When Being Nice At Work Turns Toxic

New MIT Study Says Work Culture That's Too Nice Can Be Toxic

The Great Resignation

That was a unique moment when during Covid I read about workers resigning en masse. At first, I thought people had lost their minds. But as I thought about it started to make sense.

Facing such a crisis and finding ourselves with more time to think and ponder our lives some of us decided that working someplace that didn’t align with our values or didn’t value us simply wasn’t worth it anymore.

That was my theory at least. Now a group of MIT researchers have conducted a study to figure out what was driving people to quit during the height of the Great Resignation.

The MIT team went combing through more than a million Glassdoor reviews. After all the number crunching, they came back with the top reason for workers deciding to quit and it’s no surprise it’s a toxic work culture

Taken directly from the published study:

“A toxic corporate culture is by far the strongest predictor of industry-adjusted attrition and is 10 times more important than compensation in predicting turnover”

Desperate to keep their people in an incredibly tight labor market, bosses apparently took heed. Maybe even too much. Many companies have pushed their culture so far into the niceness spectrum that they’ve actually become toxic in an entirely new and novel way according to psychology professor Tessa West on CNBC recently.

Is Being Too Nice at Work Toxic?

When most people think about toxic company cultures, the top ones that come to mind are typically bullying, discrimination, disrespect, and unethical conduct. But according to experts, there are actually four ways a company’s culture can tip into toxic territory.

Wharton Business School Professor Adam Grant is an expert on work culture, especially the toxic type. He’s come up with ways to categorize different types of workplace toxicity.

Grant calls this framework the 4R’s of toxicity, and you can read all about it here. But for the purposes of this piece, it’s only important to know one of those R’s — and that’s Relationships.

When a company places huge value on relationships, meaning its culture rewards those who do not rock the boat or step on toes — more so than performance or honesty, mediocrity, and resentment can take root.

“Even if you do a terrible job, you can still get ahead as long as people like you,” Grant says of these types of company cultures.

Which sounds exactly like what Tessa West was warning of.

“There has been a huge push around well-being and niceness at work, being kind, empathic, and being caring — which are obviously good traits to have,” she told CNBC. “But what ends up happening is, we’ve somehow pitted niceness against clear communication and confrontation, even when it’s necessary.”

Professor West said.

And that is just as toxic as a workplace with the classic toxic attributes.

Here’s why.

We all need feedback in order to improve and grow as professionals. We owe it to one another to give each other feedback on our performance. Yes, it can be difficult to hear and can be equally difficult to deliver but it’s how we become better at our jobs.

If we are constantly told what we’ve done is “terrific”, “amazing” and we are “the greatest”, where’s the motivation to improve? And what if it’s not true and people are simply making an effort to be supportive and kind? If we leave that environment we will not have grown our professional skill set.

A Managers Role

No one is more responsible for this sort of difficult feedback than managers and leaders. It’s their job to ensure everyone is given the opportunity to be in a position to leverage their individual strengths, learn new skills, and develop professionally.

As regular readers of my articles know my mantra is that a Manager’s role is to:

“achieve results through others”

Therefore, it’s incumbent on every manager to coach the people they work with. What is working well and what could be better.

Nice versus Kind

So what do you do if you feel your company or team or your boss is sliding into this kind of toxic niceness? The first step is to get clear on the difference between being nice and being kind.

Being nice is about making the other person feel good. Being kind is about providing people with what they actually need. Nice is about the other person's feelings. Kindness is about giving them useful feedback that is intended to benefit them.

If you want to continuously improve and grow as a professional you should aim to be kind rather than nice. You should normalize this kind of feedback so people do not see it as simply criticism but as genuine care in wanting to help everyone continuously improve.

Even with this distinction, many people still struggle with giving and receiving negative feedback. Many leaders say this skill is one of the toughest things to become good at.

That’s because we are programmed from a young age to be “nice”. It is instinctual to maintain social bonds and keep the peace. But how nice are you really if you aren’t telling someone that they could be doing better?

The Approach

The key is opening up an honest and candid dialog with your team. One where both praise and developmental feedback are a regular part of what you do with staff and a regular occurrence at work.

The old guidance of praise in public/criticism in private certainly applies. So does giving all feedback with genuine intent to help the person it’s being given to improve in some way.

This means that feedback must be delivered without emotion and the manager must offer resources to help the employee perform in the way/at the level the manager expects.

This might be training informal/formal, additional resources like more time to practice certain skills, a roadmap of the steps you want them to take to improve, or a whole host of other things you think would help them get to the level you want to see.

What you must avoid is being the kind of boss that says “Do better” or “Just fix it”. If you don’t have guidance or suggestions on how that person can improve then ask yourself what the point is for talking to them at all.

If you can’t give them something to take action on you are just giving that employee a lot of worry with no clear way out. Often people placed in this situation will take wild swings hoping something they do will satisfy the concerns you shared with them. This generally results in the employee missing the mark frustrating you and them and making things worse.

It’s anxiety-inducing and not productive. Instead, work with your people on specific, actionable changes they can make to improve.

What’s the Point?

As a manager of people, you must learn how to skillfully give feedback that is direct, timely, and actionable. You must be able to do this if you want to get the best out of your people.

It is rarely, if ever, something that person wants to hear at the moment you give that feedback but after the sting of criticism passes most will diligently work to improve.

Some may still grumble as they do but in time I have found that roughly 7 out of 10 times the employee will circle back and tell you that they appreciated the feedback.

There are a ton of good books out there about giving feedback to employees that present a wide array of styles to consider and every manager can find an approach that will work for them among the dozens of styles that can be found. I’ll leave it to the reader to research and find the style that fits your personality best.

My main point in this article was to point out that coaching and developing your people is your job. Even if you are concerned about people leaving you cannot stop giving employees feedback.

Both praise and coaching are critical components of your job as a leader. and your people expect both of you to develop and grow as professionals.