Control relationships
DeFurio’s greatest learning moments have come from seeing things handled in very poor ways.
Such was the case with a former boss DeFurio had who would manipulate positions below her.
“Basically, she would align herself with buddies, with her personal friends, and push aside other folks who were in leadership positions who were actually very effective at their jobs and were doing all the right things for the organization,” he says. “They found themselves a victim of this personally driven circumstance.”
It didn’t work out for that boss, and it caused a lot of organizational and personal pain for the people involved.
“It definitely, with me, created a self-awareness of personal interests and how self-serving interests can be major obstacles to doing the right thing and doing what is right for the organization and, in our case, the community,” he says. “I’ve learned some lessons the hard way from working with those people that I will never forget.”
DeFurio had to be mindful of his relationship within the company when he became president and CEO. Having worked his way up through the organization, DeFurio had developed friendships with employees at lower levels, but he had to alter those relationships as he was promoted.
“The closer to the front lines you are, the more personal and friendship relationships you have, naturally,” he says. “You see these people a lot and do things outside of work.
“As I moved up through the ranks, I had to consciously step away from those friendships along the way. It’s not that they are no longer my friends; it’s just I don’t have the same personal relationship with them now that I used to.”
While you may be achieving your professional goals, you may also feel disappointed about having to change aspects or your personal life.
“When I was first going through it, it was a major bummer,” he says. “It’s a change in your life. It takes time to work through that because if you are a social person to begin with and those relationships really matter, it’s a real hard thing to move on and be willing to let some of those things go.
“Where I have seen people fail is where they don’t let that go, and now they have these friends at various levels and that just presents conflicts. Imagine being personal friends with somebody two or three levels down in the organization and the leadership structure in between. You’ve essentially set that leadership structure up for failure in that dynamic, and it’s just not fair to those folks.”
You have to realize that, while it’s hard for you, it can be just as difficult for your friends at the lower levels of the organization as they see you move up through the company. You have to be honest with them about why things have to change.
“If they are really your friends, they don’t hold it against you. They understand,” he says. “Your real friends are giving you pats on the back and saying, ‘Good job, man. Way to go. Good luck.’”
While you want to distance yourself from those relationships, you have to remain the same person. If you stay the same person they became friends with, you will be able to have professional relationships with them.
“Even if they are not understanding why what happened (did happen), if they still know that fundamentally you are the same person, you are still honest, you are still doing the right things for the right reason, you’re just doing it at a different level, they will respect that,” DeFurio says. “So, you can’t become somebody else. You can’t become the Grand Poobah because they know you’re not. It would be absolutely disingenuous, and at that point, it’s a charade. As long as they can see that you are still genuine, you’ll be OK.”
