How to handle your office crush—and keep it professional (w/ Master Fixer Tia Silas) (Transcript)

Please note the following transcript may not exactly match the final audio, as minor edits or adjustments could be made during production.

[00:00:00] Anne Morriss: Hello everyone. This is Fixable from the Ted Audio Collective. I'm your host, Anne Morriss. I'm a company builder and leadership coach. 

[00:00:10] Frances Frei: And I'm your co-host Frances Frei. I'm a Harvard Business School professor, and I'm Anne's wife. 

[00:00:15] Anne Morriss: Frances, there are holidays that you and I are very good at celebrating. Take Halloween.

[00:00:22] Frances Frei: Oh, world class. 

[00:00:23] Anne Morriss: We are dressing up. We're putting skeletons in the yard. We're taking the day off to mentally prepare. I have no notes for us. 

[00:00:30] Frances Frei: Oh, I fear that's not the case for every holiday. 

[00:00:33] Anne Morriss: Our worst is just around the corner, which is Valentine's Day. 

[00:00:38] Frances Frei: Oh, yes. That's not, that's not a, a, a, a marker of strength for us.

[00:00:42] Anne Morriss: We have gotten to the point where we just, boycott it. Uh, pretend it's not happening. And I wanna try something different this year. I wanna try to honor St. Valentine by seeing if we can somehow be helpful to the world when it comes to love. Surely there is something that needs fixing. 

[00:00:59] Frances Frei: Oh, I love this other orientation. It's such a better approach. . 

[00:01:03] Anne Morriss: Let's get the spotlight off of us on this one. . This is a show about work. So my thought was that we try to fix love in the workplace. How to acknowledge it, handle it, deal with it when things go wrong. 

[00:01:18] Frances Frei: I don't know anyone in the world that enjoys this topic more than you. You are setting people up in the workplace all the time. 

[00:01:26] Anne Morriss: Yeah, I'm, I am dangerous on this front. I also like to think I'm pretty good at it , at least I was a few decades ago. I think my track record speaks for itself. 

[00:01:35] Frances Frei: We met at work. 

[00:01:36] Anne Morriss: We did. 

[00:01:36] Frances Frei: I'm very, very grateful for your track record . 

[00:01:38] Anne Morriss: We did. It was a success story. But in all seriousness, I think the wild card of romantic attachment, what the biologists like to call pair bonding, can be a big variable in the experience of work and in the culture of teams and organizations.

And we tend to talk about it behind closed HR doors in these hushed tones and not out in the open where we can make some real progress. 

[00:02:04] Frances Frei: Yeah, I, I'm, I'm really looking forward to this because you have particularly strong points of view about this. 

[00:02:10] Anne Morriss: Yeah. My jumping off point is that whenever you collect human beings, as we do at work, sex and love and romance are all going to happen.

They just are. And so we need to have a good plan for what happens next. 

[00:02:24] Frances Frei: Please tell me we're phoning a friend for this conversation. You, you need a partner to think through this. And it's not me. . 

[00:02:30] Anne Morriss: I promise we're not tackling this one alone. We are bringing in a fantastic Master Fixer to help us look at these questions from all the different angles.

Joining us today is Tia Silas, who has had an incredible run leading people functions at some of the fastest growing, most influential companies in the world. She's the new Chief People Officer at Mr. Beast, who of course built an empire on YouTube. I'm thrilled, uh, to be welcoming her to the show. 

[00:02:58] Frances Frei: Oh, yay.

What I love about Tia is that she's got this incredible ability to create environments where employees can predictably and reliably thrive. She brings both gravitas and humanity into, into the people function, and she is not afraid to think differently to get there. So this I think, is gonna be spectacular.

[00:03:16] Anne Morriss: So, Frances, without further ado, let's bring her in.

Tia Silas, welcome to Fixable. 

[00:03:26] Tia Silas: So glad to be here. Thank you for, uh, asking me to join. 

[00:03:30] Anne Morriss: We could not be more excited to have you here. You missed the part of the intro where we celebrated you and talked about what a rockstar you are. But you are the perfect leader to help us out today. Your people HR expertise runs very deep, and that's who we need to walk us through this complicated territory.

Here's our framing on the discussion, which we wanna invite you to challenge upfront, but also just to reveal some of our biases here. Romantic relationships between consenting adults are gonna happen in the workplace period, whether companies want them to or not. But there are things that we can do as both employees and organizations and people managers, to increase the chance that these relationships are healthy and positive and reduce the chance that they are unhealthy and disruptive.

Just to get us started, what is your reaction to that framing? 

[00:04:28] Tia Silas: First of all, I am a hopeless romantic. My husband is most annoyed on Sunday when he wants to watch football, and I wanna watch a romcom. I love, I love, just not in the workplace. . I think part of it is true, Anne, workplace romance is inevitable.

I do struggle a bit with the idea of a corporation embracing or taking on accountability for how those relationships show up positively and don't disrupt things like productivity and perception of meritocracy. And if we go very deep, how we avoid those becoming really tough and sticky legal matters.

So that's probably where we will depart in terms of point on the topic, but certainly the premise of "probably inevitable" is accurate. 

[00:05:14] Anne Morriss: Like, a "keep it out of the workplace" position, like, makes organizations feel good, but is an unrealistic starting place. A, because of biology, like the forces of attraction are these very powerful, like pro evolution, pro survival forces.

It is the like most profound part of the human experience. It's good for all of these things that also make us into better employees, and your best employees are spending all of their time at work, right? Your best employees are giving their lives to the organization. So where else are they going to meet someone if not at work?

[00:05:57] Tia Silas: So it's more around where you seek that out. And I think 40% of people actually have had some version of romance in the workplace. So because your human beings are are finding connection that eventually becomes romantic. It is also true that 60% of people who find romance in the workplace actually also say that their productivity decreased as a result of it.

So from the standpoint of a general person walking the street, I'm all for like people finding love and how that personally motivates them or gives them pleasure. From the viewpoint of a workplace however, right? Where if you think about me as an HR leader, I completely see my job as trying to connect the dots between the mission and the productivity of a company, and hey, if I picked a good company, that mission is incredible, and high performing people and trying to build incentive systems between those two so that those high performing people can, as fast and quickly as possible, reach these ambitious missions of incredible companies. And so naturally, I'm going to be deterred and distracted by anything that breaks the mold, that lengthens the path between how high performers can actually achieve the mission of a company.

And probably it's why I, I am more wired to say as a result of what happens in the workplace, what we see people indicating as an output that I don't love, I don't love that these things also be put tension in terms of people's ability to make impact. 

[00:07:26] Anne Morriss: That makes sense. Beautiful. Beautiful. I love that we have now established our positions.

[00:07:30] Tia Silas: Yeah.

[00:07:34] Anne Morriss: We will be back with Tia after this break.

Let's get into the texture of this 'cause I think this is where these tensions need to be resolved. What are the features of a good romance policy these days? 

[00:07:57] Tia Silas: Yes. So a couple--

[00:07:58] Frances Frei: Is it just say no? 

[00:07:59] Tia Silas: A couple things that, for me, that'd be the best version. I'm reasonable. And I think some of this you can't avoid, right?

Yep. So it will happen. So then to your point, you set the appropriate guardrails. What are we concerned about? We certainly are focused on power within an organization. So even if you don't directly report up to someone, seniority and leadership and kind of balances of power do shift as you go higher up in an organizational hierarchy.

And we think about policies where we're sensitive to people within different positions of power in an organization. 

[00:08:31] Anne Morriss: How do you see your organization solve for that one, because that seems like the big risk here that there is some kind of abuse of power. 

[00:08:38] Tia Silas: Yes. I think it is being explicit around what we put at risk as a result of those relationships.

So it is not uncommon in my career. I've had conversations with leaders to say, um, obviously these are two consenting adults. Um, but what do we put at risk? We put, um, uh, perception. And I say part of this is perception of fairness, right? Mm-hmm . So if I say that's an HR leader, what I'm trying to do is build a system of, of true meritocracy.

Part of what I'm trying to avoid is perception of unfairness as a result of trying to build that out, right? And what people are, are worried about, is there bias created, right? By those lines of, of power. And that bias is sometimes real. And so there are things that we do in the HR system to make sure, um, that you are not a part of conversations that are around promotion and compensation decision, but equally so is the disruption of perceived bias, right?

Mm-hmm . Which happens. I can't control how people perceive that relationship to influence it. Um, and again, that becomes a big disruptor. Oftentimes, I'll sit down with leaders and I'll say hey, here's what's at, what is at risk as a result of you choosing this relationship. There could be a perception that you're operating in a way that's biased.

It will inevitably create risk for the company, right? So we look at sexual harassment claims by bodies like the EEO organization. And I think there's something like 62% of sexual harassment claims through the EEO that are reported are a result of actually consensual, started as consensual romantic relationships.

And so as a leader, understanding that that relationship could at some point create risk within the company and that there is some disruption of productivity, whether that be the gossip mill that happens as a result of people talking about it, or just people being distracted by that occurring. And I think then it becomes really about the individual deciding is that risk worth the potential reward? I will tell you, relationships in the workplace are great so long as they never end. Right? Like what, what actually creates, yeah. What creates the problems is when they end and no one, when you start in it, no one is thinking it ends.

You're like, I'll be in this relationship forever. It's gonna go fine. And and I think that's when they get a complicated Yeah. 

[00:10:53] Anne Morriss: That's what I was going to push on, 'cause, and what we wanna do in this conversation is talk about the company perspective, talk about the employee perspective, and then we wanna throw some scenarios at you.

[00:11:01] Tia Silas: Yeah. 

[00:11:01] Anne Morriss: Um. But company perspective, it seems like there has been a trend of being more and more explicit around the guardrails. Here's what's allowed, here's what's not allowed, here's what you do. But I think you said something really intriguing, that practically the path through is often coaching as opposed to trying to anticipate every possible scenario and creating rules around it.

Is that a fair statement? 

[00:11:24] Tia Silas: I think practically in situations where there isn't a hierarchical, I think in most cases there's a lot of explicit policy that says to have someone reporting to you that you're in a relationship with is just prohibited. I think that's fairly common and we, we try to avoid that at all costs.

Um, by the way, we're not biased towards romantic. I also don't want your mother to work for you. I don't want your really close neighbor who you hang out with. But certainly romantic. And then in most other cases, it really does become about effective coaching. And that coaching is both, I've done coaching even in the last few years, very recently.

Some of that coaching is certainly to the person in the organization who is more senior. And then I've had really young people who are new in their career sit down with me and talk about the impacts of those decisions on their career trajectory as people who are younger and coaching them through that decision making as well.

[00:12:15] Anne Morriss: I'm imagining that if I am AT&T, my approach to this is gonna be different than if I'm like a 20 person AI startup with an employee base, people under 30. Is some of this stuff contextual or are there universal best practices here? 

[00:12:33] Tia Silas: I think even when you're a small startup, you don't avoid some of, again, the disruptions that can be created by romance in a workplace that goes wrong.

And maybe I'd even argue that the smaller you are, maybe they're actually more difficult to overcome if they end poorly. In terms of the policy, I probably like, I probably would think about carving out a policy a little bit differently for a 20 person organization than you know, maybe someone who has 2000 employees, but my coaching probably wouldn't differ, and probably my advice if I were advising other companies is that you still wanna ensure that everyone understand the potential implications of those decisions as you're thinking about a tight team of people collaborating to solve a hard problem and obsessing over that problem, versus maybe external, uh, distractions that might impede the ability to solve those things, right?

[00:13:24] Anne Morriss: Completely agree. In your experience, where else do companies get this wrong? 

[00:13:30] Tia Silas: I think I'll call it like the center of gravity around brilliance. It's this idea of we could never lose this person, and so just let them do whatever they wanna do. Um, that I've seen. Um, you know, outside any emotion for a company to just sit and talk about what are the best practices around romantic relationships, make decisions that are, are very rational and probably, again, protect this idea of mission and impact that a company wants to make.

And then often when the individuals become apparent that they may bend a little bit or become compromising because again, there's a level of brilliance that you don't wanna disrupt or make someone upset and start to bend or think about their coaching differently just based on who it is, rather what it is, if that makes sense.

[00:14:17] Frances Frei: Beautiful. I really like your center of gravity around brilliance. Because it is a gravitational pull when the person is so good. And then we're gonna relax some of the processes and some of the, and rules and regulations because they're that good. Uh, it's the salesperson that is selling so much when they're doing collateral damage with the people, we relax it, we or we turn a blind eye.

[00:14:40] Anne Morriss: Yeah. It's this idea of, of brilliant jerks getting special treatment in the organization. You

[00:14:46] Tia Silas: use a different word. We use a different word, but. 

[00:14:50] Anne Morriss: Alright, let's switch to the employee perspective for a minute. When do I absolutely have to disclose a relationship? So like we just had a one night stand that everyone regrets, or here's the engagement announcement? 

[00:15:07] Tia Silas: I think it's as, as soon as possible. Again, I think we differentiate between if you had a relationship with a peer is a little bit different than obviously if you have had a one night stand with your boss. I probably wanna know that immediately if it's been your boss, but I think as soon as possible.

Again, part of it is because there are a number of tools at our disposal, and I think sometimes people go to this at the most severe end. It's like we could fire people or decide that one person can't be part of the organization. But I think in many cases it does start with, our point, coaching or just again, at least ensuring that we can protect both individuals from perception of unfairness, which becomes a huge disruptor in the circle of people. Again, the rumor mills in organizations is like no other. It is equivalent to a probably a high school in many instances. And so it's a little bit of early coaching to say, well, how do you wanna handle this?

Who do you wanna talk to about this? Certainly us knowing ensures that we can make the right decisions such that neither of these people are in conversations or practices that might allow them to make influential decisions about the other, but at least we can help individuals navigate the next step and try to avoid that becoming again, to the extent that there could be negative impacts of it, to think about how do we mitigate that or minimize it.

[00:16:24] Anne Morriss: I love that. And so in that scenario, let's say I am the, the boss. I wanna move forward with integrity in this situation. And so you're coaching, as I'm hearing it, as early action matters. Come to HR, partner with you and your talented colleagues in figuring out what the right way forward is here. 

[00:16:47] Tia Silas: Yes.

[00:16:48] Frances Frei: That's exactly what we did, love.

[00:16:50] Anne Morriss: It is what we did , although there was no, there was no boss dynamic here. But we were Girl Scouts about it. In coming forward and got good, if awkward, coaching through the whole thing. Just for the record, Frances was never my professor and the context, I was, uh, an older student at the Harvard Business School.

Frances was a dashing young professor. 

[00:17:13] Frances Frei: And I had no chance. 

[00:17:16] Anne Morriss: I was the aggressor in the situation. Let's be very clear. I think you maintained anonymity too in the whole process. There was a very talented administrator who managed the whole thing. I think this was not her first rodeo with this kind of situation.

[00:17:28] Frances Frei: Yeah, I think academia, it's pretty ripe with it there. And so things like when she had to alert the dean, but she neither told the dean who it was or the genders of anyone involved. 

[00:17:40] Tia Silas: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:17:41] Frances Frei: Just that there was a thing going on and then they just talked about process, uh, alongside. 

[00:17:48] Tia Silas: Which by the way makes sense, right?

Sometimes people react to the coaching of HR poorly because they're like, I would never make a biased decision. And I say, there's two things you're trying to actually protect: actual bias and perceived. And it sounds like you had a really sophisticated HR partner to say I actually, part of me telling more people is the perception of bias actually starts to become viral because I'm sharing details.

And so really what I wanna do is make aware of the situation, but give as little detail because you don't want the day to be disrupted by a perception. 

[00:18:19] Anne Morriss: Yeah. I'm curious about right to privacy as an employee. Mm-hmm . And for example, what if disclosure requires outing myself as a gay man, and I'm not ready to do that?

Like, how do you think about those kinds of issues? 

[00:18:35] Tia Silas: Yeah, and it's funny if, if you have the, if you have this conversation around the world, I think like even like GDPR in Europe makes it such that like, a romance in the workplace is actually very difficult to, to disclose for this very reason. You know, I'm probably, uh, biased towards a very highly ethical HR organization wired to protect the privacy of employees. And I've always operated that way. At the same time, I could imagine that, um, not all HR partners are the same. Um, but that's where I would say it's the responsibility of an organization to figure out the best standards for ensuring, again, knowing if you make the decision, that people reporting these things is probably best for the company in pursuit again, of making sure people can have the biggest impact as possible and teams can. Then you have to have a very high standards for how that reporting happens. And a couple companies before I've built the actual disclosure systems, which are pretty exclusive. It's not even like a whole HR team can be part of the process of when people need to identify.

It's usually a handful of people. It's tend, it tends to be like my employee relations people who are very used to and accustomed to dealing with sensitive information, and then trying to isolate it to those points. But I think, and the answer is yes. It makes it much trickier, and it means that the bar, uh, the HR organizations who have to handle that, or the management team, right?

Some organizations, there is no HR person, but the management team, it just has to figure out how to operate with very high standards in the same way you would for a lot of other sensitive matters. 

[00:20:06] Anne Morriss: This conversation, to me is a public service announcement for hiring a very talented HR team. I have that thought all of the time, and that is the blazing headline on this conversation as well.

After the break, we're gonna throw some scenarios at Tia to illustrate her wise guidance here.

Welcome back everyone. We're speaking to Tia Silas, Chief People Officer at Mr. Beast. She's helping us navigate love in the workplace. 

All right, we wanna make this super practical. I wanna throw some scenarios at you. 

So, scenario one. I think that my workplace crush might feel the same way about me, but I'm nervous about misreading the situation.

Tia, what's the best way for me to approach this carefully? 

[00:21:03] Tia Silas: Oh my God. I feel like my heart rate, I feel like we should look at my, or would you look at reading it in my heart rate? . 

[00:21:10] Anne Morriss: I'm not even making eye. I'm not even making eye contact. And your pulse is quickening. 

[00:21:17] Tia Silas: Um, so probably the real answer is... 

[00:21:19] Anne Morriss: There are employees right now Tia, who are having this thought. 

[00:21:23] Tia Silas: I know! That's why my anxiety levels go up. I wanna just be like, no, don't do it! Don't say anything! Uh, again, not all relationships are made the same. And so one, the first is be aware of who that person is. And I do think, again, thinking about a peer versus thinking about someone you report to versus thinking about the CEO of a company.

Those are all v very different ways in which I'm coaching. I think it's fine, um, for people, um, in the most appropriate way, to express, like if you sense that there's mutual attraction to express that. Um, I'm concerned with you doing that in a way that's respectful and has boundaries. More importantly, it is, you have to do that with the maturity of being able to hear and understand what that person says back.

 So the response to that gesture of interest is far more important than expressing, I shouldn't say important. They're both. And so where I see people having gotten this wrong in actual real life is either in some ways, not reading that isn't mutual. Feeling like if you pursue over and over again, oh, this is just a game of hard to get.

That may be after the second or third time of making the advance that I actually may get that date. It is much more critical in the workplace to interpret that initial signal and ask for the answer very specifically, and, and to accept it such that it doesn't bubble up to things that feel like harassment eventually, right? 

[00:22:54] Anne Morriss: I, I love it. And if I'm on the other side of that, of the advance and my answer is no, what is your coaching for me on how to be really clear, respectful and professional? 

[00:23:06] Tia Silas: I think just saying no thank you is, I think the clearer the no, you can end at no period for me. And I've seen this in my career, is, um, it's also okay to have that no and feel uncomfortable and not know what to do with that.

And I say that's also another channel where, find your coaches and, and your mentors within an organization, and feel free to have that discussion in terms of how that made you feel. What are the right guardrails? Maybe there's a follow-up conversation that needs to be had with that individual because of what happened, but I'd also don't think those individuals need to be silenced. And it, it is probably, you could not be at work and someone, a friend you've known for years makes an advance and you can think about and, and again, you're not receptive to that and it creates weird

tension with someone you love as a friend, right? So it might be a coworker. And navigating those things again, should be handled with care and they're very complex and treated and, and, and should be treated again, um, as things that people are very, are, are very serious about. 

[00:24:03] Anne Morriss: Great. Another scenario, I'm dating someone on my team. It's totally above board according to the rules, but it's clearly making some people uncomfortable. Any coaching on how to proceed with kind of the PR side of this? 

[00:24:19] Tia Silas: Yeah, so I had a conversation with someone even more, more recently about this. Just again, they, they had leaned into the fact that they wanted to pursue this relationship.

They had disclosed to HR, but they were struggling with the implications of the team dynamic. And this may sound a little bit raw, but my answer to them was like, yeah, this is what you signed up for. It's inevitable, like again, unless I figure out how to intuitively wire human beings to be different than they are, one, close relationships are such that like there is always gonna be a little bit of gossip nature. And because I always say, and you all know this because you are all like the, the pillars of trust building in organizations. Um, people are always trying to inspect what, uh, um, erodes meritocracy, which I often equate to like trust, like the, the, the, for me to believe that I'm operating in a meritocratic institution I have to actually trust that those things.

And so relationships make those things fuzzy, right? Collaboration is always impeded, right? It's to the extent things are good, maybe collaboration is fine. To the extent someone doesn't like that relationship, it's like you pick a side, God forbid it ends. It's like a divorce. You really have to determine which of the two you're going to, uh, align with.

But it's very challenging and often I don't have a magic solution to that. But more of that is around how do you own that choice and accept the fact that there, there are going to be some implications to that choice that you can't avoid. I always feel, again, being able to facilitate a respectful conversation with your peers, if you feel that is probably the best thing to do.

But it's very tricky. It's very tricky. 

[00:26:01] Anne Morriss: Any advice for, uh, navigating the breakup in, in a workplace? Um, listeners, she's taking a heavy breath. . 

[00:26:10] Tia Silas: Yeah. The breakup is hard. I think it's probably the same advice for when you disclose to the extent that you feel comfortable to partner with HR to let them know that there has been a breakup.

I think sometimes the, the, the circumstances of the breakup do matter. So is it a contentious breakup? Is someone feeling like they're being retaliated against as a result of the breakup? . Those are all factors that do matter, and we again, can coach or put things in place to mitigate the risk of either real or perceived biases that might result.

Again, thinking like you can think about all the situations and you have a very different scenario, even based on who breaks up with whom. And so those are all things again that I advise that people see good partnership, people they trust. Hopefully that's an HR organization to help them navigate through those as well.

[00:27:00] Anne Morriss: So it seems like disclosure is a really important part of making all of this work. What can companies do to make it easier for people to come forward? Because I imagine a very scary thing, particularly when you're lower in the hierarchy. to knock on that big scary HR door and say, I need your help figuring out this situation.

[00:27:25] Tia Silas: This is one of those things where like, I actually love for my leaders to continuously amplify systems and ways to disclose. Whether that be about romance in the workplace or other potentially like policy violations or things like that. But I think to the extent that leaders encourage and promote employee voice, safe channels for people to actually talk with people they trust.

I've been in organizations where they've hired third party people who just do this, like more like ombudsman style. Um, and just again, can serve as are seen as people who are like, their main job is to just really think about how to coach and help someone through this process. I was actually part of an organization where we monitored disclosures, like we would look at like how many reports of a certain type of thing were happening and we didn't like when it was very little. So if I, I come and I, I start this conversation with, hey, 40% of people in the workplace are in romantic relationships. And then I look at my, my, my disclosure system and, and it shows me that 2% are in.

Then I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't have a system of trust unless I'm the exception to the rule, which I never operate like I'm the exception to the rule. Part of what I then have to do is say we have to have a campaign of amplifying systems of value and trust, and have not only HR, but our business leaders actually advocating and speaking to those things as important channels through the organization.

[00:28:48] Frances Frei: Does this also apply in your mind to students? With students? 'Cause it's an organization, they've come in, and I bet the number 40% is probably 80%. 

[00:28:59] Tia Silas: Again, my answer is to any extent, I'm always thinking about at the end of this, can someone file a claim? If the answer is yes, then I care about how to navigate that in a way that's thoughtful, right?

So I, I don't, uh, discriminate based on the demographic of people who are more likely to do it. I might even be more inclined to help them figure out the best way to do it. But, uh, I think it's any employee of a company we would want, again to, for, to help people think through the best way to both disclose it and to navigate it and report if things go wrong.

[00:29:31] Frances Frei: Yeah. What about pre-existing conditions? So what about people that are married or related before they get to the company? Do, is there any nuance to what you're saying there? 

[00:29:42] Tia Silas: Yeah, we have good policy around that. So I, we have an expectation that you disclose if you are married or if someone you're married to is interviewing for that. In, in those cases, we typically will make it such that we can avoid reporting relationships and then we, we just again, then we can offer a similar, uh, coaching and development. But I think there it's early disclosure. And by the way, I, I set these same rules for if you want your partner to be a contractor for the company, right? These are all conflicts of interest. It's potential or potential conflicts of interest is probably the more appropriate.

And there's a broad range of things that we think create, again, real or perceived conflict of interest, far beyond romantic relationships, that we take seriously. Um, but certainly not excluding romantic relationships. And, and we, we are pretty clear, or I try in, in all the organizations I've been part of, to just make that clear to people instead of saying like, it's unavoidable.

You might have a partner who's fantastic talent for us. I don't want you to be like, oh, because I work here. I would never, ever propose that they do the same. That's great for me. Like I want talented people, but we wanna do that in a way that's thoughtful and allows them both to thrive in the environment.

Again, creating the systems where people can do that, I think are very important. 

[00:30:56] Anne Morriss: Tia, what else do you hope people take away from this conversation? 

[00:31:00] Tia Silas: Don't ever have a romantic relationship. No. I think people, yeah, don't do it. Don't do it. No. I think I've probably hit on this a couple times. I think from the organization side, I think it's being clear about policy and then being obsessed around do you have systems of trust in the organization such that people can disclose so you can help them through it? Um, from the employee side, um, similarly, I think as a coach, it's just being able to really weigh out the list of pros and cons and a little bit of reality setting in terms of, of the, the runway of the relationship and making good decisions.

And then I think from the management perspective, maybe managers being part of a relationship, I think it really is expecting them to weigh the needs of the company, the mission and the output with the benefits of a personal relationship and to take those decisions seriously. And again, I've been in situations where I think I've had management sit on the side of partnering with me very early. Understanding, right, that there are benefits personally and risks to the company as a result of the relationships. And I've had some choose not to pursue relationships as a result of that. And then I've had others choose to pursue the relationship again, but with the partnership of HR where there was almost an over telling of details along the way just so that again, we could coach and partner on the best way to handle things.

[00:32:25] Anne Morriss: Beautiful. Tia again, one of my takeaways from this is just the power of hiring wildly talented HR professionals as early as possible in the lifecycle of a company. You are so awesome and, uh, I'm so thrilled you joined us today. Thank you for being here. 

[00:32:42] Tia Silas: Thank you for letting me join you. A pleasure. 

[00:32:45] Frances Frei: Happy Valentine's Day Tia.

I hope you get a romcom and not a football game. 

[00:32:51] Tia Silas: By the way, I'm very happy that you two found each other in the workplace. Because , and I'm really, and I'm really glad I wasn't your HR person.

[00:33:04] Anne Morriss: Thanks so much for listening to this very special Valentine's Day episode. We are wishing all of you the best of luck in finding love out there. Your participation in this show helps us make great episodes like this one. If you wanna figure out any questions about your workplace problems together, please send us a message.

[00:33:23] Frances Frei: Call or text us at fixable@ted.com or 2 3 4 fixable. That's 2 3 4 3 4 9 2 2 5 3.

[00:33:37] Anne Morriss: Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Anne Morriss.

[00:33:44] Frances Frei: And me, Frances Frei. 

[00:33:45] Anne Morriss: This episode was produced by Rahima Nasa from Pushkin Industries. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Cheng, Daniella Ballarezo and Roxanne Hai Lash.

[00:33:56] Frances Frei: And our show was mixed by Louis at Story Yard.