{"id":4665,"date":"2025-05-09T18:31:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T18:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=4665"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:45:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:45:06","slug":"why-work-frenemies-are-more-common-than-work-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/why-work-frenemies-are-more-common-than-work-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Work Frenemies Are More Common than Work Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher <\/a><\/p>\r\n

In our portfolio of relationships, we want as many friends and as few enemies as possible. But many work relationships aren\u2019t clearly positive or negative; instead, they\u2019re more neutral, like cordial acquaintances, or even ambivalent. Think \u201cfrenemies,\u201d two-faced colleagues, or polite rivals. While having mixed feelings about a coworker sounds awkward\u2014and research studies have shown that frenemies increase each other\u2019s stress and blood pressure\u2014ambivalent relationships also tend to boost creativity, adaptability, and productivity by fueling a competitive spark.<\/p>\r\n

“Ambivalent relationships have always been relatively common in organizations, as they are breeding grounds for having to simultaneously collaborate and compete, for example,\u201d said Academy of Management Scholar Jessica Methot<\/a> of Rutgers University and the University of Exeter. “But because some of the more complicated interpersonal interactions were paused or transformed during the COVID-19 pandemic, workplace relationships seemed to become more one-dimensional.<\/p>\r\n

“Either someone was unreliable or difficult to work with, or they were motivated and helpful,” she said. “Now, in the ‘post-pandemic’ world of work, we\u2019re starting to see ambivalent relationships emerge again.”<\/p>\r\n

Methot has been doing research to better understand how and why friendships necessarily blur work and non-work boundaries to create unique tensions. That holds true for both remote and in-person work as well.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important for people to understand how to balance when we\u2019re exposing our personal or intimate information to someone who we work with, and the paradox and the complications that come along with that,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of people want to have those close relationships and those experiences with the people who they work with but maybe don\u2019t really understand how that can turn against them.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThe issue with workplace friendships that makes them distinct and unique from relationships or friendships outside of work is that the shared space is the office, and so the friendship is founded on a professional work relationship, and those two things tend to compete with each other.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Especially for team members of comparable seniority, it can be difficult to reconcile the fact that they are collaborating with each other at the same time that they may be competing with each other.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cA formal work relationship is transactional, professional, and non-discretionary, versus our private, more discretionary, informal friendships, and those two things tend to conflict with each other,\u201d Methot said. \u201cHow do we balance these paradoxes or tensions that we end up facing when we try to become friends with people who we work with?<\/p>\r\n

\u201cIt ends up potentially creating these rivalries\u2014we might be both going up for the same promotion,\u201d she said. \u201cI want to be proud of my friend and happy for him or her, but I\u2019m also jealous, and so this started leading into my research understanding how we feel ambivalently towards our friendships.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWork friends must deal with this emotion of ambivalence, where we might feel joy or pride and jealousy, and the question is, \u2018How do we balance those emotions?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

A sample of Methot\u2019s AOM research findings:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n