I don’t see any way you could meaningfully “address” the work/social overlap without trying to get people not to date, live with or befriend people they otherwise would have dated, lived with, or befriended. And if you put it in those terms, it seems messed up, right?
I don’t actually think that’s necessarily messed up? That sometimes your role conflicts with a relationship you’d like to have is unfortunate, but not really avoidable:
A company telling its managers that they can’t date their reports .
A person telling their partner that they can’t date other people.
A person telling their partner that they can’t date a specific other person.
A school telling professors they can’t date their students.
A charity telling their donor services staff that they can’t date major donors.
The person has the option of giving up their role (the manager and report can work with HR to see if either can change roles to remove the conflict, the poly partner can dump the mono one, etc.) but the role’s gatekeeper saying you both can’t keep the role and date the person seems fine in many cases?
The harm isn’t in the harshness or softness of the punishment—it’s friendships nipped in the bud, beautiful relationships that can never even get started. I think people should think harder about the sacrifices that in practice people would have to make, and about how important social relationships are.
In agreement there!
Most of my comments have been trying to say “we should evaluate both sides of these tradeoffs”. Too much of the discussion has been “X has downsides” or “X has upsides” as if these are decisive.
I also think the word “punishment” in the original post is too loaded. Taking on certain social roles has an effect of limiting the person’s freedom in various ways; it disqualifies them from taking certain inconsistent roles. But we wouldn’t, for instance, say that a charity is “punishing” its donor services staff by stating that they can’t date major donors.
I don’t actually think that’s necessarily messed up? That sometimes your role conflicts with a relationship you’d like to have is unfortunate, but not really avoidable:
A company telling its managers that they can’t date their reports .
...
A school telling professors they can’t date their students.
A charity telling their donor services staff that they can’t date major donors.
In theory, I think it makes a lot of sense to have some clear hard lines related to some power dynamics, but even when I’m trying to write those red lines I notice myself writing guidelines because human dynamics are subtle and context specific. For instance:
because you shouldn’t have power dynamics potentially seep into a romantic relationship or influence your work behaviour: don’t date direct reports; and most likely same for anyone in your workplace hierarchy; or where you have any inkling this negative dynamic could arise
Someone at a certain level of seniority and / or power within an organisation will find others feel less able to speak up if their behaviour doesn’t chime with them, so you should be extra careful in non-work social settings, especially if there’s banter which could be flirtatious or a bit too close to the bone
Someone very experienced / well regarded in a company—even if very junior—can wield a lot of power over someone more senior, so they too need to keep themselves in check in terms of how they affect the other person; including how they challenge them
Basically, I don’t think there’s a feasible checklist for dealing effectively with the range of issues that might occur: affection and loyalty, and power, influence and control are all so subtle. To ensure you’re not doing wrong to others or being done wrong to, it’s more a constant process of checking in with yourself and empowering others to speak up.
Moreover, I think it’s difficult to separate out what counts as more / less ok workplace relationships. You could say we need to see fewer people working in EA orgs who were friends outside of work (as opposed to friends you make at work) or romantic relationships starting in EA orgs, but then there’s just the people who you get along with and see eye-to-eye with within the work place and sometimes develop more impactful and / or toxic relationships with. For example:
having political loyalty to a colleague, leading to factions
nepotism between close friends / former work colleagues
simply the more junior person feels their career is still dependent on their mentor / friend[1]
Which is to say implement all these rules targeting ‘out of work’ friendships / relationships, but human power dynamic issues will still prevail in adjacent domains.
Reflecting that tighter human alliances and power dynamics is somewhat inevitable (I postulate), it’s worth noting that a lot of the time companies—big or small—deal with relationships in flexible ways, and sometimes this is worth considering. Things like:
if two people want to start dating—whether they’re in the same team or in a line management hierarchy—give them the option of changing teams where that’s appropriate for the business and still maintains sufficient separation to avoid power imbalances /
in some cases, just turning a blind eye because people have their shit together and it isn’t interfering in their work-lives
stipulating that a married couple cannot be in the same senior leadership team (as they’ll be a unit)
Side note: most of the above examples are why I’m often banging on about diversity within organisations—just newbies full stop—because they can break much of these dynamics up both through behaviours and new ideas, but I won’t get on that hobby-horse just now.
I do agree that it’s reasonable/inevitable that sometimes roles conflict with who you want to date. But in all your examples, I wouldn’t necessarily frame this as ‘telling someone who they couldn’t date’ (more like saying ‘you can’t date x while one or both if you is in y circumstance’). Like, if I ran an organization and a manager came to me and said ‘uh, my report and I have kind of fallen for each other, and we want to date’, I wouldn’t be like ‘well you can’t date them’, I’d be like ‘congratulations! But yeah, you probably shouldn’t manage them anymore—I’ll find them another manager’. When potential romantic relationships arise in workplace settings where there’s a power dynamic, I think the best move is to let the relationship play out and move around the working relationships so there’s no longer a power dynamic between the two. The reason I think this is that romantic relationships are very precious for people, and not that easy to find, whereas manager/report relationships (or professor/student or whatever) are generally less meaningful and require less compatibility, so it makes sense to prioritize the romantic relationship over the professional one.
Similarly, if a monogamous person says ‘I won’t date you if you date other people’, that seems like them (reasonably) expressing a condition on who they will date—similar to if they said ‘I won’t date you if you eat meat/are a social conservative/are a smoker/want kids’. This feels different to external people trying to stop me from dating another person who wants to date me.
Maybe a lot of this is semantic, but the substantive thing might be ‘in cases where there are clashing social and work relationships, I’d be in favour of prioritizing the social one over the work one, and in workplaces accommodating social relationships that arise within in them, rather than trying to prevent them from happening’ - similarly to how good workplaces should accommodate people having kids (by e.g. offering parental leave), rather than telling them to just quit if they want a kid.
whereas manager/report relationships (or professor/student or whatever) are generally less meaningful and require less compatibility, so it makes sense to prioritize the romantic relationship over the professional one.
While I do think this is generally true for managers at large organizations, there’s also an issue where there could have been some amount of abuse of power around the manager and report getting together. I think that’s even clearer in the professor and student case, where I would be extremely surprised to see a “congratulations” from the Dean.
You’re right that in some circumstances people would choose to handle a conflict by giving up their existing role, and “you can’t date X” phrasing from role gatekeepers assumes that someone strongly values their specific existing role. But I do think it’s reasonably common that people do value their existing roles more strongly, especially when we’re talking about casual dating and not “I think I’ve found my life partner”. So I do think this is responsive to the point you made in your original post, which is that having norms against combining certain roles with certain relationships does have consequences in terms of people not getting to enjoy some otherwise positive and fulfilling relationships.
congratulations! But yeah, you probably shouldn’t manage them anymore—I’ll find them another manager
In lots of small orgs this is tremendously costly or impossible. It might be a nonstarter at a lot of large orgs too, I just wouldn’t know about it because I’ve never worked at a large org.
I think the word “probably” in this quotation is quite concerning—you should 100%, definitely, in every case and without question not let someone manage someone they are dating. It’s an unresolvable conflict of interest and totally unprofessional.
But also, to Quinn’s point, if it’s a small org, even making this change might not really mitigate the problem. Imagine a 5 person team, where the CEO and one of the staff are dating, so then you change the reporting line for the junior person in the relationship. It seems highly probable that the new manager is going to be influenced by the fact that their boss is dating their subordinate.
I’m going to write a longer comment on how I think you can manage this below.
I don’t actually think that’s necessarily messed up? That sometimes your role conflicts with a relationship you’d like to have is unfortunate, but not really avoidable:
A company telling its managers that they can’t date their reports .
A person telling their partner that they can’t date other people.
A person telling their partner that they can’t date a specific other person.
A school telling professors they can’t date their students.
A charity telling their donor services staff that they can’t date major donors.
The person has the option of giving up their role (the manager and report can work with HR to see if either can change roles to remove the conflict, the poly partner can dump the mono one, etc.) but the role’s gatekeeper saying you both can’t keep the role and date the person seems fine in many cases?
In agreement there!
Most of my comments have been trying to say “we should evaluate both sides of these tradeoffs”. Too much of the discussion has been “X has downsides” or “X has upsides” as if these are decisive.
I also think the word “punishment” in the original post is too loaded. Taking on certain social roles has an effect of limiting the person’s freedom in various ways; it disqualifies them from taking certain inconsistent roles. But we wouldn’t, for instance, say that a charity is “punishing” its donor services staff by stating that they can’t date major donors.
In theory, I think it makes a lot of sense to have some clear hard lines related to some power dynamics, but even when I’m trying to write those red lines I notice myself writing guidelines because human dynamics are subtle and context specific. For instance:
because you shouldn’t have power dynamics potentially seep into a romantic relationship or influence your work behaviour: don’t date direct reports; and most likely same for anyone in your workplace hierarchy; or where you have any inkling this negative dynamic could arise
Someone at a certain level of seniority and / or power within an organisation will find others feel less able to speak up if their behaviour doesn’t chime with them, so you should be extra careful in non-work social settings, especially if there’s banter which could be flirtatious or a bit too close to the bone
Someone very experienced / well regarded in a company—even if very junior—can wield a lot of power over someone more senior, so they too need to keep themselves in check in terms of how they affect the other person; including how they challenge them
Basically, I don’t think there’s a feasible checklist for dealing effectively with the range of issues that might occur: affection and loyalty, and power, influence and control are all so subtle. To ensure you’re not doing wrong to others or being done wrong to, it’s more a constant process of checking in with yourself and empowering others to speak up.
Moreover, I think it’s difficult to separate out what counts as more / less ok workplace relationships. You could say we need to see fewer people working in EA orgs who were friends outside of work (as opposed to friends you make at work) or romantic relationships starting in EA orgs, but then there’s just the people who you get along with and see eye-to-eye with within the work place and sometimes develop more impactful and / or toxic relationships with. For example:
having political loyalty to a colleague, leading to factions
nepotism between close friends / former work colleagues
simply the more junior person feels their career is still dependent on their mentor / friend[1]
Which is to say implement all these rules targeting ‘out of work’ friendships / relationships, but human power dynamic issues will still prevail in adjacent domains.
Reflecting that tighter human alliances and power dynamics is somewhat inevitable (I postulate), it’s worth noting that a lot of the time companies—big or small—deal with relationships in flexible ways, and sometimes this is worth considering. Things like:
if two people want to start dating—whether they’re in the same team or in a line management hierarchy—give them the option of changing teams where that’s appropriate for the business and still maintains sufficient separation to avoid power imbalances /
in some cases, just turning a blind eye because people have their shit together and it isn’t interfering in their work-lives
stipulating that a married couple cannot be in the same senior leadership team (as they’ll be a unit)
Side note: most of the above examples are why I’m often banging on about diversity within organisations—just newbies full stop—because they can break much of these dynamics up both through behaviours and new ideas, but I won’t get on that hobby-horse just now.
I do agree that it’s reasonable/inevitable that sometimes roles conflict with who you want to date. But in all your examples, I wouldn’t necessarily frame this as ‘telling someone who they couldn’t date’ (more like saying ‘you can’t date x while one or both if you is in y circumstance’). Like, if I ran an organization and a manager came to me and said ‘uh, my report and I have kind of fallen for each other, and we want to date’, I wouldn’t be like ‘well you can’t date them’, I’d be like ‘congratulations! But yeah, you probably shouldn’t manage them anymore—I’ll find them another manager’. When potential romantic relationships arise in workplace settings where there’s a power dynamic, I think the best move is to let the relationship play out and move around the working relationships so there’s no longer a power dynamic between the two. The reason I think this is that romantic relationships are very precious for people, and not that easy to find, whereas manager/report relationships (or professor/student or whatever) are generally less meaningful and require less compatibility, so it makes sense to prioritize the romantic relationship over the professional one.
Similarly, if a monogamous person says ‘I won’t date you if you date other people’, that seems like them (reasonably) expressing a condition on who they will date—similar to if they said ‘I won’t date you if you eat meat/are a social conservative/are a smoker/want kids’. This feels different to external people trying to stop me from dating another person who wants to date me.
Maybe a lot of this is semantic, but the substantive thing might be ‘in cases where there are clashing social and work relationships, I’d be in favour of prioritizing the social one over the work one, and in workplaces accommodating social relationships that arise within in them, rather than trying to prevent them from happening’ - similarly to how good workplaces should accommodate people having kids (by e.g. offering parental leave), rather than telling them to just quit if they want a kid.
While I do think this is generally true for managers at large organizations, there’s also an issue where there could have been some amount of abuse of power around the manager and report getting together. I think that’s even clearer in the professor and student case, where I would be extremely surprised to see a “congratulations” from the Dean.
You’re right that in some circumstances people would choose to handle a conflict by giving up their existing role, and “you can’t date X” phrasing from role gatekeepers assumes that someone strongly values their specific existing role. But I do think it’s reasonably common that people do value their existing roles more strongly, especially when we’re talking about casual dating and not “I think I’ve found my life partner”. So I do think this is responsive to the point you made in your original post, which is that having norms against combining certain roles with certain relationships does have consequences in terms of people not getting to enjoy some otherwise positive and fulfilling relationships.
In lots of small orgs this is tremendously costly or impossible. It might be a nonstarter at a lot of large orgs too, I just wouldn’t know about it because I’ve never worked at a large org.
I think the word “probably” in this quotation is quite concerning—you should 100%, definitely, in every case and without question not let someone manage someone they are dating. It’s an unresolvable conflict of interest and totally unprofessional.
But also, to Quinn’s point, if it’s a small org, even making this change might not really mitigate the problem. Imagine a 5 person team, where the CEO and one of the staff are dating, so then you change the reporting line for the junior person in the relationship. It seems highly probable that the new manager is going to be influenced by the fact that their boss is dating their subordinate.
I’m going to write a longer comment on how I think you can manage this below.