Can friendships at work work?

How to maintain friendships at work? There are so many land mines waiting to hurt the friendship -

• Did she ask me that to make herself look better?
• Is she using what she knows about me to make me look bad?
• Did she just say that to me in front of everyone?
• Was that a joke or was she serious?
• OMG I didn't want her to share that story

Then we stew... and stew... back away from the friendship and promise ourselves to separate work and and personal relationships. So we are back in the same situation - separating our relationships.

Ultimately I think this comes down to women having a hard time telling someone when they are angry, hurt, or embarrassed. So they keep it inside. And they tell other people about it. And ultimately the relationship sours.

We can take a lesson from watching how men handle it. They confront the issue - "dude that was really uncalled for" - and then they go play golf together.

I've found that focusing on the relationship, taking a deep breath, and having a real conversation does strengthen a relationship. Here are the questions to contemplate:

1. What do you want for her? - really put yourself into her shoes and consider what she wants
2. What do you want for you? - use positive words
3. NOW the most important part - what do you want for the relationship? What would it feel like?
4. Finally, how has the current situation impacted this and how could you see it differently in the future.

It goes like this - a real example...

1. Listen, I want you to get credit for the wonderful job you did designing the training program. I want you to be seen as a leader in this area. I want you to be confident that I am supporting you in this and that I am reinforcing your leadership in this area.
2. I want to count on you to deliver what you promise when you promise. I want to get wonderful feedback about the experience from the trainees. I want to hear the client leadership team talking about us in a positive way.
3. I want for both of us to know that when there are problems we will work together right away to resolve them. I want for you to trust that I'm out to make you look good, and for me to know the same. I want a clean, open relationship without hearing about issues bubbling up outside us.
4. I feel like the last training program was a miss and that you threw me under the bus. It is hard for me to trust you and to support you when I think you are going to damage my credibiity and reputation for your own ends. 

In this situation, I had her nodding at the first and then agreeing as I talked and saying she wanted the same thing. It opened up the conversation and showed what our relationship could be like. It also showed that I really cared both about her and about us. We ended up having a good heart to heart and I think we had a stronger relationship after the conversation.

Was it hard? HECK YEAH. Would it have been easier to bury it, stew about it, and then vent to everyone else? Oh yes. But I learned a really important lesson by forcing myself to take the high road. And I think we should all challenge ourselves to do the same.