It's Always Good to Make a Friend

When children are among friends, they can be capable of getting up to many impressive things.

My mother always told me that a child alone was easier to look after, because he would be afraid of doing many reckless things, but children together could get into a lot of mischief.

I personally agree with her, and I have seen this in my own life and in the lives of other children and adults: when we are with people we can count on, we are willing to take risks we would not take if we were alone, and part of that has a lot to do with trust.

Trust is a powerful ingredient in human relationships, because it gives us the security to go deep into a dangerous journey.

When we are with friends we tend to take risks more easily, and we find the courage to dare more than if we were alone, and this is very important for the evolution of whatever it is we are doing.

I played dominoes in pairs for a few years and learned that knowing how to make a good friendship is essential for the pair to play together, since one cannot communicate verbally with the other, because all the interaction during the game must happen through subtle observation of the partner's moves, prior knowledge of how the other acts and their body language.

On the Product teams I worked with, I experienced this countless times: when there was friendship within the team, productivity and the capacity to make disruptive decisions grew, because everyone was more excited, as if they were on an adventure. I think we grow up, but our work may be just another way of playing.

Friendship as a bridge between departments

My father always told me to treat waiters, doormen and HR people well, because you never know when you will need them, since they can be essential to get you out of a jam.

Of course we should treat everyone well, but what he meant to teach was that when we need someone's help, that help can come faster depending on how much the other person appreciates you. We may think that at work people are obliged to do their tasks, but the truth is that we humans have an emotional side that, if treated well, can motivate us to speed up a process to help someone we care about.

For all of this to happen, it also takes a solid organizational culture that encourages a work environment of respect and empathy. And it will only work with honesty: if you try to fake what you feel for someone, at some point your mask will fall and your credibility will be stained.

So it is essential that you study empathy and psychology and genuinely like people, because if you are friendly in a genuine way, everyone will feel it and people will trust you. Of course this is not always possible, and in those cases I suggest simply keeping the best manners you can.

In the corporate world, we have distinct departments that complement each other, and we invariably need to deal with people from other areas. Depending on the friendship you have built with the people in those areas, you will be able to get results more efficiently than anyone else.