Don’t Be A Sheep In A World Of Wolves

Today I want to talk about an attitude of being too nice. It certainly applies to business, but it also affects your overall attitude.

There is nothing wrong with being nice. There is nothing wrong with being accommodating, or putting others before yourself.

That is a characteristic and a personality trait that is completely admirable. It is something to achieve, because it usually comes out of a sense of serving others and wanting to lift others up.

However, as with anything on either end of the spectrum, it can go too far to where it gets you in trouble. We recently had an interaction with a potential client about the problem they were having.

The industry that they are in is very service-oriented. The whole industry itself is giving, compassionate, etc.

Most people that join those types of industries that are service-oriented and help other people not necessarily strictly for profit, they do it as a social service, something to do with the community or the government maybe. Halfway houses, rehab centers, etc.

These industries attract a certain type of people. That person usually is compassionate, they have a desire to serve others and really sacrifice themselves in order to help other people, because they have that ability to do so.

However as they tip into that, or as they get further along, people will start to take advantage. It’s nice to be served. There’s a sense of “Wow, somebody’s doing this for me”.

This happens a lot in marriages when you fall into these roles. Typically it starts to tilt heavier on one spouse serving the other more than the other.

You need to set boundaries where this comes from, because people that are used to getting things and used to being served start to expect that and they start to take advantage of that.

That is certainly the case in business and can be the case in business when you have set yourself up for that modus operandi. Have you moved away from serving just because that’s your personality?

You are super nice all the time and accommodating. You rarely speak up when somebody does something you don’t like. You don’t want to offend or anything of that nature. This falls under the umbrella of too nice.

All you are at that point really is a limp noodle. You are somebody that other people understand that they can take advantage of.

You need to set processes in place, you need to have your standard operating procedures (SOPs). This guide steps in and holds that accountability when you are unable to do so about these standards of behavior and expectations.

The SOPs, standards of procedure, is the guide that tells them those things when you are not around or when as they come to ask and push those boundaries, you may fall victim to granting too many things.

No matter what size of business you are, you need to have some form or fashion of these written down and available for your team members to refer to and understand what they can and cannot do as far as their behavior, expectations of productivity, etc.

Often time accommodations are easy to do on the fly, and they are very emotionally based. As a very nice person, you will tend to be on the acquiescence end of the spectrum versus the hard-line “No”.

As you rely on that whim of your emotion at any given time, there is no standard. The standard is no standard. The standard is whatever you feel like at the moment. This is not sustainable.

When you clearly explained the SOPs, you clearly explained the requirements of the position to people, you can find some future conflicts immediately.

Those conflicts are all things you need to address on a case-by-case basis, but specifically remember to re-address them from time to time.

For example: “Hey, I understand your daughter’s starting middle school this year and the times have changed from what they were in elementary school, do we need to accommodate some way or fashion?”

Sometimes you might not be able to accommodate them. People understand that. However, there are a lot of people who have an expectation that business owners are there for them and to serve them.

They can and oftentimes will take offense to the fact that your business comes first. That’s where you get into trouble and that’s exactly what Kale Houser Leadership is trying to help you avoid.

We help you put these processes and systems in place, these attitudes and manage your teams to avoid all these types of things.

Going back to being too nice, the reality is you are not a charity. You are there presumably to make money, to provide a form of sustenance for your family, for your people or even just you.

You need to eat, you need to pay your rent. While we serve others, serve customers, serve other businesses, we are serving ourselves in the form of making money so we can continue to live and not be homeless.

Oftentimes, business owners that fall into this category of too nice start treating their business like a charity. Not the business itself, giving away stuff to their clients, but they are treating their organization like a charity of people who can just come and go as they please.

However, even for charities you have to have standards for your organization. You can only provide products and services when people show up.

You have to have those standards in place even when you are accepting volunteers. If you are working with volunteers, if you are running a nonprofit organization, that’s a whole other issue, because to them it is a zero-sum in the form of financial culpability or liability.

Usually, you have to appeal to their sense of service, their sense of desire to serve their community. I won’t go too far into that, because that is a specific set of how you manage nonprofits and charity organizations.

Changing behavior is very difficult for nice people, because usually while they know that they have a nice personality, that’s what they base their whole persona around. They don’t necessarily recognize when it’s gone into the no longer beneficial realm.

Usually, they end up getting hurt somehow doing it, and they are too nice to find out why somebody would hurt them.

The reality is not everybody is like you, and not everyone is interested in being that servant to other people. Some people will and do take advantage of nice people.

So be careful of that. Make sure you are aware if you recognize this and you have an issue with it.

Have you ever met a person in the business world that was “too nice”? If so, did you see this comportment backfire on them?

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