The Impact and Roles of Friends

The topic of friends and friendship has always been something that has been close to my heart.  As someone with the StrengthsFinder Themes of Empathy (#1), Individualisation (#2), Relator (#9) and Includer (#11) as my dominate themes, that shouldn’t be surprising.  My good friends know that I treasure my friendships, and any threat to these close relationships would upset me greatly.

Friends – A greatly diluted term

I believe that not too long ago, the term friends was reserved for those whom we truly had build a relationship with.  But these days, the term friends can seem to be loosely used to refer to anyone from acquaintances, work associates to those we have a strong bond with.  I’ve personally segmented the people I know into different categories (which I think has something to do with my Individualisation and Relator Themes), and had friends wonder about this hierarchy of friends that I’ve created in my head.

I like what Danny Silk, author of the book “Keep Your Love On”,  says – “Not everyone should have the same level of access to me.”

Different friends have different levels of access to me, and that naturally means that there are different levels of people in my life.

Vital Friends

I’ve recently read the book “Vital Friends” by Tom Rath, and what was written resonated with me.  In order to help differentiate our level of friendships, Tom has coined the term “Vital Friends” for friends who play vital roles in our lives.  And he come up with two qualifying questions for identifying Vital Friends.

If you can answer “Yes” to one or both of these questions, you would have probably identified one of your vital friends:

1. If this person were no longer around, would your overall satisfaction with life decrease?
2. If this person were no longer a part of your life, would your achievement or engagement at work decrease?

I looked back upon my own life, and reviewed the fluidity of friendships the the course of time.  I’ve met many people, some came into my life and stayed, many others came and left.  I’ve found that it can sometimes be really challenging to answer these two questions truthfully.

Impact of Vital Friends

“You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.”
– Jim Rohn

While it is no surprise that our close friends have a major impact on our lives, even our habits and the quality of our life, there are some surprising findings based on Gallup’s Research. According to Gallup’s Research, a vital friend could

• halve your chances of dying of heart disease;
• increase your speed of healing;
• reduce your chances of getting cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, Type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and certain cancers.

I don’t know about you, but this does cause me to take a second look at how I’m investing into the friendships around me.

The Threshold Number of Vital Friends for Well Being

While the number of vital friends need by each person depends on the individual, Gallup’s research suggests that having fewer than three or four seems to be correlated with poor health and low satisfaction, but having a greater number of friends does not necessarily increase health and satisfaction levels linearly. Chances are, if you already have three to four people whom you could call vital friends, you are already in a pretty good position.

And if you find it challenging to identify three to four people who can be called your vital friends, you may wish to review what impact that has on your life, and if you need to look at strengthening some friendships around you.

 Vital Friends Play Different and Unique Roles

Just as StrengthsFinder helps us identify our uniqueness, our vital friends also play different roles in our lives.  Gallup found that Friendships grow when we focus on what our friends are bringing into our lives, rather than when we focus on what they are not bringing into our lives.  I know that I’m focusing on what my friends are not bringing into my live when I start thinking “Why can he/she be more <fill in the blank>?”

When we expect our friends, even our closest friends, to play every single role, we set them up for failure, and we set ourselves up for disappointment. But if we focus on the specific roles that they play in our lives and build on that, we have the greatest potential for growing that friendship.

Here are the 8 Vital Roles that are identified in the book Vital Friends (see the end of the post for the descriptions):

1. Builder
2. Champion
3. Collaborator
4. Companion
5. Connector
6. Energizer
7. Mind Opener
8. Navigator

 Identifying the Roles Your Vital Friends Play In Your Life

When you purchase the book, there is an access code that allows you to create a personalised account and identify the roles that your friends play in your life.  You can’t identify the role you play in your friend’s life because that needs to be determined by your friend rather than you.  When you read the book, they recommend that both you and your friends take the assessments so that identify the roles that you play in each other’s life.  Now this means that each of your friends will need to purchase the book to get the access code.

But WAIT! 

There’s good news, Gallup has discontinued support for the site so anyone can use the assessment for free.  The only downside is, they no longer support individual accounts so you need to make sure that you store and organise all the assessment results yourself – Something I’m quite happy to do!

Just go to www.vitalfriends.com to take the assessment to identify the roles your friends play for you.

Results are not prescriptive

As you look at the results, be mindful that it is not prescriptive.  If you personally feel that your friend does/does not play a particular role, it is your impression that matters most.  While the report highlights the top 3 roles that your friend plays, he/she could be playing only 1-2 roles, or perhaps 4 roles.  The best person to determine that…. is you.

Using the Results

Here’s how I use the results for myself.  Each assessment takes some time to complete, so I’ll take some time to build it.  I’ll start with those friends who are closer to me, and work slowly to include as many as I can.  For each assessment result, I’ll plot it into an excel sheet to identify the roles they play in my life.  More often than not, the results would gravitate towards a few particular roles, and some roles could be left empty.

It is then time to reflect and ask myself why I’m gravitating towards certain roles, and how I can build friends who could fill other roles in my life.  It can also be important to see if I’m expecting some of my existing friends to fill some of these roles which are left empty, and if that could be a source of disappointment.

If you have already taken your StrengthsFinder Assessment, one useful way is to look at how you build relationships, and how your Talent Themes influence the roles that you play for your friends.

So there you go, one of my lengthier posts.  If this post perks your interest, I highly recommend getting the book and reading it for yourself.