Building a relational career: working with friends and befriending colleagues

I have often heard it said that you should never work with friends. It’s risky, complicated, and too easy for boundaries to become blurred.

My entire career stands in opposition to this advice.

In my experience, working with people you genuinely like, admire and enjoy hanging out with is one of the great pleasures of having a career. Relationships are not something I try to keep separate from my professional life. Rather, they are one of the central pillars that make my career meaningful.

So here is my counter-advice for building a relationship-based career.

Two of my work besties, Alacia Armstrong and Jo Mahoney

Enrol people into your project

There are currently not enough consultants servicing the research sector. Most research support professionals aspire to secure jobs inside universities, so experienced freelancers are few and far between.

My solution is often to find clever, capable people I like doing cool stuff with who are working in other sectors, introduce them to the world of research, and bring them onto projects.

Kerri Browne is a band manager who now specialises in research fundraising administration. Willie van Tonder is a high-school business and economics teacher pivoting into learning design and business development in the research sector. We enticed our long-term friend and collaborator Vanessa Roach from a corporate design career and brought her into the African Research Funding Accelerator.

Careers don't always need to follow predetermined tracks. Sometimes you can simply invite lekker people to collaborate with you on interesting work.

The more the merrier.

Alacia and Jo discussing research development with some of our Accelerator graduates

Befriend your colleagues

I can see no harm in becoming deeply invested in the careers and lives of people we spend 40-plus hours a week working alongside.

Learn about each other’s lives, passions and interests. Celebrate milestones together. Notice when someone is struggling. Invest seriously in each other’s careers.

Alacia Armstrong and I met at the washing line in our apartment building. We went on to build our own interconnected professional empires. Work brings us opportunities to expand our relationship, rather than requiring us to keep our friendship at arm's length. Sometimes we just call each other to say how cool we think the other is and why.

I love introducing my favourite clients - Prof Jackie du Toit and Prof Graham Fieggen at a recent Future Professors workshop, hosted at the Neuroscience Institute

Fall madly in love with your clients together

If you see a bunch of us standing together at a conference or a workshop, there is a good chance we are gossiping about how awesome one of our clients is.

Work is personal when you care deeply about doing it well.

We become genuinely invested in the researchers, teams and institutions we work with. We celebrate when somebody gets the grant, publishes the paper, lands the opportunity, launches the programme or finally articulates the idea they have been struggling to explain.

Jo Mahoney started off as a client, then became a friend, and now we lead the Strategy Phase of the African Research Funding Accelerator together. We literally spend hours each week discussing the minutiae of our fellows’ progress.

Caring deeply about your clients doesn't make you less professional. It just ensures that you go the extra mile for them.

And shared delight is one of the nicest forms of team culture.

Jo with three of her Accelerator Fellows from the Stellenbosch Sunrise Programme: Dr Erna Blancquaert; Dr Tawanda Zininga; and Prof Chrisma Pretorius

Put yourself up for adoption

Being a freelancer or social entrepreneur can get lonely. So when you find clients who treat you like one of the family, consider sticking around.

I have been extremely lucky to find two long-term clients who have effectively adopted me: the Future Professors Programme and the Neuroscience Institute. They include me in their team, care about my wellbeing and invest in my development. In return, I feel an enormous sense of loyalty and devotion to both organisations.

A relational career doesn't necessarily mean belonging to one institution. Sometimes it means finding a few professional homes.

The wonderful Future Professors Programme core team, with Cohort 4 Fellows

Keep investing in people after you stop working together

I have a marvellous collection of ex-colleagues who remain dear friends.

Katrine Claassens and I met at the African Climate and Development Initiative and stayed close long after we stopped working together. I officiated her wedding. Her art is all over my house. Years later, our professional lives have circled back around and we now work together through the African Research Funding Accelerator.

There are many others: Leigh Stadler, Tali Hoffman, Alice McClure, Rebecca Mhere.

A job ending doesn't have to mean a relationship ending. Careers are long. People disappear and reappear in surprising ways.

After officiating the Karoo wedding of my colleague and long-term friend Katrine Claassens and her partner Sebastian

Have clear boundaries and expectations

This is the bit that makes everything else possible.

Friendship is not a substitute for professionalism.

Our team works with clear contracts, defined roles, reporting structures, communication protocols and expectations. We talk explicitly about money, performance, responsibilities and boundaries.

In some ways, I think relationship-based teams need more structure, not less.

The structure creates a safe container for the warmth, informality, generosity and playfulness that characterise our high-output, hardworking team.

I don't believe professionalism requires us to leave care, fun and love outside the office door.

I want to work with people I admire. I want colleagues to become friends and friends to become collaborators. I want us to champion one another's careers, fall in love with the work our clients are doing, and keep finding reasons to work together over decades.

It is certainly challenging sometimes.

But I wouldn’t dream of working in any other way.

One of my work families, the Neuroscience Institute Core Team