Over the few years of our life, and the many years of dad's life, the question of friendship has always found it's way into business. Despite dad's valiant attempts, the question of friendship has always be brought up as a question about business issues. His favorite response is "friends are friends and business is business". To this end he has held true to this and never has allowed one relationship to spill over into another.
Some would say that this is an impossibility, there has to be some degree of consideration. Let us share with you a few cases to illustrate that we are truthful in his conviction.
1. Friendships are not used as a basis for business offerings, in fact on more than one occasion he has turned away offers because of friendships. Some friendships continued but many fell by the wayside. While this makes dad sad, it was probably for the best as it relates to the people who were asking the favor.
2. On a few occassions friends were having personal problems, and asked for business concessions. Dad's view is simple, it's not my concern as a business about your personal issues, it is my concern as a friend only.
3. Making wise decisions in business is a far different situtation than making personal decisions. One cannot apply personal beliefs, then try and then transfer them to business (they don't even apply when trying to reach for similiarities in behavior).
Why do we say this? Your professional life is rich with relationships (some will become friends, whereas most are simply acquaintances). One would more than likely not trust acquiantances as a basis for making strategic business decisions. Friends will most likely not engage you in support for hard personal issues. Therefore it's like oil and water, they don't mix. A friend of dad's make the comment that business & friend relationships is like the farmer who wants as many eggs as possible but realizes that this isn't going to happen so he kills the chicken only to discover that the hen wasn't lieing, there really wasn't an abundance of eggs in the body. A business looks at facts, works from professional statements of agreement, and doesn't use friendship as a stick to pursuade events in a different direction. One will only find that when these sorts of things happen that the eggs aren't there.
Our advise, keep business in business and keep friendship out. It will serve you in the long term.
- Max & Mabel
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