Mixing Business with Pleasure

Never mix business with personal matters—it just leads to damaged relationships, poor business decisions, or both.” In what ways might this be a fair statement? In what ways is it unwise advice? Provide examples to support your views.

  This statement can be both fair and unwise depending on which relationship was established first, though either way mixing business with personal matters brings with it tremendous risks. If, for instance, an individual owns or runs an established business and then decide to enter into a personal, intimate relationship with someone also involved in the business then both individuals involved must accept the risk of losing the business relationship if/when the personal relationship goes bad or jeopardizing the personal relationship if the dynamics of the business relationship change. A good example could be a small business owner and a supplier. If the owner of a business discovers that another supplier is providing better prices or higher quality supplies at the same cost, they will wish to change suppliers since this will clearly be advantageous to their business. However, if they are romantically involved with the representative or distributor of the current supplier then they may find that the move to the new supplier could cause problems for the relationship, especially if the business is a particularly strong account that the supplier holds. While the business owner will just be looking to ensure that their business is functioning at its most efficient, the representative may feel that the decision to change suppliers is a personal affront to them and an indication that the personal relationship is of no real value to the business owner.
Conversely, this could be unwise advice if the personal relationship exists prior to the business. An example of this could be two friends, family members, or lovers (whichever) who share a passion and wish to pursue it professionally. A professional chef and a bartender could share a...