Does this story sound familiar?

Daniel, a young manager that I coached, frequently found himself frustrated that his team was not delivering projects on a deadline. He didn’t know how to fix it and often used a repertoire of different tactics to try to combat it.

It took a while to uncover what was happening. However, it became apparent after digging into multiple examples that every time one of his team members came to him with a setback, Daniel validated the individual’s reasoning.

When I asked about his approach, Daniel felt he was being empathetic – a key trait for successful leaders. It wasn’t that long ago that Daniel was standing in their shoes.

When Daniel listened to his team members, he understood the reasoning behind their comments. There’s truth to the excuses. He found himself saying things like, “Oh, I know the budget isn’t where it should be.” Or “Oh, I understand we do have a lot of projects on the table.”

His frustration lies in the fact that while the excuses keep coming, the results stay the same.

Things aren’t getting done on time. Accountability is missing.

Even if this story doesn’t feel familiar, your organization may still lack true accountability if it’s struggling with these common symptoms:

• Low employee morale
• Unclear priorities
• Declining engagement
• Ineffective execution
• Trust erosion
• Higher turnover

Creating accountability is difficult. And it is a leader’s job. It is the leader’s responsibility to embrace the mindset: GIVEN my current reality what DO I need to do to create the results, the career, the life that I want.

When the managers have that mentality, it trickles down and is spread throughout the team.

Common Accountability Pitfalls

Below are three common pitfalls we often witness with leaders and teams to create ACCOUNTABILITY and manager best practices to overcome them:

1. Managers aren’t trained to have the conversations. 

Many people leaders are not properly trained to respond to their direct reports’ excuses or lack of accountability. Because you can’t mandate accountability, leaders must know how to create an environment where people choose accountability, where they choose to come to a problem with solutions rather than excuses.

Now, imagine if Daniel started to have conversations with his team members that were skilled and structured. One critical tool used in Fierce Accountability is to reframe the excuse.

Instead of saying, “OK.” Daniel asked, “Given that the budget isn’t where it should be or given that we do have a lot going on, what can you do?” Instead of acquiescing to excuses, and saying “well, okay, I hear you,” the manager needs to say “I hear you AND what can you do about it?”

The manager must be able to hold the space and have the skillful conversation to move the person to action. This comes with practice and feedback. Daniel started to have different conversations, and the results did change.

2. Managers want to be liked.

Does your culture frequently recognize the “most liked” individuals? Or does your culture recognize the “biggest driver of results”? We often work with organizations that have “terminal niceness,” something we frequently call a Culture of Nice.

There is so much fear around stepping on someone’s toes or holding others to specific standards, that all of the conversations become superficial. How balanced are those two spectrums?

Take a long look at your performance management process. Evaluate how you are rewarding behaviors.

If managers who get the most gold stars on dimensions that can be tied to “popularity” instead of driving results, you may need to adjust some of your goals and processes. Be intentional with what you expect and reward.

3. Managers underestimate their role in building accountability.

We find that managers, especially young managers, are quick to build a process or want to implement a system of working before addressing the root cause issues of why accountability doesn’t exist. Although it may be nice to set up a system or methodology and then coast for a while, the harsh reality is that this is not the case.

Managers play a key role in the ongoing conversation. They can not just point to systems and processes to solve this challenge. Continuing with direct one-to-ones and making sure that you are addressing anything that arises is key.

Lack of accountability quickly becomes a slippery slope. Think about many of the disasters in this past decade from the financial crisis to auto and cellular phone recalls.

Once knowledge of what has really happened gets to the press, employees come from all facets of the organization sharing how the behavior, fraud, whatever it may be, was known by some. Or that the top person didn’t do anything about it. You may be inclined in these situations to point fingers at one person in particular.

However, if your leaders’ inclination is to say that they can’t have accountability because your culture does not have it, or your top leaders don’t have it, then stop them right there.

Share this blog. And remind them: Culture doesn’t live outside of you. That’s not how it works. You are the culture. You choose what it looks like every day. You choose it in the conversations you have. And even more so if you lead people, you model and reinforce those choices each time you interact with others.

If accountability is an issue in your organization, do not just wait for something to shift. Daniel started to have different conversations with his team, and in turn, there were different results. His team members came with more solutions and ownership over time.

These changes do not happen overnight. You must create a plan to equip people with the skills and practice they need to really believe and move the mission forward.

And watch out for those common pitfalls – some are easier to see than others.

One of the biggest misses by organizations large or small is creating AND maintaining a winning talent strategy. Over the past several years, leaders have been utilizing a method you may have heard of or even use yourself: THE “WHOLE PERSON” APPROACH.

The whole person approach is a holistic way of looking at development and training — it takes into account the individual’s vision for themselves in all areas of life and provides the supportive resources they need to help make that vision a reality. The intended result is self-actualization.

This approach is often employed as a talent strategy to improve retention, culture, and profitability. But there’s more to it than simply adopting a holistic mentality or spending a training budget. To be successful, it needs to be backed by action and key conversations.

As I mentioned, many businesses and leaders are already aware of the “whole-person” approach and believe they’re promoting it within their organizations, BUT many are overlooking important factors that determine whether this approach will succeed or fail.

Why This Approach is Different

Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, proved through his studies that people act from emotion first, rationality second. We are emotionally-driven creatures, and the “whole-person” approach knows this. Everyone in an organization is coming to the table with emotions, and these emotions are fueling their decisions.

Knowing this and creating systems around it to support it is how you go where you need to go as an organization. Otherwise, your approach won’t change anything in terms of behavior.

Unlike more traditional, one-area-only, or skill-based approaches, developing the “whole person” requires an investment in professional, personal, and skill-related areas in a way that supports mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being.

In addition to providing basic needs, it provides the resources required for an individual to feel empowered in moving toward self-actualization. Just as the external and business environment is shifting, so are the needs of the individuals who are a part of it.

THE WHOLE-PERSON APPROACH also involves being even more focused on the person’s ability to navigate not just in the area of skill development, but also the larger requirement of self-awareness and goals. It also allows individuals to take ownership of their own development, using their emotions as a compass — they are able to determine areas of focus, what they need, and provides the resources to follow through.

In this way, the desire for growth is “self-generated,” which goes a long way in retaining talent.

Here are some elements you can incorporate to succeed in this approach:

1. Learn about the individual.

It’s impossible to support what you don’t know, so it’s important to get to know individuals in your organization on a personal level through conversation. Ask them about their unique interests, goals, and needs, and discuss how their role and the organization can support the vision they have for themselves.

2. Individualized coaching.

Leaders need to both receive and provide emotional support, and approach development as a never-ending journey full of ups and downs. COACHING CONVERSATIONS AND MENTORING PROGRAMS can go a long way in supporting the whole person, and if budget is limited, make sure the resources that are available are customizable for each individual.

3. Training.

Providing strategic and hard skills training is an important part of a holistic approach, and this training needs to be accompanied by feedback so that new behaviors are reinforced and course-corrected. Growth is slowed and stunted when we’re not given regular feedback on ways we can improve.

To Achieve the “Whole-Person” Approach, You Have to Start Talking

On an organizational level, taking a holistic approach is a bit more complex. It requires an in-depth audit of the employee journey. Here are some important questions you need to be asking:

• Where are you currently encouraging the whole person to show up, and where are you falling short?
• If people are wanting to be themselves and develop as a person, what systems, values, and investments are we making to support that?
• What are you doing to strengthen relationships, provoke learning, and support a culture of psychological safety?

With the rising trend of meditation and mindfulness practices, communication skills and training can be misperceived as old school, based on the assumption that if you’re mindful, you don’t need training. The truth is that mindfulness and communication skills go hand in hand.

How we communicate flows into being mindful and having intentionality with how you show up, and conversation skills are what allow you to successfully bring that intentionality into relationships.

Whatever skills you have within the company, you will bring to all areas of life as a husband, wife, parent, friend, or sibling. Not employing training and development around communication is, in fact, a BIG miss.

The old-school notion of having a work self and a separate outside-of-work self is dying. Employees expect to work for a company where they can be authentic — where they feel psychologically safe enough to express their true thoughts and feelings.

There are two primary ways leaders can create this environment within organizations, and both are essential:

1. Communicate that authenticity is valued. 

This is a given, but you’d be surprised at how many organizations fail to communicate “your voice matters” directly to their employees. Leaders need to initiate the conversation about authenticity and clearly communicate its value. When a leader expresses that they want to know your true thoughts and feelings, it can shift an entire culture by making it “safe” to show up as your true self.

2. Model authentic behavior.

If leaders do not know how to get real and show up as their true selves—which includes providing honest FEEDBACK and having a willingness to CONFRONT others when necessary—it will bleed into the company culture. Employees will not feel comfortable sharing their perspectives in an environment where leaders do not practice what they preach.

Taking Steps toward “Wholeness”

The whole person approach doesn’t just need to be woven into an organization’s fabric via leadership training programs — it needs to be integrated into every aspect of an organization, from recruiting to onboarding to processes to employee journey and offboarding.

The bottom line is the more you treat people in a human way and get to know each other on a deeper level, the better your business will run.

Whether you’re from the American Midwest, or you know someone from the region, you’ve most likely at some point or another had a conversation about the idea of, “Midwest Nice.”

My parents met at Cleveland State University. My mom grew up smack dab in the middle of Cleveland, while my dad grew up in the burbs one-hour east. In short, most of my gene pool lives in Ohio. And because I have never lived in Ohio, I’m a rare species in the Mason/Engle clan.

This is because I get to look from the outside in, and I’ve developed a keen sense of sniffing out “Midwest Nice” pretty quickly.

It tends to look like the following:

• Always keeping a smile on your face…especially when you disagree with something.
• Sweeping thoughts and conversation under the rug very quickly when a topic is brought up you don’t want to talk about.
• Being a firm believer that, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
• When a controversial statement is made, responding with “well, be nice.”
• Stating your opinion when promoted, but immediately following it up with, “but we can do whatever you want.”

Yep, tell-tale signs of Midwest Nice.

The important thing to note here is that Midwest Nice isn’t the only form of “nice” that shows up throughout the world (and in the workplace) — and they’ve got their own tell-tale signs too.

Our organization, Fierce Conversations, has this special ability to sniff out cultures of nice as well, as these cultures tend to sneak their way into problems our clients come to us to resolve and they don’t even realize it.

As I wrote in the piece, The Dark Side of Niceness: How Honesty is Taking a Backseat in the Workplace, the results of our recent research on the impact niceness has on the workplace confirmed how we would define cultures that are overly nice.

Nearly 63 percent of employees chose not to share a concern or negative feedback at work because they were fearful of being seen as combative and then kept their concerns and feedback to themselves.

Respondents said it’s important to be considered nice because:

1. They find work is more enjoyable when they get along with their colleagues.
2. It makes it easier to get things done.
3. They will get more interesting work/more opportunities if people like working with them.

We all want the above things: enjoyable, easier, and more interesting work – sign me up, please!

Here’s what often gets overlooked: The three reasons above can happen while still sharing concerns and feedback with colleagues – in a productive and relationship-enriching way.

What’s So Bad About Being “Nice”?

You should not keep those to yourself. So, why is it so bad to keep concerns and comments to yourself?

It is not healthy. When you keep negative thoughts or secrets to yourself, there is scientific evidence that stress hormones, such as cortisol, increase, and your health is affected.

“Sleep may be disturbed, which could lead to emotional mood swings and a propensity to be ill-tempered or lose your cool,” Allen Towfigh, MD, a neurologist and sleep medicine specialist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Cornell Medical Center, recently told Forbes. 

“You may also have difficulty with memory and learning. And the excess release of cortisol will cause a host of other ailments, including possible increase or loss of appetite and disruption of metabolism,” he said.

If it goes even further to keep a secret, Art Markman shares, “The stress caused by secrets arises because people think about the information they are keeping secret often — even when they are not around the person they are hiding the information from. These thoughts cause stress and make people feel as though they are not acting authentically.

”It creates a dump truck effect. During a Fierce training about Confront we recount a personal story about a woman, Sara, who shares that her boss bothers her over and over and over again.

Then, one Wednesday afternoon, her boss does one small thing, and Sara unloads the entire dump truck of her frustrations. Months of examples and all the emotions that go along with them.

I shouldn’t have to say this: That’s not effective.

It is not authentic. We can all sniff fake from a mile away. When someone is not disclosing something to you, you sense it. Misalignment with personal values is often cited as a big reason for career change and shifts. 

If you are a leader, you want your organization, team, and employees to be healthy, to address issues as they come, and to be authentic and dedicated. Ultimately, these results in top and bottom line health, productivity, and happiness.

Signs of a “Culture of Nice”

So, how do you know when you are part of a “Culture of Nice”?

The top signs we’ve seen from Fierce clients are:

1. Conversations, negative or positive, are absent.
2. You can’t remember the last time someone at your workplace said something that was hard for you to hear.
3. Mistakes are handled in inconsistent ways or just not handled at all.
4. Relationships in the organization are built in various ways that may not be conducive to being authentic and real with one another.
5. Expectations are shifted or changed based on various factors, rather than grounded in reality and moving the business forward.

Another major way leaders can determine if their organization is fostering a “Culture of Nice” is by understanding the ways this niceness culture shows up. 

Below, you can find the most common cultures of nice and what they tend to look like at organizations:

Three Types of “Cultures of Nice

1. Only Smiles Can Live Here.

A culture where there is legislated optimism. The expectation is that each employee keeps the atmosphere positive, and therefore, employees associate bringing up concerns or addressing issues head-on as negative and going against the status quo.Ways to tell:

• Most meetings including head nods and smiles.
• It’s frowned upon to bring a concern to an individual in either a group or individual setting.
• When someone makes a mistake, it is often greeted with positive reinforcement or not at all – instead of accountability.
• Relationships are built on others supporting one another and reinforcing how everyone is doing the best they can – often at the cost of not challenging one another.

2. Respect with a Capital R AKA “Don’t Question Me.”

A culture where employees associate respect with agreeing with each other on the surface. This culture of nice does not encourage sharing concerns with individuals who may potentially have shortsighted or disconnected ideas or strategies because it is considered disrespectful to do so. Ways to tell:

• It’s not encouraged to have competing views at meetings, and rather, it’s expected to support the meeting leaders.
• Before meetings, other meetings occur to make sure that certain people will be supporting and respecting what is discussed during the meeting.
• Autonomy in decision-making is important, however, decisions are often made by a small few.
• Relationships are built on who you know and how much you support the brilliance of the people with authority and decision-making power.

3. Passive-Aggressive Party of Many 

A culture where an undercurrent exists. Everything seems positive on the surface, however, there are tensions that show through. On the outside, the culture seems to be positive, however, when you dig deeper, you realize the “audio” doesn’t match the “video.”Ways to tell:

• Meetings often have one or two people active in the conversations, while the others are disengaged – checking their phones and emails or staring into outer space.
• People share positive experiences and seem happy, however, engagement scores or other metrics share a different story.
• Relationships are built on coalitions and agreements on what, who, and how to support certain people and items over others. Cliques live here.

Now, I want to take a second to highlight that I’m not saying niceness is a bad thing in the workplace because it absolutely is not.

That said, we must reframe what nice is at the office. It’s not about beating around a topic. It is not about pandering to a few. It is not about keeping your feelings and thoughts to yourself and potentially lashing out after. It is not about faking a smile out of fear of retaliation.

I have stepped into each of these cultures while doing our Fierce work. I have stepped into these cultures while stepping into family’s and friends’ homes as well.

In order to combat “nice” cultures, it takes time. This does not change overnight. However, once you start paying attention to the signs, you know where the work needs to take place.

I want to hear from you. Do you believe you are part of a “Culture of Nice”? Let us know by clicking on the chat icon to the right. I’m looking forward to hearing your story.

Being in the conversations business, I pay close attention to the discussions I am having with leaders across industries and regions. In the past couple of years, (in North America specifically), I began to notice a particular word creeping its way into our conversations – nice.

On the surface, this shouldn’t seem alarming. Everyone wants to be nice…right?!

Well, not so fast.

This word often came up when leaders would answer the questions: Why aren’t people sharing what they truly think or feel? What keeps people from sharing an opposing view? Well, we want to have a nice culture. Or in some form or another, people wanted to be perceived as nice. 

I’ve also noticed that this perception found no barriers, as I’ve heard this exact phrase throughout various geographies and industries. I was hearing, oh that is because we are Healthcare nice. Nonprofit nice. Canada nice. Midwest nice. 

These dialogues started to prompt the question: Are cultures of nice starting to become an epidemic? Are people tiptoeing around issues, so they don’t seem aggressive or too outright?

And, then it led to my bigger question: What’s going on to make this happen in the first place?!

DIVING DEEPER

Many of the companies Fierce works with have admitted to us that their organizations suffer from a ‘culture of nice,’ where people are afraid to speak openly or confront the behavior of others for fear they may ‘rock the boat’ or be judged as challenging the status quo.

To paint this picture perfectly clear, let me share a specific example: CHRISTUS Health is a faith-based, non-profit health system that has had problems with its employees, at all levels, mistaking their value of compassion with avoiding difficult conversations and sharing feedback.

The reality was that important conversations weren’t happening, and their culture was suffering because of it.

I’ll get into more about how we helped them in a moment, but this example and many others are what drove Fierce to get curious about this niceness problem and conduct more research into the matter. We were on a quest to learn if these cultures of nice were a fluke, or if there was something truly under the surface.

UNDERSTANDING OUR RESEARCH

In April of this year, we surveyed more than 1,000 full-time employees across the U.S. to better understand how niceness shows up in the workplace. We asked them if they’d ever keep concerns or ideas to themselves and if so, what was the reasoning? We wanted to know if they did keep concerns or ideas to themselves, what situations did this happen the most in?

We also wanted to dig into the justification people have for keeping concerns or ideas to themselves at work.  

The results of our research confirmed our observations: we found that nearly 63 percent of employees have chosen not to share a concern or negative feedback at work. When we dug into why, employee said they were fearful of being seen as combative, and thus keep their concerns and negative feedback to themselves.

Here are some of the top findings from our research:

• 8 out of 10 U.S. full-time employees admit they keep concerns to themselves at work because they want to be seen as nice by their colleagues and leadership.
• The top reason for keeping concerns and ideas to themselves at work was they didn’t want to be seen as combative.
• Only 5 percent of employees said being seen as nice wasn’t important.
• 6 out of 10 employees say they have been fearful of voicing a concern at work.
• The least likely places to speak up at work are conversations with company leaders, team meetings, one-on-one with a boss and conversations with colleagues.

Another highlight the data showed was that everyone, regardless of gender or seniority, felt the same when it came to the major findings. The idea of being nice and being afraid to be real is felt by everyone.

Yes. It isn’t an early career intern thing or woman thing. This finding shows that anyone can suffer from a preoccupation of niceness — from your fresh-out-of-college entry-level employee, to the CEO of your company.

The impact of this niceness problem can be incredibly significant not just to an organization, but also to employee mental health. If not addressed, these issues can lead to problems that could be difficult to bounce back from – from significant turnover to direct loss of revenue.

The good news is that all hope is definitely not lost. In fact, we’ve seen this concept of a culture of nice and its negative effects be addressed, overcome, and prevented in several of our clients’ organizations.

Going back to the story of CHRISTUS Health, where employees weren’t talking about what they needed to talk about, they used feedback and skillful confrontation to drive cultural change in their organization. They went from people who were afraid to talk to ones who are honest and open with one another. 

On top of that, it has been good for the business. These people were able to impact real hard numbers:

• 81 percent increase in the retention rate of leaders.
• 36 percent increase in promotion rate within the company.
• 73 percent increase in reaching targeted competencies.

Above all else, they’re all committed together to solving their toughest challenges instead of just being “nice” and letting those missed conversations continue.

TIPS TO OVERCOME NICENESS

Do you suspect that you, your team, or your organization are leaning on the too nice scale? Here are two critical tips to help:

1. Implement a framework for giving, asking for, and receiving feedback.

It is important that people can quickly address issues and questions as they arise. This is possible when people feel confident that they know how, when, and what to say.

Leaders must also regularly ask for feedback to reinforce the significance.

I am very committed to this as a small business leader (and obviously biased as a training company leader). In fact, last week, our entire company went through a Fierce Feedback refresher to continue to hone our skills and make sure that we practice with one another.

The goal is not perfection, but rather intention and continual desire to get better at this skill.    

2. Confront issues quickly and remain curious through the process.

When feedback has not worked, and a behavior or attitude needs to change, confrontation needs to be used. Now, keep in mind that confrontation is not a dirty word. It is an opportunity to get to the heart of why something is happening.

Training this skill is very important, however, and modeling it is just as important.

I’m human, so there are times that I dread a conversation (yes, even as a conversations company leader). I always do it though, and besides the outcomes that I know are only possible when working through the hard stuff, the extra motivation for me is to know that I am setting an example of what I expect for our company.

I can’t ask our Fiercelings to do anything I am not willing to do. Don’t ignore issues you know are happening. Address them directly, clearly, and with good intent.  

We’re all human, and yes, that means we want to be liked by those we work with. That’s a good thing. Our research validates that people don’t want to seem mean or combative.

The dark side is that niceness enables us to keep avoiding the stuff that needs to be said. And before we know it, the stuff has turned into tough stuff because time has made it worse.

The key is to have the skill and confidence to talk about what matters. Every single person can do this. AND It can be learned no matter where you are in your career.

So, when you are inclined to not share what you really think and feel because you want to be perceived a certain way, remember: the nicest thing you can do is be real. 

Ensuring everyone at your organization is skilled in having authentic conversations so you are promoting realness over niceness is critical for business success. Download our whitepaper, The ROI of Skillful Conversation, to dig even deeper into how training conversation skills will positively impact your organization.

When I was growing up, there was a common saying in our house (at least among the kids) “Who-dee did it!”  Now, don’t ask me where the name “who-dee” came from, perhaps it morphed from the phrase “not me,” but at that time, Who-dee was a legit member of our family…most specifically when someone did something wrong, and it came time to own up.

Whenever Mom or Dad asked, “who did it?”  we would all turn our palms to the sky, cock our heads and say, “I dunno…must have been ‘Who-dee.’”  Poor Who-dee always got blamed for everything.

Fast forward to today, and it seems not much has changed.  I have seen entire organizational cultures built around “Who-dee.”  “Whose fault is it?”  “I dunno…not mine! Go speak to X department or Y leader.”

I hear this from my clients frequently — while employees want the responsibility, leaders say those employees are quick to pass judgment or blame when they don’t get the results they want. No one is taking ownership. And yet, from the many years I’ve been in the field of leadership development, I’ve also heard employees argue the same about leadership.

“THEY aren’t leading us to success. THEY are the problem.” Pointing the blame “up.”  It appears we have an epidemic of finger-pointing happening in the workplace with no real solutions or results being produced. Conversations that should be happening in the meeting room are happening anywhere but, and team performance is suffering as a result.

While organizations continue to reach for new ways to evolve and stay relevant, teams and their leaders are left struggling to maintain true accountability — the “Who-dees” of the world are multiplying.

In this highly competitive, ever-changing business climate, accountability continues to be a critical challenge for leaders and organizations alike.

WHAT’S GOING ON?

Let’s talk about the word “accountability” for a moment.  Have you ever noticed that the word “accountability” is rarely if ever, used in conversations about success? You never hear “who is accountable for this?” when something goes really well.

These days, the word accountability is more synonymous with blame, culpability, and wrong-doing. The high majority of us attach accountability to “fault.” I don’t know about you, but this isn’t a great approach to get me to jump out of bed and rush into work every day. This doesn’t compel me to raise my hand high and say, “Oooh, me! I want to be culpable, I want to be blamed. Sign me up for that project!”

I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it?  When culturally, we find ourselves constantly linking accountability to fault, blame, or even failure rather than something positive, it seems rational that we would want to run for the hills.

Consider the environment where you work. Are people admitting their mistakes willingly, owning up when things don’t go right or are they calling on “who dee,” pointing fingers at everyone but themselves? Are leaders and employees alike confronting issues as they arise, or are they throwing pity parties and repeating phrases such as, “It’s not my fault, it’s not my problem, let them figure it out.”

If you live in a culture of who-dees, pity parties, and finger-pointing, you’ll know. Trust me. Living like this can be incredibly exhausting, for employees and their leaders.

We’ve all grown very tired of the blame game, tired of watching team members shirk responsibility, sidestep the tough conversations, or make excuses for why they aren’t getting the results they want.

So, how can we learn to embrace accountability and encourage employees to do the same?

1. Be more self-aware.

According to Daniel Goleman, an internationally renowned psychologist, “self-awareness is the key cornerstone to emotional intelligence, the ability to monitor our emotions and thoughts from moment to moment is key to understanding ourselves better and proactively managing our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.”

Self-aware people tend to act consciously rather than react passively, and they are more inclined to show up in an accountable way, modeling the behavior they want to see from others.

How do you become more self-aware at your organization? By reflecting.

There have been many studies done regarding the critical component that “reflection” plays in performance and learning.

According to behavioral scientist and Harvard Professor Francesca Gino, individuals who take time out to reflect on their successes and their mistakes perform 20 to 25 percent better than those who do not. The reflective leader acknowledges their performance (good or bad) learns from it and is willing to show up differently next time. They are modeling accountability.

If you have never actively reflected on your own behavior/impact, here are a few powerful questions to get you started (make a practice of setting aside 10 to 15 minutes each week to consider your actions and your impact on others):

1. What excuses did I make this week (in my head or out loud) for mistakes or bad results?  What impact does this have on my team and our success?
2. What do my actions/reactions tell me about myself? What patterns do I see? What impact do these patterns have on my performance and the performance of my team?
3. How do I want my team/clients/coworkers to experience me? What do I need to do or say differently to ensure this is the case?

You are always modeling something, the question is, what are you modeling?

2. Take responsibility for your impact on others.

You know, most of us will do anything to avoid being wrong – and often times we’ll do even more to PROVE we are right!  But, what if our need to be right is what is really wrong?

I watched a wonderful Ted talk the other day and the speaker asked, “how does it feel to realize you are wrong?”  She got answers like “embarrassing, devastating, excruciating” …who wants that?  We would logically try to avoid situations where we feel embarrassed or devastated or pained in some way.  And this got me thinking…perhaps this woman should be asking a different question.

While it may be uncomfortable to realize you are wrong or have made a mistake, the bigger question we should be asking ourselves is, “What is the cost when we are wrong and don’t acknowledge it or own up? What price do we and those around us pay?”

There is one very powerful way to take responsibility and own up to the impact we have when things go wrong – apologize.

You were likely taught this when you were the ripe old age of 2 or 3.  It is one of the earliest lessons we receive as children. Say “I’m sorry” when you hurt someone or make a mistake.

And yet, have you ever noticed that “I’m sorry” seems to be the hardest two words for some people to muster? What if all the leaders in the world (including you and me) apologized every time we realized something we had done harmed someone or failed to accomplish what we said we would, even if it wasn’t intentional, which often times it isn’t, instead of blaming the “who-dees?”  Wouldn’t that be refreshing?  

3. Make the conversation REAL.

I have a vivid memory of my first assignment at my first real corporate job. I was an admin for an HR team at a large retailer.  The first week I started, I was asked to lead all of the planning for the annual three-day leadership retreat.  And I’ll never forget my boss’s words: “I am making YOU accountable for this. If anything goes wrong, it’s on your shoulders. So, don’t screw it up, okay?”

I remember thinking to myself, “Really?  It’s all on me?  What happens if I do screw up? I mean, I’ll really try not to screw up, I don’t want to screw up, but if I do screw up you should really blame yourself for thinking I should and could be responsible for all of this. You are putting too much pressure and responsibility on me as a new hire. This is unfair.”

This was the conversation I was having in my head. I was in full-on “victim mode.” I was pointing blame at my boss before I even had anything to blame him for!  Meanwhile, the words out of my mouth were something like, “You bet!  You can count on me!!”

I was masking my true feelings and I had barely set foot in this new company. Just underneath that brave face lurked uncertainty, doubt, and fear. Those three little words, “you are accountable,” did not motivate me…on the contrary, they left me drowning in an angry sea of resentment.

Have you ever found yourself in a similar position?  Do you ever catch yourself saying something you don’t mean just to be polite, to please someone, or to get out of an uncomfortable situation?  And then feel worse because of it?

At one time or another, most of us have projected certain images that we think others want of us.  In other words, we say what we think people want to hear, vs what we think needs to be said.  We’ve been doing it since we were old enough to know that our behavior can please or it can disappoint, it can bring praise or disapproval.

In order to have the lives we want, we need to show up as ourselves, to speak our truths, and that takes courage.

Think about it. Saying, “I’m dissatisfied,” “I don’t think I’m ready for this,” or “I don’t agree with you,” can feel very risky.  And yet, to be real requires that we SHOW UP.  

It may seem easier or safer to project the images we think others expect of us – to be or say what others expect.  Yet, what is the cost when we keep our true thoughts and feelings bottled up inside? 

I want you to consider what is at risk when you don’t have the real conversations. What happens when you tiptoe around the issue, or never bring it up for fear of someone’s response or critique?  There can be a heavy price attached.

So, here is my call to action for you: What conversations have your name on them?  And/or, in what ways can you shift the conversations you are currently having with yourself and others to get the results you want?

Remember, true accountability is a choice.  Ditch the Who-dees and choose to engage in the conversations critical to your success.

I do a LOT of listening in my job. Every day I have the pleasure of interacting with leaders from all around the globe.

What has piqued my curiosity, as of late, is a word that I am hearing more and more often in my conversations with leaders when they are describing the current state of their organizational culture.

That word is “nice.”

Specifically, I am hearing things such as, “I think my business is too nice,” and “Everyone is always pleasant to each other, yet something doesn’t feel right. There is a lot of tension in the air.”

All of this talk about being nice has me thinking, could being nice actually be doing more harm than good?

To really understand this concept of nice, we need to travel back in time…

If you have siblings, you are probably familiar with the phrase, “Be nice to your brother/sister!” If you were an only child, perhaps you heard, “Play nice with the other kids.” Being nice to others was a common childhood lesson, right?

I have a memory from when I was about 10 or 11 years old. I was very angry with my sister for not returning my favorite mixtape (Ahh, the 80’s).

I lent it to her in an effort to be nice, to be sisterly, but she was not willing to give it back, no matter how many times I “nicely” asked. Instead of confronting her (because I knew it would escalate into a screaming match and we would both get into trouble) I went to my mom.

I told her what happened, hoping she could help me get my tape back, and her response was “Beth, can’t you just be nice to your sister? Let it go and listen to one of your other tapes for a while.”

I vividly remember how frustrated I was. Let it go? it was MY music! I didn’t WANT to “let it go.” I wanted what was rightly mine! However, despite my frustration, I obeyed my mother and I “played nice” — I let my sister have the tape.

Underneath that thin veil of nice, anger and resentment were brewing.

Being nice did not feel so nice and it certainly didn’t get me any closer to getting my tape back.

WHEN NICE ISN’T ALWAYS RIGHT

As I reflect on that memory, three little words, keep nagging at me — just “let it go.” In other words, don’t let it bother you. But what if it really DOES bother you? What then?

Sometimes, the act of playing nice can lead to masking our authentic selves. We hide our real needs or feelings, we avoid the real issue, and nothing gets resolved.  Worse, we wind up in a state of deep resentment, feeling done to and powerless.

As I look at the business landscape today, and the many conversations I’ve had with leaders, it seems our childhood teachings have translated to our adult beliefs — being “nice” is encouraged, and we are consistently reminded how it will benefit us, and our team, in the long run.

Being nice will build trust, being nice will build team camaraderie, being nice will keep people happy and engaged.  But is all of this really true?

What if being nice is only nice on the surface?  What if being nice is just preventing the real conversation that wants, that needs to take place?

Russ Edelman, the author of Nice Guys Can Get the Corner Office, says, “being too nice hampers your career growth and costs your business time and money.”

In a survey of 50 CEOs, Edelman asked about the impact of “being too nice” on their businesses. The CEOs responded that being too nice cost them 8 percent of their gross revenues — 8 percent!

Edelman goes on to say that managers who are too nice have a hard time making decisions on their own.

They don’t want to offend others by not asking for their input or feedback, so they include everyone in their decision-making which leads to wasted time and even missed opportunities.

Managers who are too nice also ignore problems rather than facing them directly. They worry about hurting other people’s feelings, so they avoid the conversations that are critical to success.

At Fierce, we know that conversations are the catalyst for progress and change — what gets talked about, and more importantly how it gets talked about, determines what will or won’t happen.   

Effective leaders know this too, so they invite the real, open, honest conversations that are necessary to turn their culture of “nice” into a culture of results.

Instead of being preoccupied with coming off nice, these leaders will commit to authentic, sometimes raw conversations to get successful results.

MY REALIZATION

Personally speaking, the leaders I have the most respect for are those who were able to reveal my blind spots to me. I can remember a time in my career when I was poised to move into a new role. I wanted this role so badly I could taste it. I felt I had done everything right to be the perfect candidate for this position and it was clearly mine to lose.

Well, I lost it. When it came time to announce the position, it didn’t go to me, it went to a peer of mine, And I was absolutely shocked. Truly. When I asked the hiring manager why I wasn’t chosen, her response was very interesting.

It wasn’t easy to hear, but it was an insight I didn’t have. She told me that I lacked a leadership “voice,” Which specifically for me, was the ability to speak up and share my opinions in meetings and with peers, even when it wasn’t the popular thing to say.

She told me I was afraid to ask the tough questions — she was right!

That was a hard pill to swallow and I admit, I was a little resentful at first. But what I realized over time, is that this manager gave me a gift. By telling me what I needed to hear, she allowed me the opportunity to grow and improve myself.  For that, I am eternally grateful.

When leaders stop worrying about being nice and start mastering the courage to give difficult feedback or confront behavior, real growth occurs, and trust is built.

Ask yourself, how am I showing up? Am I masking my true thoughts and feelings so others will see me as likable, easy to work with, non-confrontational? If so, what is that costing me, my team, our results?

WHAT YOU CAN DO

If you find yourself sliding down the slippery slope of “nice,” here are three behaviors that I have seen successful leaders leverage to get back on track and start getting real with themselves and others:

1. Replace the word “nice” with “in service”

Nice is saying what you think the person wants to hear. Being “in service” is saying what you know the person needs to hear in order to improve and get better. There is something within each of us that responds to those who level with us, who don’t suggest our compromises for us.  Be that person for your team.

Engaging in productive conflict, while difficult, makes for better performance overall, both for the individual and for the organization because you are getting to the root of problems and working from the ground up to solve them together.

Ask yourself “what can I do to be in-service of this person, this team, this client?”

2. Stop procrastinating and have the conversation

If you are an 11th-hour junkie, especially when it comes to having those sticky uncomfortable conversations, a small bit of advice: Stop it.

As George Eliot once said, “Falsehood is easy.  The truth is difficult.”

Acknowledge that some conversations are simply NOT easy, regardless of how hard you try to make them so.  Nice people tend to avoid the conversations that make them uncomfortable such as giving critical feedback or confronting someone’s behavior.

Of course, there are legitimate reasons to be scared about having some conversations.

Let’s be honest, some people do not react well when confronted, regardless of how eloquent and thoughtful you are. This is the reality.

However, what is also reality is that the cost of not having the conversation is much greater than the risk of it going badly. The value of the hard conversation is that it helps us solve problems.

As the saying goes, you get what you tolerate. When we play it nice and avoid the conversations that really need to take place, our results (and the results of our team members) continue to suffer.

3. Stay curious

Many times, when we have a difficult message to deliver, we write the script. In other words, we prepare exactly what we are going to say and what the other person will likely say in response to our words, in an effort to “help” the conversation be successful.  Trouble is, the conversation never sticks to the script.

As human beings, we are often lured into false truths based on how we think we “see it.” This can lead us to act on our assumptions and enter the conversation with what I like to call a “dump and run” mentality — how can I share my thoughts as swiftly as possible, get them to “see things my way”, and then get out before they have time to argue?

If this sounds familiar to you, here is a tip:  commit to asking three questions during the conversation. Invite the two-way dialogue by getting curious and asking more questions. Work to see the situation through the other person’s eyes.

It doesn’t mean you have to change your perspective but be willing to explore. Share your own opinion and challenge yourself to explore the other person’s reality.

A culture of results does not mean you need to “fight” for your perspective to be heard. Just like being too nice has its consequences, being too bull-headed or unyielding in your beliefs can do an equal amount of harm.

Seek to understand the other person while exploring the issue or topic at hand. It’s not an either/or. It is a both/and.

So how are you showing up? Are you modeling the behavior you wish to see from others or are you sliding down the slippery slope of niceness?

When we stop “letting things go” and start having the real, open, transparent conversations, we begin to build a shared culture that increases engagement and enables us to achieve the results we want.

Want to stop being nice and start having open, authentic conversations but don’t know where to begin? Download our free eBook, 5 Conversations You Need to Start Having Today, to learn how YOU can start changing your workplace culture for the better.

Have you ever noticed yourself or your team side-stepping real issues, soft-pedaling critical feedback, or avoiding uncomfortable conversations altogether?

Many company leaders have admitted to us that their organizations suffer from this type of culture, a “culture of nice” if you will, where people are afraid to speak openly or confront the behavior of others for fear they may “rock the boat” or be judged as challenging the status quo.

Why does this happen? Because we’re taught to treat others with kindness and to always “play nice.”

We’ve been told that being known as the person who speaks up against something they feel is wrong is bad because it will lead you to being perceived as too harsh or too honest.

Rather, insisting on keeping the peace — no matter the consequences — is the appropriate behavior.

You see this mindset show up in business all the time.

If you’ve ever used or heard the phrases “kill them with kindness” or “be a team player” or “it never hurts to be the nice guy,” you’ve been subject to a culture of “nice.”

So, why is being too nice in the workplace so devastating to organizations?

WHAT IS GOING ON?

John Seffrin, the former CEO of the American Cancer Society, once said, “when managers are TOO nice, they’re in fact not being nice at all and they’re doing a disservice to the people they manage.”

Take a second and reread that sentence. What is Seffrin implying about being TOO nice?

What he’s saying is when someone is TOO nice in the workplace — regardless of intentions — it can lead us to become enablers of bad behavior and bad ideas. And what do bad behaviors and bad ideas do for organizations? Nothing good that’s for sure.

Now, I’m not saying being nice is bad, because it absolutely is not. Being nice is a worthy attribute.

However, when “nice” starts to get in the way of real results, having a culture of nice is no longer beneficial to your organization and can lead to a host of challenges, including in the following areas:

Talent: When a manager is too nice to an employee who isn’t performing, or a peer refuses to give feedback to another peer that isn’t pulling their weight, the bar for what is “acceptable” drops and your talent pool follows.

The underperformers are never held accountable to their behavior, so the behavior continues, and festers — and the rest of the team begins to suffer as well.

The employees who are performing well, or the colleagues who are taking on additional workload to make up for the lackluster performance of another, become frustrated, resentful and demotivated.

Relationships suffer, turnover is rampant, and the talent you ARE able to hold onto is typically the group who is underperforming. There is very little growth and development, leading to our next cost…

Productivity: Employees who are never told what they are doing wrong, or what they could do better, understandably believe they are doing GREAT and so they continue with the same behavior. This leads to a plummet in productivity.

Without the right skills/talent to do the work, it is harder to get the work done and done well. Managers who refuse to confront behavior end up settling for mediocrity. A mediocre talent pool leads to mediocre results, at best.

Money: Clearly, low productivity and mediocre talent lead to a whole host of problems that affect the bottom line. A business will not perform to their highest potential without the talent to get them there.

Russ Edeleman, president and CEO of Corridor Consulting and founder of Nice Guy Strategies, LLC conducted a survey of 50 top CEOs. In the survey, he asked them what the cost to their business was for being too nice.

Collectively, The CEOs responded by saying that being too nice cost them roughly 8 percent of their gross revenues. For a business making $1 million a year, that’s $80,000. For a business making $10 million a year, that’s $800,000!

The inability to take initiative and go after being a better business, avoiding tough conversations with managers or other business leaders, caused their companies to miss out on opportunities that would have contributed significantly to the bottom line.

TACKLING THE ISSUE HEAD ON

As you can see, being too nice causes talent to decline, relationships to suffer, productivity to plummet, trust to erode, and the bottom line to dwindle.

So, what can you do to combat this problem?

First, think deeply about the type of culture you DO want to be a part of, a culture that you want to foster. What does that require of you?

Yes, there will be issues that are legitimately outside of your control.

However, you have the power to steer the culture in the direction you want to go. We have the power to engage in conversations that both build the relationships we want AND get us the results we expect.

At Fierce, we know that conversations are the work of the leader and the workhorses of the organization. They are the catalyst for progress and change.

What gets talked about and more importantly HOW it gets talked about, determines, what will or won’t happen. Great leaders know this too, so they invite the real, open, honest conversations that are necessary to turn the culture of NICE into a culture of RESULTS.

Below are three conversations you can start having right now to better promote a culture that is authentic, honest and most importantly, sets your organization up for success:

1. The Feedback Conversation

Consider this: Our careers, our companies, our relationships, and our very lives succeed or fail, gradually, then suddenly, one conversation at a time.

The bad news is, most of us don’t wake up until suddenly. The pain of suddenly is what motivates us — a bad review, the loss of a key employee, or discontentment with our current employment.

Highly effective leaders know this, and they track the trends. Every day, they know their results are either moving in the direction they want them to go, or not. They notice that their team members are either productive, thriving, and engaged, or they are confused, overwhelmed and floundering.

Highly effective leaders know where their teams stand, and they use this information to course correct.

When something is off track, when the team isn’t achieving their desired results, or an employee’s performance is not where it should be, they pause and HAVE the conversation.

Feedback is a conversation in which we help ourselves and others stay awake during the gradually so that we arrive at our desired suddenly.

2. The Confrontation Conversation

As Robert Redford’s character said in the movie, The Horse Whisperer, “knowing something is easy, saying it out loud is the hard part.”

Confrontation conversations are NOT easy. In fact, these are often the very conversations we put off, make excuses for, avoid, or tip-toe around. We are THAT uncomfortable with them. Nice people avoid confrontation because it is uncomfortable, of course.

There are legitimate reasons to be scared about having some conversations. Let’s be honest — some people do not react well when confronted, regardless of how eloquent and thoughtful you are. This is the reality.

However, what is also reality is that the cost of not having the conversation is much greater than the risk of it going badly. The value of confrontation is that it helps us solve problems.

As the saying goes, you get what you tolerate. When we don’t confront behavior, our results (and the results of our team members) continue to suffer.

So, if you feel a conversation is needed, then likely it is. For those of you worried about the failed conversation, remember this – a careful conversation IS a failed conversation because it merely postpones the conversation that wants and needs to take place.

3. The Team Conversation

Unfortunately, team meetings can be a breeding ground for “nice” or agreeable behavior.

Think about it, we’ve all been in THAT meeting where one person dominates the discussion and the rest of the team sits there in the land of “corporate nod” – nodding their heads in agreement, but not saying a word.

If you could peek into these team members brains and read their thoughts, I bet you would read things like “This is never going to work,” or “why didn’t she ask me for my suggestion before this meeting – does she not know I am an expert in this?” Or, “yeah, yeah, we’ve been down this road before, what a waste of time. Maybe if I sit here and keep nodding this meeting with get over sooner.”

Team meetings are a place where nice prevails on the surface, AND multiple, competing perspectives DO exist.

So, what’s the problem when we stay on a level of constant “agreement”? According to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, “being too agreeable can make you more susceptible to something called “groupthink.” A group’s tendency to ditch independent thought in favor of the collective agreement.

Teams with too many highly agreeable people on them tend to fall into this trap more often The danger in groupthink is that it stifles creativity and the ability to successfully problem solve. This makes for less than effective team meetings and may be why we find ourselves, seemingly, in the same meeting over and over and over.

The key to ditching groupthink and making your team meetings more successful is knowing that inviting multiple perspectives is twofold. Number one is making sure you are literally inviting the right people to the table, and number two is ensuring all voices are heard.

Once you have the right people in the room, be sure to hear from everyone.

When only the external processors are heard, we lose the perspective of people who may need more time to process. Many fewer dominant people clearly see the undercurrent of your team or organization, and their perspective can be invaluable.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

By leaving niceness behind and taking advantage of these conversations types, your culture will begin to shift and you will start seeing real, open and transparent conversations happening that will get you the business results you crave.

When employees and leaders come together to share their perspectives, ask critical questions, and tackle the tough challenges, they are building a shared culture that increases engagement and enables the entire team to take accountability for that culture.

Curious to read about the ROI of having skillful, authentic conversations? Download our whitepaper today to learn about the relationship between ROI and ROE, and how you can implement both into your overarching strategy.