Buddy Boss

"I am the boss in office, but outside office we are the best of buddies" claimed a senior colleague commenting on how he manages relationships with colleagues who he claimed are also his buddies outside office.

And when I say buddies, I mean Buddies - it goes beyond mere friendship.  Being a buddy is different from being a 'friend'.  A boss can be a 'friend' of his subordinate - and can socialize, share personal feelings, and go out camping together.  But this is a friendship that always tacitly respects the official position held by the senior of the two individuals.

So coming back to Buddies - such buddy-ships (for want of a better word) typically get formed when two colleagues are not in a direct reporting relationship. The challenge arises when one of them over-takes the other on the career ladder and ends up as the boss.  Or in the case of a matrix structure, where my buddy ends up in a position where he has a significant role in my assessments/appraisals - or vice versa. Would the original buddy-ship built on absolute equality still survive?

From my observations, very few do.  Despite all the talk about separating out office life from personal life, it is the rare individual who operates in water-tight compartments. The fact is that whether it comes to performance appraisals, assignment of interesting roles/projects, or even simple things like the seating arrangement, friendships do play a huge role in office life, and buddies in reporting relationships do tend to mutually benefit in the office. But inevitably there will come a time when on a certain issue some expectations from either side will not be met - and that will be the beginning of the straining of the buddy-ship.  The strain will first show in office, and willy-nilly soon it will manifest outside the office - and best buddies will turn bitter foes.

If I have a good buddy and recently one of us has started reporting to the other, how do we protect our friendship?

If I am the boss, then the simplest thing I do is to manage my own expectations in terms of how much I think my buddy-subordinate should go beyond his normal role to help me - whether it is in terms of over-over-stretching himself or snitching on his other colleagues.  I would also involve another senior colleague in sensitive - and potentially confrontational - issues such as performance appraisals, determination of increments, bonus etc.  By this process I am sending the message that I want a neutral person involved to prevent any mis-understandings between us - especially when the news being delivered may not be pleasant. Of course my buddy will still think I am deliberately distancing myself - but at least this will ensure that the relationship does not deteriorate sharply. He will still continue to be a friend, if not my buddy.

And if I end up as the subordinate, what then? I can then play a bigger role in ensuring the buddy-ship survives - if I want it to.  From my observations it is all about how much one values the buddy-ship, and therefore how willing one is to walk away from bitter confrontations in office.  To give an example :  I may think I deserve a bigger team to manage the work load, or an x% higher bonus.  If my boss is not a buddy I would probably raise this issue gently with him, and if that does not work - fight it out through escalations.

But if my boss is my buddy, then I need to think very carefully before I escalate : Is the larger team or the x% potential increase (that I MIGHT get after a fight) more important than the buddy-ship I would most probably lose - after all I am dealing with a human being, and not some emotionless organisational position.....

If the x% is really important and I feel I have not been treated fairly, then I will go ahead and fight.  Probably he is not a genuine buddy anyway and he is just exploiting our friendship.......

But in many cases - and after careful thought - I find it better to manage my own expectations.  In which case I choose to walk away from a potentially nasty fight (and a potential x% increase). Walking away could either mean diplomatically and gradually maneuvering myself into a different role (and a different boss), or staying back and accepting and trusting my buddy-boss' decision without showing dissent.

Walking away may sound wimpish.......

But after all, I don't know : maybe he has already tried his best to fight my case internally, and is too embarrassed to tell me he lost the fight.

Or maybe my expectations from my buddy-boss are not fair.

Or maybe it has dawned on me that we are blessed with so few buddies in our life-time......