Are you too nice to people at work?
Symptoms of being ‘too nice’ to people at work:
- Overuse of gratitude words like Thank you, please, could you, kindly, etc on all forms of communication at work.
- Registering your reactions like thumbs up & clap to literally every chat message in slack/teams/discord channels at work.
- Praise excessively on meetings like retrospectives, etc.
- Replying ‘thank you’ to every individual person who wished you or congratulated you for some occasion, especially in WhatsApp groups.
Have you ever introspected why you are ‘too nice’ to people instead of just being ‘nice’ to people?
Yes. It's a behavior that was very encouraged when I was a junior - managers and founders loved that somebody was nice, would follow their word, and deliver
As I have grown in the last couple of years within companies, it's becoming a curse. Getting work out of people requires you to sometimes break that habit. I've also been given feedback that I don't speak up when I'm supposed to.
Nice to the point where you're doing disservice to your work is not nice
In case anybody went through this, it would be really helpful to hear how you broke it
“Nice to the point where you're doing disservice to your work is not nice”
There can’t be a better way to explain your predicament at work.
By the way, I did go thru’ this phase during early stages in my career for the same reason you mentioned. But now I’ve completely come out of this.
I refrain from using words like please, kindly and similar vocabulary. Yet, I keep it polite but strong. This is how I word my emails:
“I would like you to do _____”.
“Would you mind getting this info for me?”
“Wouldn’t it make sense to do it this way?”
“I believe, this approach would fetch better results. Isn’t it worthy to give a try?”
The key to overcoming the habit of being excessively nice to people lies in practicing affirmation.
Thanking and being nice is a good habit, nothing wrong with that in my opinion.
But if you're not speaking up then that's a problem. I think if you're highly ambitious then this should come naturally as you would be curious to know about things and eager to make your growth as smooth as possible and for that you'll have to talk to people, suggest improvements, point out mistakes etc. In other cases you might have to work on it.
I think the root cause for this is lack of confidence and being afraid of saying something stupid. You can start by speaking up in your 1 on 1s that's where your inputs are most welcomed. This will also help you in validating your points and will give you some confidence. Biggest confidence boost you'll get from is by speaking up in team meets like retros and standups. And trust me people always appreciate suggestions, it's a matter of 2-3 such instances and you'll open up.
Also if you feel like your achievements are not being noticed then you'll have to make the important stakeholders notice and the best place for this is again your 1 on 1s. This is one place where you can't be all shy and nice. No work is too small to not mention.
Not to mention every workplace has different dynamics so adapt your conversations based on that.
I’ve been said to be ‘too nice’ yes and heard many times from people that I won’t succeed because of it.
But you know what, screw it! Be yourself and it will show dividends.
Not being yourself is nothing but catastrophic.
This makes sense, I've been trying to get there, it's just that I have to remind me every now and then and hence it feels like I'm just not being my natural self
It's a process I guess. Thanks for starting this conversation though, it's good to get reminded and get someone's thoughts on it
Glad that it made you realize this. A lot of us don’t introspect on certain basic things and continue to remain naive until they get a nudge like this.
I adjust to the atmosphere around me. In teams with an aggressive culture I'd become pretty aggressive myself. Currently in a really collaborative team I check a couple of boxes of niceness from above.
I think if circumstances allow you to be aggressive or be kind then it is natural. But the concern is when it gets hyper. If you team environment itself promotes overpraise, then I see a fundamental problem. Overcritism might be even worse. It might lead to hostile work environment.
