Mixing money with intimate relations can get you into serious trouble. Just
consider some recent headline news: the World Bank's Paul Wolfowitz may be
about to lose his job as a result of his involvement negotiating an
excessive pay raise and promotion package for his companion. Before his
tragic accident, New Jersey governor John Corzine received sharp criticism
for refusing to disclose details of his financial relationship with a past
lover, who happens to be the president of a major New Jersey labor union.
The latest: BP chief executive Lord Brown forced to resign in the aftershock of
revelations about his past relationship with another man, who, according to
reports, he had "kept" financially for several years. Meanwhile in
Washington , accused procuress Deborah Jeane Palfrey, started outing
high-officials who had used her female contractors' expensive intimate
services. First to resign from government office was Randall L. Tobias, top
State Department official.
Why all the fuss over these love payments? The fuss and the scandals, of
course, capture public attention only when they involve famous people, big
money, big organizations, and especially sexual intimacy. Observers delight
in seeing the rich and powerful getting their comeuppance. But still, why
such concern about something that seems to happen every day among ordinary
people as well as the high and mighty? It's not as if any of the recent
headline-grabbers were found dipping into their organizations' tills.
People worry about the mix of money with intimate relations because it seems
to violate a powerful pair of taboos. On the one hand, people fear that
sentimental relationships will disrupt the efficient functioning of
organizations; on the other, they are convinced that money will corrupt
intimate relationships. Money and intimacy, in this view, inhabit hostile
worlds. Money destroys intimacy and intimacy disrupts organizations. That's
why they should be kept apart.
A recent book of mine challenges the first taboo: the corruption of intimacy
by money. The Purchase of Intimacy
looks closely at the interplay of economic activity and multiple forms of
intimate relations in American couples, households, caring relations, and
the law. The book disputes the widespread fear that economic calculation
corrupts personal intimacy. Over a wide variety of intimate relations, it
demonstrates two facts any clear thinker has to keep in mind: first, that
all of us routinely mix our most intimate relations with economic activities
without apparent damage to either one: we owe economic support to our
children, our spouses, our parents, and often our friends. Caring
couples regularly pool their money, make joint purchases, invest shared
funds,
organize inheritances, and negotiate divisions of household work. In fact,
no loving household would last long without such regular inputs of economic
effort.
Second, people involved in intimate relations nevertheless take great care
in distinguishing one kind of intimate relation from another and they
regularly use economic markers for precisely that purpose: is this
relationship prostitution or dating? Is this connection a romantic
rendez-vous or is it just a friendly dinner meeting? In each case, who pays
what and when will differ significantly.
My book barely touches however on the fascinating other half of the problem:
how does intimacy affect organizational efficiency? Many managers and
analysts think they should be taking strong steps to eliminate intimacy or
at least its most intense forms from their organizations. They worry that
intimate connections among employees will undermine the organization's
performance by distracting them away from proper goals. A loving couple, in
this view, are likely to make love on company time. That's why companies
have rules against nepotism, against fraternization, anti- sexual harassment
policies, "cupid contracts", and a whole range of policies discouraging
intimate relations within the workplace.
Yet, studies of organizational life -- think of family firms show that
intimacy and efficiency often get along quite well with each other and that
within limits, strong friendships, kinship and even sexual liaisons can
contribute to solidarity in the workplace. Of course, in their extremes,
intimate ties can threaten organizational efficiency but it's not the
automatic result of mixing intimacy with work relations.
We should debunk the twinned and persistent hostile-worlds myths that money
necessarily corrupts intimacy and that intimacy necessarily corrupts
organizational effectiveness.
So what about Wolfowitz, Corzine, Brown, Palfrey's clients, and other cases
like them? We should not be worrying about their mixing their intimate
relations with money. Instead we should only worry seriously about whether
or not they have violated visible commitments to their organizations or
subjected those organizations to risk of which, as experienced executives,
they should have been acutely aware. If not, let's keep their love payments
out of the limelight.