Networking vs Friendships

📢 For decades, we've been told to keep our work lives separate from our personal lives. But that logic is simply outdated. In this post, we will discuss the benefits of building #ProfessionalFriendships, and will also share 5 tips of advice that you can start implementing into your life right now.

🤝 Forming friendships through work isn't only human, it's a business and well-being imperative. #WorkplaceFriendships produce a number of benefits, including trust, emotional support, knowledge sharing, innovation, career advancement, and job performance, just to name a few. However, few people take advantage of these benefits due to the separation of their work and personal lives.

🕵️‍♂️ In a test done by the Harvard Business Review, they asked executives to label two circles. One circle would represent "friends", the other would represent "professional network". They were then asked to overlap the circles to whatever extent they deemed their social friends represented their professional network. Roughly 10% drew circles that barely touched, another 10% drew circles that overlapped by 50% or more, and the rest fell somewhere in between.

🧩 After conducting this test on over 1,500 executives, the conclusion that those with more overlap tend to have bigger professional networks, higher career satisfaction, and higher incomes was realized. So professional friendships are really this important, how can we actually going about making them? Outlined are the 5 best practices that you can begin doing today, that will not only benefit your career, but also improve your quality of life.

1️⃣ Put personal before professional. New business friendships are formed on personal bases, such as shared values and personal identities. It is the professional benefits that allow them to endure.

2️⃣ Expand your concept of friendship. People can typically maintain about 150 meaningful relationships, per Cambridge University. How you define "friend" determines how often you feel you can merge the personal with the professional.

3️⃣ Expand your concept of #ProfessionalRelevance. Just as you expand your definition of friendship, it is equally important to expand your definition of professional relevance. This will help widen both circles, increasing the chance they overlap.

4️⃣ Offer the first favor. Friendships are the domain of social exchange. They involve the give and take of favors. Therefore, offering a favor is an effective way to begin or deepen a friendship, as it signals generosity.

5️⃣ Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, do not compromise on quality. As outlined in my book, "23 Tips to Climb a Life Mountain": https://lnkd.in/gPssTd76 I discuss the importance of carefully choosing relationships, as those you surround yourself with will ultimately shape your actions. The previous methods will prove meaningless if the wrong people are chosen to connect with.

🤔 What do you think? 💭