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The Diary of Anne Ku

25 August 2000 Friday

BUSINESS & FRIENDSHIP

Do you work with people you like (i.e. your friends) or do you become friends with people you work with?

It's much easier to work with people you like (than with people you don't like)- as you share the same understanding and you accept each other. If you don't like the people you work with, you should try to work with those you get on with - or learn to like them.

It all makes so much sense.

What happens if you do business with your friends?

Business is about the balance sheet of asset and liability and the profit/loss statement of income and costs. Everything balances at the end of the day. It's all numbers after all.

Friendship, on the other hand, is about give and take. It is in the eye of the beholder. What you perceive as important may not be so to the other. What you perceive as costly to you - may not be so. So you give and take, give and take..... at different times and in different amounts. It does not balance. There should not be a balance sheet. Both should win - otherwise there is no point in a friendship. Resentment builds.

So what happens when you do business with your friends? How do you balance an unbalanceable sheet?

yesterday

tomorrow