How to run a business with your friends (and stay friends)
This article was originally published here: https://medium.com/@emily_johnston/how-to-run-a-business-with-your-friends-and-stay-friends-797df5355d70?source=friends_link&sk=e97885ca81e42d286bfa256e041aac9d
A couple of years ago, some friends and I decided to quit our jobs (or in my case at the time, my job hunt) and start something together. A business, or rather, a social business.
We decided we wanted to create our own jobs, be our own bosses, and spend time doing work that lights us up. We wanted to make an impact.
Right from the very beginning, we knew we had a unique opportunity to create exactly the kind of work and team environment that we wanted for ourselves.
While most organisations have to go through painful processes to change, we started with a blank slate. We could intentionally choose the kind of culture we would have in our team, the kind of working processes we would use and the organisational structures beneath it.
We wanted to be self-organised. In other words, we didn’t want to have a traditional hierarchy, but rather have a team where everyone is empowered to bring in ideas, make decisions and take up leadership.
And we wanted to have a culture where it’s ok to be yourself, to take risks and be courageous, and to be honest and open with each other. Which wasn’t too hard considering we were all friends anyway.
Ok, so I started off by saying some friends and I started a business. The more accurate version would be: some acquaintances and I started a business.
In truth we didn’t know each other that well when we started, but boy did we get to know each other as we went on. Our friendships grew alongside the business and they really became the foundation for everything else. Starting a business is intense stuff, and if you can’t rely on your co-founders for some honesty, support, tears and laughter, it’s gonna be that much harder.
But inevitably, at some point the lines get blurred.
When are we colleagues and when are we friends?
Is it ok to talk about work when we’re just hanging out, and about personal stuff when we’re at work?
The decision we made to bring our whole selves to work and encourage humanness in the office sometimes (ok, often) helped this line blur even more.
How can we be whole humans at work and professionals at the same time?
Boundaries, burnout & balance
There was a period where it’s fair to say we went to one extreme on the humanness scale.
Sometimes you have to cross the boundaries to know what’s too much, right?
There were times where our daily check-ins became sagas about our personal challenges. Where we spent too much of our working energy dealing with these challenges and trying to support each other through them.
Then when we realised we’d not only blurred, but actually crossed, some lines, we tried to make the boundaries clearer: what is ok and not ok in the office versus when we’re having friend time?
How much human is too much human in the workplace?
Then we went to the other end of the scale and experienced what it’s like when the friendship part of the deal is not as present.
At the end of last year, we had a lot of projects on at the same time. Like, a lot. And we all worked super hard to meet deadlines and make our clients happy.
In that intense time, we let go of a lot of the small things we usually do for our team well-being, like taking lunch walks together in the beautiful park next to our office, or making time to reflect on how we are doing.
And we pretty much dropped the friendship side of things too: no dinner plans, or talks about personal things. Just work. And it really started to feel like that: just work.
Not our passion project of which we were the bosses.
Not this exciting adventure of running your own business.
Not this joyful experience of drinking a beer at the end of the day with your dear friends who also happen to be your colleagues.
Well poor you, you might be thinking, you experienced how it is for most of us all the time — maybe even how it should be. Work is work. It’s not supposed to be fun.
Well, who cares what it’s supposed to be. It definitely can be fun and fulfilling, so why not let it be, if given the chance and choice?
And, by the way, there are definitely times in the good periods when it feels like bloody hard work. Not everything about running your own business is fun by any means: it can be extremely challenging, frustrating, scary and uncertain.
Yet if you are sharing those things with your team it feels a bit more manageable. And in that tough period it felt like we lost a bit of that feeling. Everyone was exhausted, the team’s immune system was low, it was hard to find those moments of joy, funniness and connection which makes the rest ok.
Anyway, we made it out of that period.
We finished the projects, gave ourselves and the business a rest for a few weeks over the new year, and came back with a choice ahead: we either needed to hire new people, or stop doing some of the things. We went for the first option.
Professionalising and staying human
Having four new people join Unity Effect over the last months has inevitably shifted the dynamic. It’s doubled our team size, for one. And it’s brought us back to some of the intentions we started out with — creating a culture of trust and transparency, having a fully empowered team, and of course, bringing our whole selves to work.
Except now these things have taken on a whole new meaning. Of course everyone feels empowered if they are all co-founders of the company. Of course we are transparent about everything — financials, information, decisions — when we all co-own the business. Of course we can be honest with our colleague-friends. So how does that all work with new people?
Firstly, we realised some of the goals we started out with were somewhat idealistic.
Take empowerment for one. It would be pretty irresponsible for us as business owners to give a new person the power to make decisions about our long term strategy. Not to mention a lot of pressure on them.
At the same time, we don’t want to have to make every decision about absolutely everything — especially as some of our new colleagues are much more knowledgeable in their field than we are. Giving them space to bring in ideas and make decisions — where appropriate — can be a powerful way to work with the strengths in our team.
Just as we learnt with the practice of being humans at work, it’s a balancing act. And it needs clear boundaries.
Expanding our team has also brought in a new feeling of professionalism in the way we work together . Which brings us to the next question in among the complex flavours of our friend-colleague hot pot.
How can we professionalise our organisation and keep that magic team spirit that makes coming to work every day so special? I don’t ever want to stop loving Mondays. Radical, I know.
Small Practices in Honesty and Connection
Some of the ways we are managing to walk the professional-friend tightrope are through our team routines. As we work with agile methods, we have a daily team check-in to organise our work. As well as being an efficient way to coordinate, keep the overview and reduce bottlenecks, it’s also a moment for a personal check-in of how we are doing. Because, you know, humanness.
This is a seemingly small and simple thing, yet for our new team members it can be a process of unlearning.
I mean, how often do we get an honest answer to the question: how are you today? Often for the first few days they will answer with: I’m fine, or I’m good. Standard, professional, safe. Yet once they realise that it’s a real question and not just a pleasantry, and that giving real answers is ok, this can start to shift.
It can be a real relief to be honest about how you are feeling — honest with yourself, as well as with the others.
I’m feeling energised today.
I didn’t sleep so well and I’m tired today.
I’m feeling motivated and would appreciate some concentrated working time, so please don’t disturb me unless necessary.
Or I’m feeling a little grumpy today and please don’t take it personally.
It’s amazing what a few small, honest sentences can do to avoid conflict, support us to state our needs, work more effectively together and to feel connected on a human level. It’s a great practice in building our team culture together. And most of the time it only takes 10 minutes out of our day.
Through these kinds of practices we’ve learnt that it is possible to be honest and human in a healthy — and productive — way.
As long as you’re willing to set and stick to boundaries.
To take responsibility for yourself.
And in our working relationships, just as in our working processes, we need structure and transparency. Trust and accountability. The willingness to keep figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
And a good old dose of appreciation for each other — not only as colleagues or friends, but as humans.
And as long as that’s the case, I’m pretty sure we can run a professional organisation, Monday will still be an amazing day and we will still be friends.
Global Changemakers has an unshakeable mission of supporting youth to create positive change in their communities. A global pioneer in supporting youth-led development, they have trained youth from over 180 countries and provided grants to over 360 youth-led projects, which have had a combined impact on over 6,2 million people. www.global-changemakers.net
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article belong to the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or Global Changemakers.
