In Praise of Boundaries

#87: Excerpts from an old Harvard Business Review article

Lifted from HBR Senior Editor Diane L. Coutu's interview with Judith Martin, Washington D.C.

"[Etiquette is in trouble at the workplace] partly because of naturalism. An unfortunate part of the "I want to be me" movement has been the idea that there is no distinction between your business life and your personal life. People treat colleagues as friends and family - often to disastrous effect.

Unfortunately, the pseudofriendliness, personal e-mail, and office collections for the umpteenth bridal or baby shower have destroyed the sense of boundaries that characterizes professional behavior. If we hope to reassure our customers that we are indeed professional, we need to be aware of those boundaries. But in our relationships with colleagues, we also need to acknowledge that we are often too distant from our coworkers to resolve problems on a personal level. At home, if your stereo is loud, your partner feels free to say, "Honey, will you turn that thing down? It's driving me crazy." And you will know him well enough to answer, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were trying to read." But at work, if the person in the next cubicle is being loud, you can't really solve the problem with that sort of exchange, because the worker in the next cube is not a friend of yours. That's where office etiquette comes in. Setting formal limits to behavior reduces the chance of conflict from the outset. Rules decree whether or not you can play music or take personal calls in open space. We need such rules to keep people from upsetting one another unnecessarily.

[I also absolutely disapprove of business retreats.] I sincerely hope that we're seeing the end of retreats. This personalization of business relationships is misguided. For one thing, it's expensive to have people climb poles or shoot at one another with paint guns. But the more depressing thing is that it's taken us half a century to realize that when you remove everybody's inhibitions, you create more problems than you do solve. Regrettably, the whole retreat thing started with touchy-feely consultants who believed that if we all loved one another, then good behavior would follow. Whatever made anyone believe that? Think about it: People marry because they love each other, and good behavior does not necessarily follow. People love their children, and good behavior doesn't necessarily follow. Love is no guarantee, and we certainly don't love everybody in our business environment."

------------------------
Quick Notes from the article:
1. Boundaries are good and necessary.
2. Do not attempt to remove everybody's inhibitions.
3. Whoever believes that love in workplace increases productivity is misguided.
4. Respect for personal space is more important than warmth.
5. Get rid of touchy-feely retreat advocates.