One of my favorite quotes from Maya Angelou is, “When people reveal themselves, believe them. As for my mentee’s colleague - now she knows how her colleague operates. You should, however, be clear and deliberate about all your actions and interactions at work. Will they disappoint you? Certainly! Should you be surprised? Never! Does this mean you should be guarded and paranoid in your place of work? Not at all. Others you discover in your interaction with them. Some of these people are quite obvious in behavior. But for some, it’s accomplished by any means necessary. Of course, there are perfectly legitimate and integrity-based strategies for achieving those goals. How do you achieve that? It’s increasing your visibility, gaining the right exposure and being noticed by the right players inside and outside of your organization.
But as Renetta McCann, former CEO of advertising giant Starcom MediaVest, reminded me in an interview, in a competitive work environment “a friend today is a foe tomorrow.†The goal for most individuals at work is advancement. There may even be colleagues with whom you share family information (children’s graduations, parent anniversaries, etc.) You may have even invited them to your wedding. But I firmly reminded my mentee that there are no friends at work! Sure, there are folks with whom you go to lunch, share jokes, and exchange birthday and holiday greetings. The other breach was in their perceived friendship. I’m not a sports person, but I believe that’s what they call an intercepted play - or as my mentee saw it, a foul. The colleague didn’t want to disturb her evening. Her reasoning: It was late (6:30pm on a Monday) and my mentee had already left for the day. When it came time to execute the project, the colleague called the outside vendor (my mentee’s contact) secured the deal and then promptly wrapped up the assignment with the senior level executive. Take the figurative statement and assign it a literal meaning. Apparently both had casually agreed on their roles as the ground work was being done. Instead of saying, I’m here for you, to a family member who is struggling, physically go to that person. My mentee was coordinating with an outside vendor and the colleague was managing the project with a senior level executive internally. The two, in my mentee’s words, “enjoy a good relationship and are friendly toward one another.†The two were also recently working jointly on a project. I recently had a conversation with a young woman whom I mentor who was very disappointed in a colleague’s behavior. Just because professionalism calls for being friendly with everyone, does not mean that everyone is your friend.
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