Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

work and personal issues became increasingly more detailed and intimate.” 44
Relationship Disengagement
Thus far, we’ve talked about workplace friendships as positive factors in the workplace, but any
friendship can sour. Some friendships sour because one person moves into a position of authority of
the other, so there is no longer perceived equality within the relationship. Other friendships occur when
there is a relationship violation of some kind (see Chapter 8). Some friendships devolve because of
conflicting expectations of the relationship. Maybe one friend believes that giving him a heads up about
insider information in the workplace is part of being a friend, and the other person sees it as a violation
of trust given to her by her supervisors. When we have these conflicting ideas about what it means to “be
a friend,” we can often see a schism that gets created. So, how does an individual get out of workplace
friendships? Patricia Sias and Tarra Perry were the first researchers to discuss how colleagues disengage
from relationships with their coworkers. 45 Sias and Perry found three distinct tools that coworkers use:
state-of-the-relationship talk, cost escalation, and depersonalization. Before explaining them, we should
mention that people use all three and do not necessarily progress through them in any particular order.
State-of-the-Relationship Talk
The first strategy people use when disengaging from workplace friendships involves state-of-the-relationship
talk. is exactly what it sounds like; you officially have a discussion
about the friendship ending. The goal of state-of-the-relationship talk is to engage the other person and
inform them that ending the friendship is the best way to ensure that the two can continue a professional,
functional relationship. Ideally, all workplace friendships could end in a situation where both parties
agree that it’s in everyone’s best interest for the friendship to stop. Still, we all know this isn’t always the
case, which is why the other two are often necessary.
Cost Escalation
The second strategy people use when ending a workplace friendship involves cost escalation.
involves tactics that are designed to make the cost of maintaining the relationship higher than
getting out of the relationship. For example, a coworker could start belittling a friend in public, making
the friend the center of all jokes, or talking about the friend behind the friend’s back. All of these behaviors
are designed to make the cost of the relationship too high for the other person.
Depersonalization
The final strategy involves depersonalization.can come in one of two basic forms.
First, an individual can depersonalization a relationship by stopping all the interaction that is not task-focused.
When you have to interact with the workplace friend, you keep the conversation purely business
and do not allow for talk related to personal lives. The goal of this type of behavior is to alter the relationship
from one of closeness to one of professional distance. The second way people can depersonalize a
relationship is simply to avoid that person. If you know a workplace friend is going to be at a staff party,
you purposefully don’t go. If you see the workplace friend coming down the hallway, you go in the opposite
direction or duck inside a room before they can see you. Again, the purpose of this type of depersonalization
is to put actual distance between you and the other person. According to Sias and Perry’s
research, depersonalization tends to be the most commonly used tactic. 46
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