The riches of friendship
“Friends make our lives richer when times are good and hold our space in times of struggle.”
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The riches of friendship
Amongst the entrepreneurs that I know the lack of friends and friend-time is a common theme. Founders are often busy to the point of bursting and friend time is one of the first items to fall off the diary. It’s difficult to find space for socialising when working a long day and often into the weekend.
Yet we need friends. We need to socialise, decompress and share our highs and lows. We need friends that can understand the life circumstances we are experiencing so that we (and they) feel seen and heard.
The workplace is an important meeting place for people to find friends and Forbes recently reported that an astonishing 60% of people have found romantic relationships at work. This is clearly an added benefit of the workplace for many and judging from my interviews with young people this week, is often a key reason for choosing or declining a work offer. Common questions include What is the culture? How friendly will my colleagues be? Young applicants especially yearn to join a workplace like Fetola where genuine friendships can be made.
As founder or CEO though, workplace romance is legally ‘off the cards’, as one is ever mindful of the labour law that rightly discourages relationships where the power balance between partners is great (in women’s month we don’t need to be reminded of the all too frequent problem of people being sexually harassed by their boss).
As leaders we walk a different journey – and need to find our soul mate, friend and confidant outside of the business. It can be a lonely journey, holding up a team in the day, taking on the ultimate responsibility for business success (and failure). Having someone in the support role at the end of the day becomes vital.
The ability to find like-minded others is one the core success factors in the MBA course and in business accelerators, where there is freedom for friendships to flourish amongst people on a shared journey.
So, this week is friend week for me. Let’s remind ourselves of the gift of friendship and find the time in our busy day to reach out and connect with those who ‘get us’ and make time in the diary for coffee, dinner or a hike with friends on the mountain.
