Yes, it's business, but it is always personal

It recent days has come a reminder that friendship and fuduciary responsibility are separate bonds. In the normal course of the day and the day's end, friends are a separate, safe haven for the dissection of office politics, comment on the likely effect of the smallest actions and support. We trust them and they us.

The best kinds of friends are the oldest. Those who knew us -- before we took on the personality traits and attitudes that make us a type and so easier to understand at a first meeting -- are able to help us persistently refine our pitch. They are a resource of untold value.

Sometimes, the work our friends do, the skills they have, the talents they display make them -- potentially -- even more valuable as colleagues. Imagine, not only having the chance to work with a talented colleague, but one who is also a friend.

The decision to work together guarantees a communication short-hand that can more quickly and more effectively take advantage of opportunity. Working with friends means far less concern about personal sensibilities and political correctness. It allows a directness which undermines a grudge. And it fosters collaboration in a way unusual if not impossible in a normal work place where there really are bad ideas, foolish recommendations and long memories.

But as slowly and deliberately as the friendships grew to allow such benefits to accrue, the downside can emerge quickly and it is almost always terminal.

The feeling that a business relationship between and among friends need not have its "i's" dotted and its "t's" crossed is rooted in the belief that they share a world view. Ultimately, though, the lack of specificity plants the seeds of future difficulty. Sometimes it is the anger (or disappointment, at least) arising when a friend tenders a resignation to take a job elsewhere. And sometimes it is the embarrassment of having to ask a friend to leave. This was the recent reminder.

The business goals and the individual contribution can get out of whack. The hard part is admitting that responsibility to the business is different than loyalty to a friend. The harder part is keeping true to both. That's when you hear the phrase, "It's not personal, it's business." But, of course, it is personal. Business relationships that go south change the relationship in ways that, with rare exception, turn those friends and now former colleagues in acquaintances. Friendly, but not friends.

There should be no bar to working with friends, but the bar needs to be higher than for strangers who we meet as the people we have made of ourselves and they, too.