{"id":651,"date":"2017-06-23T18:10:55","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T18:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielvlopes238992071.wordpress.com\/2017\/06\/23\/kill-the-culture-of-nice-this-is-how-you-create-a-positive-work-environment\/"},"modified":"2023-02-09T21:03:23","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T05:03:23","slug":"kill-the-culture-of-nice-this-is-how-you-create-a-positive-work-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canopy.is\/blog\/2017\/06\/23\/kill-the-culture-of-nice-this-is-how-you-create-a-positive-work-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Kill the culture of \u201cnice\u201d: This is how you create a positive work environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cNice\u201d can be a dangerous thing when it comes to developing company culture.<\/h4>\n
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Does your company suffer from a culture of\u00a0\u201cnice\u201d?<\/h3>\n

A culture of \u201cnice<\/a>\u201d exists when people do not openly disagree with one another. Employees politely bite their tongues when they have a dissenting viewpoint. No one dares brings up a contentious topic during a meeting. Everyone is hesitant to be seen as \u201cconfrontational.\u201d<\/p>\n

A culture of \u201cnice\u201d occurs when people have genuinely good intentions, but out of a desire to be liked and to not \u201crock the boat,\u201d they find it difficult to publicly argue with one another. People are not being fake or superficial\u200a\u2014\u200athey\u2019re just being \u201cnice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being nice is a positive human character trait. I\u2019m not advocating for anyone to be an asshole, to any degree! But when \u201cnice\u201d defines<\/em> your company\u2019s culture, it\u2019s dangerous.<\/p>\n

A company culture of \u201cnice\u201d dilutes the truth of the current reality. You don\u2019t hear bad news until it\u2019s really<\/em> bad. You only recognize a problem once it\u2019s festered and ballooned into something serious. Your ideas for solutions are contained in an echo chamber. Your decisions become driven by groupthink.<\/p>\n

To discern if your company has a culture of \u201cnice,\u201d here are four questions you can ask yourself as a leader\u2026<\/p>\n

What happens when someone messes\u00a0up?<\/h4>\n

When someone makes a mistake, do other employees avoid telling you directly? Now I\u2019m not suggesting you encourage \u201ctattle-telling\u201d in a company, but the opposite is detrimental to a company. An unwillingness to acknowledge each others\u2019 mistakes contributes to a culture of \u201cnice.\u201d<\/p>\n

How long does it take to let someone\u00a0go?<\/h4>\n

How much time passes between the moment you\u2019ve decided a current employee is not the right fit for the company, and the moment you tell them? If it\u2019s longer than a week and you find yourself stalling, you\u2019re guilty of creating a culture of \u201cnice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do people bring up\u00a0failure?<\/h4>\n

When is the last time someone (other than you) brought up a marketing campaign that fell short, or a product line that was pulled? If your employees focus only on what\u2019s going well and are reluctant to be critical, they could be engaging in a culture of \u201cnice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do people disagree with you in\u00a0public?<\/h4>\n

When you ask for people\u2019s opinion on an important issue, do you get passive head-nodding? Or even complete radio silence? If so, people may not feel comfortable voicing their disagreement, and your company may have a culture of \u201cnice.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you kill a culture of\u00a0\u201cnice\u201d?<\/h3>\n

Perhaps you answered a few of those questions I posed earlier in a way that made you think, \u201cHmmm, we may have succumbed to a culture of \u2018nice\u2019\u2026<\/em>\u201d No worries, you are not alone. Many companies end up realizing they inadvertently sacrifice honesty for the sake of avoiding contentious situations.<\/p>\n

Companies that have killed their culture of \u201cnice\u201d slowly over time and cultivated an honest, forthcoming culture in its place, do these four things well:<\/p>\n

Communicate that honesty and kindness are not mutually exclusive.<\/h4>\n

One of my favorite nonfiction books of all time, Crucial Conversations<\/a>, talks about how our reluctance to tell people the truth comes from the fact that we see honesty and kindness as being mutually exclusive. But, they\u2019re not. It\u2019s possible to be both kind and<\/em> honest. Communicating this with your team is key. For example, in a one-on-one with an employee you could directly say, \u201cI see honesty and kindness as not being mutually exclusive\u200a\u2014\u200aso don\u2019t worry about if you think you\u2019re being nice or not\u2026 I know you are, if you\u2019re simply trying to be honest.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Model the vulnerability you want to\u00a0see.<\/h4>\n

A culture of \u201cnice\u201d often takes hold when the team sees the example set from the leadership team. When managers share only their highlights and accomplishments and never admit where things go wrong… their team will never admit where things go wrong either. If you don\u2019t talk about when you come up short, then the rest of your team surely won\u2019t. Encourage your team to feel comfortable coming to you with their mistakes and shortcomings by admitting your mistakes and shortcomings as a leader, first.<\/p>\n

Seek out dissent\u2026 and respond gratefully and respectfully to\u00a0it.<\/h4>\n

Companies that have killed a culture of \u201cnice\u201d seek out dissent as much as possible. They view conflict not as something that needs to be quelled or immediately resolved\u200a\u2014\u200abut as an opportunity to grow, learn, and improve as a company. Leaders will ask, \u201cWhat a devil\u2019s advocate point-of-view to the idea I posed?<\/em>\u201d or \u201cHow I might be wrong in this situation?<\/em>\u201d They actively challenge their own ideas in front of others. And when an alternative perspective is provided, they listen, thank the other person, and consider what they\u2019ve learned from now hearing a contrasting viewpoint.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t sugarcoat or exaggerate.<\/h4>\n

When things are going well or when things are going bad, leaders in companies where they\u2019ve killed a culture of \u201cnice\u201d tell it like it is. They try to relay the truth of a situation as objectively and honestly as possible. They know if they inflate something to be more than it is, or skirt away from saying how poorly something was messed up\u2026 it helps no one.<\/p>\n

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Building the culture you want\u200a\u2014\u200aone where people feel safe to come to you with new ideas, tough situations, bad news etc.\u200a\u2014\u200atakes time. It\u2019s the by-product of doing things consistently and regularly, day-in and day-out. So don\u2019t expect that your entire team\u2019s attitudes and behaviors will change over night. With time and diligence in doing some of the best practices I described above, you\u2019ll be able to kill the culture of \u201cnice\u201d in your<\/em> company.<\/p>\n\n\n

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