking about is, we need to be considered about the experiences that we create for people in teams and in organisations, and if we do that in a really interesting way, and quite an experimental way, it actually creates loads more opportunity for connection. So, more shallow fun would be things like getting a drink after work, or playing table tennis, or whatever it might be, all of those slightly cliché workplace fun things, all of which I think in the main I never want to do.

Helen Tupper: So harsh!  I would quite like to go for drinks after work with people as a way to form friendships.

Sarah Ellis: I know you would, I just don't want to come!

Helen Tupper: Moving on!

Sarah Ellis: But deep fun actually I'm more motivated by, so see whether you'd still want to do this or not, because I think this is perhaps probably a bit less you, in terms of that sense of fun and connection in an obvious way.  But essentially here, what Dan Coyle is talking about is experiences where groups can volunteer to get involved in, and they're sort of shaping these experiences.  So, it could be a cross-functional group, where you offer to get involved, or it could be a team, where you just all agree to do something. Some of the examples, just to really bring it to life, because I thought, "Okay, what would this look like?" in some organisations, it can be hackathons. 

But what I liked about the example I was reading was, one organisation did an HR hackathon, where everybody got the chance to rebuild the people processes.  I was like, "Oh, imagine if you could --", that would be a really good way of getting people to let go of the ladder and redesign some of the structures that might get in the way of doing that.  I mean, you're brave, right, as an HR team to encourage this and to basically let everybody have a go at picking something apart. 

But equally, I was like, "Really interesting", and I could imagine people getting really involved in that. But the point was to have fun with it, to almost let go of constraints and usual limitations, that day-to-day stuff that gets in the way.  It's creating a very different experience.  Or, sometimes it can be things that affect everyone in an organisation, but a group takes the lead.  So things like designing office spaces, or designing the food that you're going to make available for everyone.  One of the examples was a team was put in charge of sourcing the best coffee and the machine, and how they were going to do all the drinks; just stuff like that where you go, "Those things are important", that's an important thing, but a cross-functional group could definitely get together to do that. A really obvious one I was thinking about, I was thinking, "What would I do at the moment?" is, I see in loads of workshops how hard people find interruptions and getting distracted at the moment; we call them distraction downfalls. 

I was like, that would be an example of where you could create experiences as a group and say, "What could we do, what deep fun stuff could we try to minimise our distraction downfalls?"  So you're sort of, I guess, setting a bit of a challenge, and then you're really all taking ownership of what those experiences look and feel like. It's worth digging into it a bit deeper and having a read about what some organisations have done, because I just found it really interesting as a way of getting people together that felt very purposeful and meaningful, but definitely outside of the day-to-day.  It definitely got me thinking.  I listened to this today and I want to think of more examples.  I was like, "What could we do in Amazing If, and what might this look like?"  Dan Coyle's point was, this is not the obvious stuff, it goes a bit further than that.  And you almost need to work out, what are these challenges, and they need to involve everyone, they need to feel really inclusive. So, I don't think it's obvious to go, "It needs to be A, B, C", but I think the principles make sense, and then you've got to figure out, "What does this mean to us in our organisation, or in our team?"

Helen Tupper: So, reflecting on forming friendships in remote teams, having listened to what you said, the bit I like about it is I think the default of going out for drinks, whether you're going to do that in person or remotely, I think plays to a certain group of people; it plays to extroverts.  They're actually forming friendships with work people, but outside of work.  And what we're really trying to think about here, I think, is how you form friendships inside of work.  It's a bit of a copout really to be like,

"Let's leave the work behind and just go and have some drinks instead". So, I really like that this is integrated into it, and is perhaps more inclusive as a result of it.  And then, I was also thinking about, "When have I formed friendships in work?" and I think it has been -- some of those things that you described there, those sorts of deep fun experiences, do feel nice to do; but I think some of my most effective friendships have formed in need-to-do experiences.  So for example, "A project's gone wrong, pull people together!" or, "We've got to launch this new thing by the end of the week, or it will be disastrous!" basically these pressure points, where people come together. It's been in those moments where you've had people using their skills, supporting each other, a bit of humour to overcome adversity, that some kind of barrier has broken down that has resulted in a benefit of a friendship forming. 

I was wondering, "Those deep fun experiences, do they create those points of pressure that, for me, have been helpful in forming friendships?"  If they do, great, and if they don't, what would you do differently? I was reading about how managers could help this actually, and one of the things they could do is creating more co-lead collaborations.  So for example, let's say there's a project that needs to get done quickly, or something that's got that point of pressure in, rather than being like, "Sarah, I know you're amazing at this", it being more like, "Sarah, I think you and Helen would work together brilliantly on this.  Can you spend a bit of time together and come up with a plan?" and these sorts of co-lead initiatives could also be ways.  I'm not sure they count as deep fun, but if I just think about my experience of forming friendships, those peak moments of pressure have often been the points in which we've formed a friendship through it.

Sarah Ellis: Well, I think what you're trying to design, and I think design is the right word, because you are trying to create these, I think, from what I've understood, is quite meaningful experiences.  And I think what you've described is, a meaningful experience can be because there's a bit of pressure and there's something to deliver.  But the point would still need to be, you'd have to reflect and think, "I did enjoy it, I did have fun", which I guess some things that are highly pressured probably wouldn't be inclusively fun for everyone; whereas, the idea with something like hackathons, or maybe doing fun experiments for a week on reducing distractions, would maybe feel slightly easier to include everybody in. So, it's definitely one where I'm going to do a bit more reading about it, and have a look at Dan Coyle's book, The Culture Code, I think it's called, because I think that's designed a bit like a workbook. 

And we'll come back to it if we have even more ideas to share.  But I think hopefully, the principle feels helpful, and I think it's incredibly timely at the moment to think about, "How are we going to find these moments of deep fun?" I think your point about not defaulting to the obvious is a really important one.  And try some things out, so don't view it as, "I must get this right".  They did give a few examples as well when they were talking about this today of, "You might try some things and they might just fall a bit flat, but it's better to try and let it fall flat and then just see which ones work, and then do more of those ones".

Helen Tupper: I've got this vision now of friendships just falling flat on the floor!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, "Sorry, I don't really like you much"!  Bit harsh!

Helen Tupper: So, the second friendship conundrum that came up an awful lot was about, "How to manage a friend, or how to manage yourself, when you're being managed as a friend" and there were a lot of requests for this one. 

And people did actually share quite a lot of ideas for action.  I think, when we talked about that scale of friendship earlier, I think this is also quite a useful thing to reflect on.  As I mentioned, on the scale of friendship, at one end you've got strangers, and on the other you've got intimate friends.  But it's these bits in the middle that I think could create some complexities in terms of how you might respond to the situation of being managed, or being managed by a friend. The three bits in the middle of this scale are: an acquaintance, so "I know you loosely"; a casual friend, so "I like you", you're possible showing them the best version of yourself at this point, they're not getting the full you; and a close friend, "I understand you", this is strong bond of mutual trust.  And I think perhaps, I don't know, I think the further you go up the scale, the harder this could be to get right.  Because, if it's an acquaintance and I'm managing you, then there's not really much disruption to our friendship there if it's just, "I know you and I'll manage you.  But if it's like, "I understand you, we have got trust that has formed in a different place in a different time, and now I'm managing you [or] you're managing me", there's potentially, I think, more sources of conflict there, more boundaries that you might be crossing.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it's a tough one, isn't it?  It's one of those where, I was thinking back to people I've managed, and whether it was easier or harder in terms of where they are on that scale.  So, one of the things that Rob Goffey and Gareth Jones talk about in Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? is, what's your natural level of distance; how close do you automatically want to get to people? You and I were talking about this as we were preparing for today's podcast, and you were saying, "Naturally, you feel quite comfortable with a fair bit of distance", and that almost helped you; whereas, I think I'm the opposite and I naturally get closer and really want to understand and connect with everybody, which creates different sorts of challenges.  So, it might also just be worth thinking about, what's your natural closeness distance; where would you gravitate towards, because that also might impact some of the actions that you take.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I agree.

Sarah Ellis: And also, what you find harder.  If you're someone who naturally, like I am, goes to, "I understand you and I connect with you", then you'll find different things harder than if you're more in the, "I know you, I like you", I think.

Helen Tupper: Yeah.  I think I'm definitely, "I know you, I like you, let's work out how we work well!", and that's enough.

Sarah Ellis: You really are!

Helen Tupper: This is a brutal one, everybody!  Okay, so the idea, regardless of whether you value the close connections that Sarah has, or whether you're like me, "I know you, I like you, let's just get work done!" is that the ways of working need to be established early and openly.  Then, actually, you close any expectation gaps that might exist.  So, if someone's been my best friend and I'm like, "Oh no, I just want to get some stuff done together", or if somebody wants to work in a slightly different way, you can look at that quite quickly together.

Sarah Ellis: And I think one of the important things, and I was reading quite a lot about this, because I could see it was a real pressure point for people in the questions to us, is that if your power dynamics change, don't ignore or avoid that, or feel a bit embarrassed about it.  So, let's just use an example and say, suddenly I become Helen's manager.

  Suddenly we've gone from maybe being peers to, I'm now in a more senior position of power. Almost the worst thing that you can do is just leave it unsaid and hope for the best, because what you see time and time again is everybody regrets doing that.  So, you really want to avoid anything that feels like it's one rule for one and one rule for everybody else.  So, let's say I've got an existing team and suddenly I'm promoted and Helen is now part of that team, and it feels like I treat Helen differently to other people, because we were particularly good friends before. 

This is where I think Helen's point about ways of working that everybody is included in, and is open to everybody, makes a really big difference, because it helps with that consistency and fairness. I found a really good Miro board, and we'll put a link to it, and this is -- Miro boards are really a virtual Post-it note, brainstorming tool, is the way that I would describe it, and they have really good templates on lots of different things.  So, I was thinking we often talk about ways of working, and I think it frequently gets missed, or not done; and then when we do do it, do we do it in a way that's visually interesting and that we keep coming back to, and that we can easily refer to? 

And they actually have a teamwork canvas, where you can go in and almost fill out the Post-it notes, they're sort of ready for you, so you can all go in and contribute to it.  And I thought the headers were just a really good place to start. So, it was things like team rhythms, information communication, meetings, resources.  And what I found fascinating was, I've recently started a Ways of Working document for Amazing If, because we've got more people working with us now, we sometimes have people working with us on projects, and I thought, "What would they see, or what could we give somebody, to understand our ways of working?" and we don't really have anything written down.  So, my instinct was to create a Wiki, which is within Teams, within Microsoft Teams. 

But then I saw this and thought, "That just feels even better", because of its ability to involve everyone, to make it dynamic, to keep changing things, because I think as your team evolves, so will your ways of working. So, I think it just keeps it a really live document and something you can also refer back to.  Because, if you're then a manager, or being managed by your friend, if you've got this teamwork canvas, where it's all laid out pretty simply in a straightforward way, yes you might still have to have difficult conversations, but at least you've got a point of reference to keep coming back to, versus getting into the world of opinions and, "I didn't know that", or things that maybe you thought had been said out loud, but maybe hadn't been heard; you know all the stuff that you can't see. I think what we're talking about here is as much clarity, in a very simple and straightforward way as possible, will make it easier for you, whether you're being managed, or the manager.  And, if you do need to do this in a one-to-one way, I think it would also work one-to-one as well.  Although I think this is probably designed for teams, I could imagine having conversations with somebody in my team on these kinds of headers, and I think you could adapt and evolve this, so you're using the right words for you and the right areas too.

Helen Tupper: I always think it's quite an emotional situation as well, quite a triggering one in terms of, "What does this mean for our friendship?  Are you better than me?"  There's quite a few things, I think, that little confidence gremlins could emerge.  So, I think if this is you in this situation, it's worth just taking a step back and doing some of the things we've talked about before, which is almost like dividing a piece of paper in two, and getting the noises in your head onto this bit of paper; and on one side, write all the facts of the situation, and then write all of the feelings, because I would hazard a guess that a lot of what might be going in your head might be a lot of feeling-associated stuff, which you would respond to perhaps differently to some of the facts of a situation. 

So, "Sarah cut me off in a meeting".  That might be a fact that I could give Sarah feedback on.  "I'm threatened by Sarah's success", is a feeling that I need to deal with differently, and I think that could be useful. I also think, and this is probably informed a little bit by mine and Sarah's situation, because I think at times we end up managing each other a little bit to get stuff done, like one of us will take the lead on a certain initiative or project and you're trying to manage the other person to completion. 

And I would say that one of the things that helps us in this situation is to fix friction fast.  So, when we do spot that we are stepping on each other's toes, or when something that someone is doing is creating a problem for the other person, I think we are quite good at calling that pretty quickly and thinking about the whole being bigger than the sum of the parts. So, this isn't about, "You're not doing it well", this is, "There's a way that we could do this better for the business".  I think it's that sort of -- when you have that kind of open objective perspective, "It's not about you, it's not about me, it's about us and the 'we' and the business and the team", then I think you can be more open to fixing that friction fast, without the emotion perhaps getting in the way of it.

Sarah Ellis: I think, like you said, we're good at that now, but we weren't.  I think we've intentionally got better at that.  And when I was thinking about this from my own experiences, I think I've had managers where they are now, I would classify them as really good friends, the level 5 friendship; but when they were managing me, I think they were always a step away from that, and that was absolutely fine.  And even I didn't feel the need to be best friends with my boss, but I'd always got a really strong connection relationship, as in I felt like I understood them, and I think they understood me. It's interesting that all the managers who've gone on to go from the level 4 to 5 were always in that category before when they were managing me, but they didn't move to the final level of friendship until our dynamic changed, and I think that's probably a healthy thing, probably a good thing. 

And I remember someone saying this to me once, and also this has happened to me and in both ways, you never quite know as a manager what messages you might have to communicate and the decisions you might have to make, and someone said, "Just make sure, Sarah, you can always be in a position where you might have to make someone's role redundant". I have had managers who are now very, very good friends, who have had to make my role redundant before, and they're very good friends now with me, and that has happened, they've had to have those conversations with me. 

And I just wonder, if you were at that level 5 friendship, that's an incredibly hard thing emotionally to do.  But if you're just at the, "I understand you", and you've got the trust and the mutual connection, then great.  So, I think that was actually something that always really stayed with me, that might sound quite harsh, but I always remember thinking, "At any point, that person might have to do that; and at any point in the roles where I was a manger, I might have to do that too". Sometimes I managed people that I knew really well, or were friends with other people that I knew outside of work, and I knew that sometimes I might just have to make those difficult decisions or have those tough conversations.  So, I just think there's a difference in those friendships about what we were saying about, in the moment, what feels like the right thing to do, but it doesn't have to stay that way.  Our relationships are changing, aren't they?

Helen Tupper: I agree, I think some level of boundary is useful for both of you, particularly when you spend so much time at work and then, if that work contact has become a friendship, there's a lot you can be quite over-reliant on that, and actually I think both people need a bit of a boundary in it.

Sarah Ellis: And so, our last conundrum is about friendship in a competitive environment.  So, if you feel like you're working in quite a win/lose environment perhaps, or it just feels generally quite high achieving and highly ambitious, how does that work?  Can you still create connections in that kind of environment, or is it every man/person for themselves?  And what does that look like; how can you do that effectively?

Helen Tupper: Well, I've found just being better than everyone is the way to win!

Sarah Ellis: That's not what you said!

Helen Tupper: I know that's not what I said.

Sarah Ellis: We were talking about this one before, and you actually have some very good advice, which I think your advice is probably the answer, but it's one of those "easier said than done" things, so I think you should say that first.

Helen Tupper: Well, I think regular listeners will know that I have this quote that I ascribe to which is, "To run your own race".  But I think the reason that I end up repeating that quote so much is that it's not just a pithy statement, it's something that I genuinely believe in.  I'm not a particularly competitive person, I have lots of different traits that probably aren't amazing, but I don't find any value in competing with people.  I want to do my best and I want other people to do their best, and I want to champion them to do it. So, let's say Sarah and I are going up against some award together and it's for entrepreneurs, and they said that we can't enter it together and only one of us can win it.  If I entered it, Sarah would be like, "Well, I'm going to win that, Helen", because Sarah's way more competitive than me; but I would totally do my best and I would go for it, but then if I didn't get it, I wouldn't let my disappointment be something that got in the way of my happiness in Sarah's development, that's just not a thing that's in with me. So, this one I find tricky, because it's not a conundrum for me; I wouldn't go head-to-head with anyone.  I'd go head-to-head with myself.

Sarah Ellis: I'm really competitive.

Helen Tupper: I know, I know you are!  It's very different for us.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, though I think I have also been in environments that sometimes set you up to think in this way, and that is not always a good thing.  You know if you're put in cohorts of people, or maybe you're even going through programmes where some people get promoted before others; or, if you're in a very grade-oriented environment, which I have been in in lots of organisations; I think sometimes, if you are already competitive, it reinforces that competition, because essentially it compares to other people. It takes, I think, confidence to let go of that; it certainly took me being confident in myself and quite self-aware to go, "Okay, it's not about who gets there first". 

That is actually really ladder-like thinking, it's not about how far and fast I progress versus other people, it's about, "Am I progressing in a way that's meaningful and motivating to me?"  I think there was a real tipping point in my career where I let go of competing versus others, versus being my best.  And actually, it feels very different. I'm still really competitive and I love to win, but I think I now see the win/lose in a working environment in a very different way to, say, a sporting environment, where you do win or lose.  And I've started playing netball again, and the whole point of that was to play netball in a very relaxed environment; but even then, I find it really hard losing!  But it's good for me, it's good to have an outlet for that competitiveness that is in me. So, our idea for action here is, we were trying to think, if you were in quite a competitive environment, what could be helpful?  I think anything that helps you to understand who people are, before you get into what everyone's doing and where everyone's going, is really helpful, so you can connect with the "who" before you worry about, "Well, what job is Helen doing and who's going to get that promotion?" We use an activity called More About Me, and this is a free ten-minute tool that we have on our website under our free toolkit.  Obviously, we'll including the link as part of the podcast. 

And this really is starting to get clues as to people's values.  I don't think you have to do values, because that might feel like too much of a leap, and I think it can feel a bit abstract for some people; but it's an activity that gets you closer to what's important to people, what motivates and drives you. So, the sorts of things we talk about in More About Me are, and you would fill this out for yourself, "I work best when…", "Skills I bring to the team are…", "Come to me if you need help with…", "One thing I'd like help with", and, "A piece of career advice I've found useful".  If you create any sense of that chance to just get to know almost the fundamentals of who someone is and what matters to them, whether it's this or Helen's talked before about creating a Spotify playlist, where everybody talks about a song that's important to them, or whether you do a show-and-tell; anything, I think, that almost zooms you out away from, "We're competing in the day-to-day for jobs or work or projects" and actually, "No, we're caring about who we all are", I think helps to remind us of that sense of we are all human; it reminds us of the humanity, without wanting to be too dramatic about it. Also, to encourage people to do what's best for them versus getting anywhere close to comparison and competition in an unhealthy way, is just only bad for people.  It's bad for our stress and our anxiety.  No good ever comes from it, certainly that I've not seen.

Helen Tupper: It makes me think that quote that I like, the running your own race one, I think those questions help you to understand what race other people are running, like what is important to them, what matters to them, because sometimes you assume that you're all going after the same things for the same reasons.  I think that is rarely true; everybody has different meaning and motivation that they bring to their work, and those More About Me questions give you the chance to understand that, empathise with it, support it, recognise that they don't win at your loss, that actually there's different ways we can win together, for the reasons that you said.  I think it really helps to ask those questions to find that out.

Sarah Ellis: And then, the last very short thing, because we thought it was funny, or I thought it was funny, was some people did ask us about starting a business with a friend, and --

Helen Tupper: Don't do it!  No, joking!

Sarah Ellis: I'm quite enjoying antsy Helen at the end of a long day!  While lots of people say exactly what Helen just said, "Don't do it", so don't start a business with friends or family, because people do have really bad falling-outs.  And I've been given advice loads of times with people saying to me, where perhaps they don't know Helen quite as well, they'll say, "Well, what would you do?"  Almost, "What happens if Helen does something and you end up splitting up almost?" I was thinking, "Why has that never been a challenge for us?" and I think one of the things that is helpful is to do worst-case scenario planning.  This sounds like it wouldn't be fun, but actually it is also quite fun.  You're asking yourself questions like, "What are we going to do if we disagree on a big decision?"  Then, you might want to get really specific.  So, we've had this conversation before, "What happens if one of us wants to leave Amazing If?" You know those things where you go, almost in my wildest dreams, I can't imagine some of the things we have talked about ever happening, but it is better to talk about them and then just to figure out, where do our heads both go in those scenarios?  And I think what you and I have worked out, and we've done this loads of different times, just talking hypothetically and just imaging, is we've both realised, "Our friendship always comes first". For us, that just happens to be true, because we've known each other for such a long time and we were friends for such a long time before we've run a business.  So, I think we just both have that confidence, unless she's about to tell me otherwise, that our friendship will always be more important.

Helen Tupper: Yeah.

Sarah Ellis: But I do think, if you do want to do something with a friend, having those chats upfront is really helpful, not seeing those as a negative, but seeing those as a really useful thing.  And also just agreeing, almost to Helen's previous point, about, "What race are you running?" because that is the other thing that I think has helped both of us, is I've always felt like we're very different, we definitely both want different things from our lives, but we're running the same race in terms of what we're trying to achieve at Amazing If, and what's most important to us at Amazing If, and our values at Amazing If. So, we've got these anchors that are bigger than us.  Even when we're talking about podcasts before we get started, we'll sometimes say, "We're not sure about that bit [or] I'm not sure I like that bit", and we'll use our values, or we'll ask each other questions, and we're just so used to doing that that I think it never falls foul of ever feeling like we're not going to end up friends at the end of a podcast.  Or, even in some of our toughest weeks, and there have been some tough weeks, I think it's fair to say, in the last couple of years, I have never felt anywhere close to thinking, "This is going to affect our friendship".  So, I think that's testament to us, we should be positive about our friendship! Helen Tupper: Well, you're not one mind and one voice, are you?

Sarah Ellis: No.

Helen Tupper: There's one last thing that I came across that said, "In order to understand what each party needs to manage the friendship tension, you've got to get this balance between the freedom to be independent of each other, but then the freedom to be dependent on each other".

Sarah Ellis: That's really nice.

Helen Tupper: I think because freedom's one of my values, I look at that and go, "That's friendship for me".  Where are we independent of each other, where are we two different minds and two different voices, and where are we dependent on each other, because ultimately that's the foundation of trust in the relationship?

Sarah Ellis: And on that note, I'm like, "Oh, we've been quite nice at the end"!

Helen Tupper: From a spikey start to a Squiggly conclusion.

Sarah Ellis: People might have stopped listening by now, so no one actually heard the fact we actually got positive by the end!

Helen Tupper: Well, all the links, because Sarah mentioned the Reid Hoffman video, to the teamwork canvas, some of the resources that we've got in, they'll all be in the PodSheet.  You can get the PodSheet, they'll be in the links to the show notes, so that's largely easier to find on Apple, I think.  But if you ever can't find any of the resources that we create, you can either sign up for PodMail, or you can just go our website, where we're amazingif.com.  And, if you go to the Podcasts tab at the top of the website, you'll be able to find everything there.

Sarah Ellis: So, that's everything for this week.  As always, if you've got any topics or ideas or questions, please do get in touch with us, but we'll speak to you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye, everybody.