Fatal attraction for bosses
By Adele Horin | smh.com.au | 17 January
When Sigmund Freud was asked the prescription for a healthy life he came up with two simple ingredients: love and work. It made sense then, and still makes sense. But, lucky for Freud, 70 years ago he was not required to grapple with the more difficult conundrum of love at work.
Paul Wolfowitz's love life has spurred interest in the subject of workplace love affairs. His "hanky panky at the World Banky" - as a reporter described Wolfowitz's relationship with Shaha Ali-Riza - is a case study in how not to mix business with pleasure. The Sydney Opera House has provided drama closer to home in the foreshadowed exit of the chief executive, Norman Gillespie, amid staff ructions over his relationship with a fellow executive, Claire Swaffield.
Love at work has usually been regarded as bad for business. But enlightened employers have begun to realise office romances are inevitable in a culture of long hours when staff have no time for a social life. Now openness is the new buzz word.
These days it is unusual to find someone who has never had an office romance. Given delayed marriage, fewer sex-segregated workplaces, and the number of horny divorcees around the coffee machine, you have to wonder: where else do people meet if not on the job? An online survey this year of more than 1000 Australians found 80 per cent consider their workplace an appropriate hunting ground for romance.
In the old days it was usual for powerful men to take up with younger women whose job it was to care for them - secretaries, research assistants, flight attendants and nurses. On-the-job trysts between bosses and secretaries were a cause of titillation; there was concern about the power imbalance and the inevitable shafting of the woman if love turned sour. But staff generally did not feel threatened by the boss's lover if she was junior to them in the pecking order.
Love at work became problematic once enough women inched their way into the executive suite. Unlike dalliances between bosses and their secretaries, or affairs between co-workers down the chain of command, love between executives can make everyone nervous.
The tone was set 25 years ago in an article in the Harvard Business Review which analysed the dynamics of four executive affairs: "Love between managers is dangerous because it challenges - and can break down - the organisational structure," the author, Eliza Collins, concluded. The coalition of lovers threatened to exclude others, and made subordinates worry about fairness, favouritism, judgement, and conflict of interest. The harsh solution was for someone more senior to remove one of the lovers from the workplace, "the person least essential to the company". In almost all cases, the author advised reluctantly, this would be the woman.
The attitude is a bit more relaxed today, Peter Wilson, the national president of the Australian Human Resource Institute, told me. Workplace romances are accepted and expected. It is not always necessary to excise love from corporate life. Instead, corporate couples are being encouraged to "come out".
"Most relationships can be handled, providing there is transparency," Wilson said. Because justice has to be seen to be done, the solution to many potential conflicts of interest, especially promotions, is for one party to stand aside from the decision-making.
But few companies have written policies on fraternisation, and many workers seem unconvinced of the new attitude of acceptance. Coming out can be tricky enough when the rules are clear - do you do it after the first kiss, the first sleep-over, when you get introduced to the lover's family, or when the divorce comes through? In the absence of clarity, coming out is fraught with danger. The online survey showed 66 per cent of those who had met their current partner at work had kept the relationship a secret.
Some executives still face the sideways move if their love is discovered. It is not acceptable for subordinate executives to report directly to their lover or spouse, Wilson said. When the reporting line is direct, usually someone has to go.
Perception is critical, and staff are unlikely to trust an executive with a love-line to the boss. But personality - being liked - can make a crucial difference in smoothing troubled waters.
More than a decade ago there was a ruction among staff at Lend Lease over the rapid promotion of the boss's girlfriend, later wife, through company ranks. Stuart Hornery was not a man to be crossed, and middle management was reported to be afraid that if they failed to obey the up-and-coming Lynette Mayne they would incur Hornery's formidable wrath. At the Opera House, staff displeasure at Swaffield's rapid rise appears to have gone hand-in-hand with Gillespie's problematic manner of communicating with some of his staff and the trustees.
Getting along with all constituencies in a company is good insurance for when an executive's love life is called into question. That's a lesson Wolfowitz never learnt.
First published by Smh.com.au on January 17 2008
Visit smh.com.au for the latest news updated throughout the day
