Don’t be nice…
We talk a lot today about the culture shock of toxic cultures. But I recall my first corporate culture shock as being one of a culture of nice. I remember like it was yesterday. I was sitting observing the annual review delivery to each of my new three team members by their current manager. I had worked with the manager before and admired them profusely. I had known them as smart, innovative, thoughtful, caring, and above all effective. However, as I sat listening to the reviews, all these glowing commentaries on what these individuals had accomplished in the past year, I noticed there was not one piece of constructive feedback. There was nothing apparently for any of them to improve upon. I had just inherited a top team of perfect HR business partners. I must be the luckiest person in the world. I was truly shocked, and I’ll blame in the most positive way my consulting upbringing because as a consultant I was used to getting feedback all the time (most of it constructive).
There was always something we could do better whether it was navigating the politics of a specific client or getting another certification or learning how to manage more complex programs or dealing with Stakeholders who couldn’t agree. There was always room for improvement. I believe this will my whole being.
But not here at this company. Being nice and delivering only positive verbiage was the expectation. I should’ve known that I was in trouble. When I met with my team members, I sat them down and said,
“I was grateful to have been able to be part of your annual review. And I need to be perfectly honest none of you ever receive a review like that from me. And let me explain, I said, I know that each and every day there are 1000 things I could’ve done better. And I hope each day I get that number closer to 900.”
They looked utterly terrified. But within months, the new CEO launched leadership behaviors largely directed at transforming our company to be more accountable, innovative and collaborative (note collaborative not consensus driven- there is a difference.)
Listening to a recent The Science of Personality’s podcast, I was thrown back to the hard work we did to move our company culture from” CompanyNice” to one of accountability and performance couched in care. Feedback when delivered in the context of caring for the individual and the company is a powerful tool. It truly is a gift.
It’s not easy to change a culture and certainly not for a large organization as this one was. But just as an individual cannot grow without the care and feeding of feedback, an organization cannot evolve to meet changing customer preferences, market swings, or economic headwinds without challenging its internal status quo. It takes each leader to start this mindset shift.
Elephant in the Room- Psychological Safety. Psychological safety is not found in niceness but rather exists in cultures where it has become both safe and normative to provide feedback for the purpose of individual and corporate growth. Again, couched in a culture of care. I am not advocating for rudeness but rather caring enough for your colleagues to provide them with the tools (feedback) to reach their full potential.
Supposedly as someone high in Interpersonal Sensitivity and Altruism in the Hogan Assessment, I am highly likely to over index on nice. I am sure anyone who has ever been on my teams could tell you this isn’t the case. I hope they know it was always couched in my care for them. I hope I have not gone over to rudeness but as I said, I am just working to get down to 900 mistakes a day.
