Usually relationships sour because one of the people involved suddenly becomes fearful or uneasy. Fear or unease may be the result of some kind of emotional aberration, a personal problem, or pressure from employers.
A good example of this is the case of two men who worked together and had been firm friends for 15 years. They lived on the same street and their families socialized regularly. One day a vice president at their company offered the younger man a promotion which the older man had been promised. The younger man accepted the position and abruptly stopped speaking to the older man.
Their friendship, which had been built over 15 years of working and playing together, ended overnight.
A similar thing happened to a woman who was in upper management at her company. For years she had received excellent reviews from her bosses. She had advanced steadily through the company and had recently been one of two finalists for a much higher position.
One morning she was called into a vice president's office and asked to resign. She was never told what happened. She assumed that the woman who was promoted instead of her didn't want her to remain and exercised her new political clout to have her ousted.
Then there was the man who had been a partner in a very profitable business for many years. He and his partner worked well together, the business was growing and he enjoyed his work - until the day he showed up at work and discovered that the entire business, through a legal maneuver, had been pulled out from under him by his trusted partner
These situations are repeated many times in business. Every indication is that a relationship is built on mutual trust and respect, and suddenly, a colleague, friend or client turns on you.
The best way to prepare for, and deal with, these situations is to balance being nice with being watchful. We should do everything we can to foster good human relationships while recognizing that humans have frailties and weaknesses which can sabotage good relationships very quickly.
When a relationship has been damaged by deceit or maliciousness, there are two methods of dealing with the situation:
One is to recognize the problem and get out of it as quickly as possible. The other is to fight.
Whether you choose to leave or fight depends on several factors:
- The circumstances. If you have been fired abruptly, your ability to fight may be limited to the courts. Although you may be in the right, bringing a case to court can severely limit your chances of finding a new job - and, as a lawyer friend once told me, in most cases only the lawyers win financially. On the other hand, if you are simply involved in some particularly malicious office politics, and you love a good fight and believe you can win, fighting may be your best option.
- Your responsibilities. Single people with few responsibilities beyond themselves often find it easier to fight than do people who are married and have a family to support.
- The company. In some companies, political infighting is expected. The person who is a skilled politician is a highly valued employee. Other companies discourage competition among employees and consider those who fight to be troublemakers.
Perhaps the most important step is to avoid going into business with close friends or family members. There are, of course, many examples of families and friends who started small businesses and became multi-millionaires. However, a large number of these businesses fail, and the friendships are destroyed.
Another step is to avoid becoming overly chummy with co-workers. Personal relationships and business relationships are different, and it's rare that they are combined successfully. At some point, people who have drifted into very personal relationships with co-workers realize that the working relationship and the personal relationship might conflict. One or both try to pull back from the relationship and, in the process, hurt each other.
A third step is without fail to observe the legalities of a working relationship. Be sure that business relationships are clearly spelled out in contracts.
It's important to realize that these situations are almost never caused by something we've done; often times they are beyond our control. The best defense of all is to conduct ourselves professionally at all times, and to combine trust with the safeguards necessary to maintain a good relationship.
