Worklife, colleagues, and friendships

Learnings from people matters: Don’t be afraid of becoming friends with the people you work with, remember to experiment also with people matters, and value the people around you the best you can by listening and by giving support and flexibility to grow.

The importance of people has been a common factor in nearly all of my blogs, whether they have been about experiments, building data capabilities or using agile methods. That’s why I wanted to focus this time on people, colleagues and friends, with some learnings and personal takeaways.

I’ve never been afraid of becoming friends with people I work with, working with old friends or hiring them to the same team as I am. It’s also perfectly understandable if some people don’t want to share more than the work itself. But with the intensive development of new solutions, you easily end up spending a lot of time together and sometimes becoming friends also. 

I feel very lucky, that some of these friendships and working together have lasted even with multiple company changes from both sides. It’s easy to work with people whose skills and capabilities you know very well. It also enables a fast track with testing of your ideas and possible solutions, because you can trust that a friend will give you honest feedback, or you will see through it. Somehow it’s easier to take criticism from a person you know, than from someone you just met.

In developing software the best mix often comes when you have a diversity of skills, personalities, cultural backgrounds and demographic attributes so that you can better relate to different kinds of users of the services and solve complex problems. It’s also very good if you’re able to work with colleagues with long experience in the company/project/area, and with partners from consultancy companies that have been rotating more in other companies/projects/areas. When tested solutions are challenged with fresh ideas, all parties usually learn and flourish. If you also have some friends nearby, the trust and joy of accomplishing together can take the work to the next level.

Experimenting is important with people matters also. I’ve had good experiences with experimenting with people working in two teams at the same time, half and half usually. It gives the person the possibility to try something new without abandoning the other profession. There has been for example a layer working for service design, a researcher working for streaming service development, and once there was even a half a year loan from a completely another company. We have also been experimenting with shifting the hours from 10% to 60 % to get used to the new way of working, or just 50/50 but for only a few months. Of course with short feedback loops.

It’s essential to encourage people to have the flexibility and to evolve their careers with you. If you don’t give the individuals the freedom, they will most likely leave. I’m an example of that, when I wasn’t able to change the department in a company, I resigned. The freedom has proven to be the right decision and I’m more content with my work than I ever was. So do the best you can to enable development for the people you cherish. 

Listening and actually hearing what the other person is saying and wanting to grow, is the most important thing. For me, listening is also the most important skill to still develop. I think this is a lifelong task for a talkative person as I am. Luckily I’ve had many friends and colleagues to help me grow with it. 

It is the beauty of having dear ones close to you. In the same way, it’s also worthwhile to take distance from people who don’t do good for you. As my husband bluntly told me once: Life is too short for working with assholes. It doesn’t mean that people can’t have bad days sometimes, we all do! It means searching for a better solution if people at the office are not working for the same goal. A pearl of old wisdom is that you can’t change the other person, you can only change yourself.

The comforting side is that life has proven many times, that you can keep all the friends in your life if both of you want the same thing. You need to be active yourself and the solutions will come. This applies to all of the people around you. I value my ex-bosses also as my friends, and still meet most of them regularly, which is brilliant! When you develop something with passion and work intensively, you end up sharing other stuff from your life also, and these things carry on even if work projects end.

Sometimes the friendships end too, both in work life and in life in general. Usually, the reason is the busy lives we have, it is easier to keep in contact if you have the same office or a hobby to go to. The most heartbreaking end for me was three years ago when my best friend died of cancer. I can’t even compare my grief to her children, husband or parents’ loss, but it did give me some perspective on life. I think of her almost every day with sadness or with happy memories, but most of all I feel grateful that I was able to have her as my friend for 24 years. She was someone who always believed in me even when I didn’t, and this effect she had on me will last for a lifetime I believe. 

Reassuring for me is that she lived her life to the fullest to the very end. The next day after her death a friend of both of us started in my team at work. The timing felt unreal and also comforting. Reactions from team members and other close colleagues are the ones to remember. It is both the losses and the big successes that are worth sharing together. My friend’s passing made me appreciate even more the friends who are still here.

Helping each other and sharing learnings with friends and colleagues brings continuous joy. My mentor and friend has given me advice for (work)life so many times, that I’ve lost count over the years, and I’m lucky to still be working with him regularly. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know wonderful and helpful new people through work the whole year and have been helped by ex-colleagues as well. I hope I’ve been able to give them something back. At least this summer holiday I had some really good times developing a website for another ex-colleague and a friend. Learning is of course: Pay it forward. Good will come back to you in one form or another.

Thanks for reading, send me a message on LinkedIn or Twitter if you want to continue. Have a lovely Autumn with family, colleagues, and friends!