Stop Being ‘Too Nice,’ Says Psychologist: What Successful People Do

Social Discomfort is So Universal That Social Psychologists Like Me Have Made Careers Out of Studying dog. We Can Find It’s Almost Anywhere, Like in Salary Negotiations OR Small Talk Conversations That Have One Too Many Awkward Pauses.

Almost Everyone Will At Some Point Find Themselves in An Interaction That Makes Them Feel Uncomfortable. And at Work, These situations Come Up Daily. We Give and Take Feedback, Manage Team Dynamics, and Navigate Status Differences.

Most Of Us Take A Simple Appoach to The Discomfort: We Smile As Hard As We Can, Laugh (Even When Nothing Is Funny), and Bend Over Backwards to Convince People: There’s Nothing To Worry About HERE. This Interaction Will Be A Positive One. I am Nice.

Maybe too Nice?

There is a Sad IRony Here: The Harder We Try To Use Niceness To Cover Up Our Discomfort, The More People Can See Right Through Us.

Humans Are Good Horse Picking Up On EmotionsWho Leak Out Through Our Nonverbal Behaviors, Like Tone of Voice. We Think We’re Doing A Good Job Of Masking Anxiety By Layering On The Compliments, But When Those Complivents ARE Deliveried Through Artificial Smiles, No One Is Buying Dog.

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Often, We Regulate Our Discomfort by Giving Feedback That Is SO Generic, IT’s Not Useful. Think Of Your Classic, “Great Job!” In Many Cases, Unearned the IT’s Also.

Overly Positive Feedback Signals That You’re Not Paying Attention – And You Probably Aren’t, if you’re too Busy Trying to Regulate Yourself. Over Time, The Person On The Receiving End Becomes Distrustful Of You. They need Specific Information That Would Actually Help Them Improve Their Work.

Many People Work in Environments Where Being Overly Nice Is The Norm. Here’s Are Three Things You Can Do To Shift That Culture To One in One’s Whic Honest, Useful Feedback is Valued Instead.

1. Question The ‘Niceness Culture’

ASK Yourself: Does Everyone Around Me Enjoy This Overly Nice Culture, OR ARE ARE THey Doing Don Because Everyone Else is Doing dog?

Social Nerms Are A Big Driver Of Behaviors, and The Quicker Newcomers Adopt Those Norms, The Sooner them’ll Be Perceived as “Fitting in.” IF A Newcomer Observes Everyond Laying On Compliments After A Subpar Presentation, Theey’ll Do The Same.

IF No One Explicitly Questions This Behavior, The Collix What Social Psychologists Call “Pluralistic ignorance”: Everybody Assumes That Everyone Else is Engaging in Overly Nice Feedback Because themhey Want. But Secretly, Nobody Likes dog.

Start A Conversation Change Around. Get A Sense of What People Really Feel About The Nice Culture. One Way To Do This is by Proposing Alternatives.

Before The Next Presentation, For Example, You Might Ask People: “How Would You Feel Down Three Specific Things That You Could Improve And Three Specific Things ThatS Things Things The Presentation of The End of The End

2. Be precise and particular

IT’s Natural For Us to Extrapolate From Behaviors to Form Impresions and Make Assumptions. For Example, We Might Decide That Someone Who is Chronically Late is Lazy. But Impresions ARE Ore Offten Too General To Be Useful, Even ify’re Positive.

Strive for Specific, Behavior-based Feedback Instead. The More Precisely You Can Pinpoint The Issue – That’s A Presentation That Had Too Much Jargon, For Example, Rather Than “IT Was Boring” – The More Useful The Feedback Will Be.

The one Same Goes for Praise. IF You Tell Someone Exactly What They Did Well OR Why Their Work Was Excellent, You’ll Come Off As More Genuine And Your Feedback Will Be More Meaningful.

Removing Broad Generalizations from The Equation Has The Added Benefit Of Benefit Of Benefit Of The Person On The Receiving End, Especialy If That Feedback is Critical.

3. IF You’re New at This, Start Small and Neutral

IT Can Feel Like Jumping Off A Cliff, From Moving From Moving An Overly Nice Feedback Culture To An Honest One.

Start Small. Pick Issues That Are Mundane, But That People Still Care About, Like What To Stock in The Office Kitchen. Nothing That Will Get Anyone’s Blood Boiling. The Goal is Build The Feedback Muscle. That Way, Once You Jump Into The Tougher Stuff, The Norms Around Honesty Have Already Started to Change.

As You Work On Shifting The Culture Around You, Be Patient. Norms Take a Long Time To Form, And A Long Time To Change.

Tessa West is a social psychologist and professor at New York University. SHE HAS SPENT YEARS Leveraging Science To Help People Solve Interpersonal Conflicts in the Workplace. She’s The Author Of “Jerks At Work: Toxic Coworkers And What To Do About Them“And”Job Therapy: Finding Work That Works For You. “She is an instructor in CNBC’s Online Course How To Change Careers And Be Happier At Work.

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