Firing
In business I would not be able to form close friendships with my employees. I say this because firing an employee would be more difficult if one has a friendship with him/her. For me business would solely be business and integrating family, friends with work would be difficult. I would not want my emotions to get in the way of my business. Therefore I would not form a close friendship with my employees.
Comments
Posted by: Grace Liaw
Posted on: December 10, 2006 01:51 AM
But if you did not form close relationships with your employees, how would you expect them to work loyally for you? Wouldn't alienating yourself from them result in bad communication?
There's more to management than just the firing aspect of it. So maybe we should balance the two. Can you trust people without forming close relationships with them? Can they work for you without trusting you?
Posted by: Mridu Kapil
Posted on: December 10, 2006 11:17 AM
I would not alienate myself from the employees. By not having a close relationship, does not suggest that I would discontinue my friendship and cease communication with the employees. There is a difference between being too close and having a normal, friendly, business relationship. That is why I stated that I would not want to form "too close of a relationship".
Posted by: Grace Lee
Posted on: December 11, 2006 01:29 AM
I agree with you to a certain extent. It would be harder for an employee to take your comments objectively and not personally if you're really close friends. I would have a ridiculous amount of trouble criticizing or firing a friend, but no matter how unpleasant, it would still be a learning experience. Sometimes closer friendships do happen even when you're not looking for it, and it's probably best to just keep the friendship and try to prevent it from interfering with business.