How Work Friendships Can Change your Life

We're failing at friendship - and it makes our lives poorer

Something I’m Learning

A few days ago, I woke up to LinkedIn posts from two friends celebrating our little group online. I had only met them 7 years ago through working in similar spaces. After being clients, referrals, etc., to each other for a couple of years, we co-hosted a series of conferences in major Indian cities. Those post-conference happy hours went late into the evening and we – three social enterprise CEOs navigating similar challenges – struck up a firm friendship, which has withstood, as one of them put it, “4 career switches between us, one move across the world and a citizenship change, 2 new institutions, multiple events, dinners and drinks, countless hours of advice”.

Their posts made me reflect on the beauty of crossover friendships, which start as work acquaintances before turning into personal friendships outside work, making them qualitatively different from university or other friend networks that start outside of work.

On the one hand, crossover friendships are relatively common and many of you undoubtedly have several. Yet, the ‘decline of friendship’ has been gaining prominence as a topic amongst sociologists and public intellectuals. Take this viral Simon Sinek/Trevor Noah clip for instance.

When I started a new job in Washington, D.C. post-Covid (the era of the ‘Great Resignation’, ‘Quiet Quitting’, and militant refusals to go into the office), I noticed much had changed in the city compared to a decade ago. As a new arrival to the city and to a large institution, I was motivated to connect with colleagues and my professional networks. But in addition to fewer happy hours (that DC institution!) and evening events, there now seemed a much firmer boundary between professional and personal lives. It was a lot harder to make ‘work friends’ than it used to be.

This may be more true for those with a strong affiliation between personal identity and professional choices, but I’ve found many of my most fulfilling and consequential friendships in work settings. A few examples:

• The office mate in my 20s whose devastating observation gave me the courage to call off an unhappy engagement.

• The peer entrepreneur who, when I was choosing between a risky startup and a lucrative World Bank opportunity, helped me see that I’d be more fulfilled if I made the leap of faith.

• My co-founder who relentlessly pushed me to be the best version of myself (and played a pivotal role in connecting me to my wife).

• The customer-turned-consultant with whom I went on insanely memorable and hair-raising travel adventures across Africa.

• And when it was time to merge my start-up with another organization, the long-time collaborator who came forward to take the reins.

These relationships transformed my life. They are the epitome of what Aristotle called ‘friendships of the good’, the highest form of friendship. And none of them would have happened without first meeting at work.

There’ve been many more crossover friendships that made a difference, in ways big and small. Just a few days ago, I canceled plans because I was sick with a much younger friend who started as a junior direct report in India many years ago but recently moved into my neighborhood in Washington DC. She immediately offered to go to the pharmacy for me.

I felt guilty canceling those plans because of something Sinek says in that video: “Would you cancel on a friend for a meeting, or would you cancel on a meeting for a friend?”

So as we enter the new year, I hope we work on our crossover friendships. We can start by reflecting with gratitude on their impact in our lives. We can commit to never canceling plans with friends because of work. And we can remember, when we meet a new professional contact, that this could be someone who, if we’re both open and generous enough, may one day change our life.

Something to Consider

My experience on returning to Washington wasn’t off-base. It is harder to make work friends these days. Won’t You Be My (Work) Friend?

Also worth it: the full conversation between Simon Sinek and Trevor Noah from above.

Something to Quote

The ultimate touchstone [of friendship] is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

- David Whyte, Consolations