If you’re like
the average American who reportedly works 50 or more hours a week, then you’re
probably also like the one-third of surveyed American workers who said they
meet the majority of their friends at work. Your shared experiences – good and
bad - create a natural bond. People who work with friends report higher levels
of job satisfaction, productivity and engagement. Higher levels of engagement
increase the average length of stay at an organization. When you enjoy the
people you work with, you naturally want to keep working with them. But what
happens when it’s time to move up in your career?
You’re ready for
that next step up the ladder -- are your work friends? If you should get the opportunity to move up in
your own organization (and don’t have to leave to achieve advancement), your
friendships will be different. Period. "The dynamics completely change, “
says Robert Sutton, author of Good Boss,
Bad Boss. "People start to watch you more than ever before." Michael
Watkins, author of Your Next Move says
that being promoted to a position that manages your former peers,
"combines the challenges of any promotion with the additional challenge of
people having to recalibrate their relationship with you."
When you are
promoted to be their supervisor, you can’t just abandon your work friends, but
how you handle the transition from buddy to boss may determine if they abandon
you. Here are some steps you can take to clear a few common hurdles with grace.
1. Acknowledge the elephant in the room – There are going to be more than a few awkward
moments. Be candid about it. Tell your team that you expect those clumsy
uncomfortable moments to happen and give them permission to call you out, let
them know you’ll be doing the same. Invite them to give you feedback on what
they think a good transition would look like and how to make that happen. You
will get some great insight into what they need from you as a supervisor and
they will appreciate the fact that you even asked.
2. Redefine and reintroduce yourself – It’s important to establish early on what your new role is…
and isn’t. If you’re carrying over some responsibilities from your previous
position, it may delay or muddy their recognition of you as “boss” rather than
their regular co-worker. On the flip-side, if you are retaining none of your old
responsibilities and this new management role is completely different from the
expertise and competencies you’ve already established with them as a peer, be
prepared that you may have to “prove yourself” to them all over again as skilled
and competent as their manager too. Part
of this reintroduction should include communicating your expectations of how
you all will work together and of setting boundaries for what can no longer be
a part of your dynamic.
· Boundaries. There are some conversations that used to be
commonplace that just aren’t going to happen anymore. Both you and they know
this. But the clearer you can be about which ones and why, the easier it will
be to maintain the conversations you DO want to keep having and not feel like you’ve
just cut each other out completely.
- Grumbling about management. When the urge to gripe strikes, it may take them a while to
remember that you ARE management. When you were “one of the guys” you might all
complain to each other about a decision or policy made by “the man”, but now
that you are “the man”, your first duty
is to the company, not your friends. You should let them know up front that you
do want to hear from them if they have concerns or complaints but that
you won’t be engaging in (or condoning) a gripe-fest. Telling them that upfront
will save you and them from misunderstandings later when you have to cut them
off and remind them your role is different now.
It’s also
a good idea to just warn them now that some of their complaints will be met
with your validation and explanation of those policies or decisions and not an agreement
as they might have expected. Your job as
manager is to support organizational decisions and help your employees to do
the same. If you don’t have a good answer for why the company made the decision
it did (whether you really agreed with it or not), you need affirm for them that
they have offered reasonable feedback and questions and that you’ll have to ask
a few more yourself to help everyone understand the new direction. If you do, in fact, have issue with something
going on, the group to seek feedback from (or commiserate with) is your NEW
peer group, the other managers.
- Confidential Information. There are pitfalls to privilege. You will be privy to
management level information that is not appropriate to share or discuss and
all of you know this. Ask your team up front not to pry or pressure you into discussing
things with them that all sides know are not appropriate (coworker’s wages, why
someone was let go, who’s getting the promotion, if layoffs are coming, etc.).
You’ll probably have to remind them (and catch yourself) from time to time, but
it’s going to come up. Just call it out with the other elephant.
A less
obvious breech may start with the conversations that you’ve had for years that,
as peers, were based on common
observations combined with personal opinion but now are no longer appropriate.
Example: you and Judy would frequently share your frustration with Fred’s
constant early exits, late arrivals and unplanned days off and lament about the
impact it has on the rest of the team. You’d ask each other why “management” was
so oblivious or elected to ignore it. Now that both Judy and Fred are reporting
to you, you may have more context as to why Fred seems to come and go and miss
more work than the average employee. Let’s say Fred has an ADA accommodation or
is taking protected intermittent leave under FMLA. You cannot disclose those
things to Judy. So when Judy complains to you that Fred’s missed another
deadline and it’s putting her behind, you can’t make excuses for Fred and you
can’t tell Judy why it continues to be accepted from him and not others.
Welcome to management! Thank Judy for letting you know and assure her that
you’ll extend her deadline because of Fred’s delay. You’ll have a separate conversation
with Fred about his own deadlines but you can’t discuss one employee’s
performance with another employee, no matter how obvious and observable.
3. Watch out for favoritism or over-compensation – You may already be watching that
you don’t give the best assignments or the highest scores to those one or two
people on your team who were your friends before you were promoted. Believe me,
you aren’t watching nearly as closely as the other people on your team. On the other hand, you want to make sure
you don’t lean too far in the other direction either and over compensate for that
friendship by being tougher on them than everyone else. You’ve got to strike a
balance and distance yourself a bit to gain objectivity. When possible, rely on
existing policies and processes to level the playing field (i.e. when two
people ask for the same week of vacation, who, according to policy, gets
preference? Seniority? First come, first serve?).
4. Give it and Get it – Remember the reason you were promoted in the first place and give to your
team the proper supervision and leadership they need and expect. If this is your
first time supervising, don’t expect yourself to intuitively “just know” what
to do in every situation. Get some training, read some books and rely on your
new peer group – other managers. But also remember to get the
supervision you need from your own boss. You can’t be expected to be perfect
and self-sufficient on day-one and your boss is a good resource to coach you
through situation and ensure they handled the way he or she would have
preferred.
Supervisors
and managers can make or break a company. Employees will walk away from
extraordinary pay, doing a job they love because of a bad boss. Employees will also
stick with a so-so job, making so-so pay, because of a great boss. What makes a great
boss? Being their “friend” did not make the list. Employees want their boss to
set clear expectations and goals, to recognize accomplishments, to have open
communication, to provide growth opportunities, to be someone they can trust
and respect and to have enough trust in them to empower them to do their job.
Maintaining their friendships won’t accomplish any of those things. Of course,
it would be hard to be successful at any of those things if you aren’t at least
friendly, but that’s different from being their friend.
If you want to
step up and take on the responsibility of management, but that move will
require supervising your friends and peers, you’ll need to accept that your
workplace friends don’t have to become enemies but the relationship will take
on completely different characteristics. If you handle the transition well and
commit to doing what it takes to be a good boss, those old friends will
appreciate you even more, just for different reasons.
