Insight #128
Do you work for a nice boss at a nice organization? You do? I’m so sorry to hear that.
Nice is seldom successful. At work.
Here’s why. In organizational life, nice normally means nice to work with. And nice to work with too often means people like you, meaning people who are like you like you.
What do you get when you have likeable people who are too alike? You get people who make the same perceptual errors. They ignore the same threats and miss the same opportunities.
It gets worse. In nice organizations, managers are often too soft on non-performers because they lack the sense and the courage to do the not-nice thing, namely to demand better. Better performance and better behavior. The not-nice outcome is that those who perform and behave better get fed up and leave. And everybody else ultimately underperforms.
If you want success, don’t encourage nice. Encourage people to care so much about performance and success that they overcome their liking to deal with any colleague who is not delivering.
Albeit in a nice way.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
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Quote of the Moment:
“I could have been nice, but our deadline wasn’t buying it.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.
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