Nice Is a Skill

“Describe what skills or characteristics have been most valuable in your career.” 

Making decisions quickly, being collaborative, looking for creative solutions, empowering my team, sure - all of that. However, if I really look at what I see as core to my approach, regardless of role, title, company, age, is being nice.

• Being nice is not weak.
• Being nice is not irrelevant. 
• Being nice is not juvenile.
• Being nice is not an inherent trait. 
• Being nice is a skill. 

A skill is something you practice. You get better at. You may be naturally good at it, or it might not come easily; but, importantly - you can teach it. 

I have always been ambitious, and driven; I also knew from life experience that if people like you, things usually go better. Pretty obvious. Some of my desire to be nice stemmed from societal programming - people pleasing and gender norms - that I have now unwound, but the majority of it was because it feels right to be nice. When I have taken an approach that didn’t prioritize being nice, I inevitably felt bad. Like I tried to take a page out of some tough leadership book that just didn’t fit. 

The more that I watched my behavior with self-awareness and curiosity, the more I realized being nice is an art. It isn’t for free, or an accident. It requires a deep understanding of people, their motivations, high EQ, strong empathy, and intentional execution.

The fact that being nice, or kind, or pleasant, has been discarded in the workplace as frivolous means honing this skill makes you an even more rare talent. 

Nice is human

I was speaking to a very accomplished PE leader, and within 5minutes of meeting, he shared some upsetting situations in his personal life. I knew something was off in his energy and I simply made space for him to share if he wanted to. Twenty minutes into the discussion he began to apologize. He said he doesn’t normally share this much, but he was grateful for the peace and perspective I’d offered him. For him, this was an unusual interaction where for me it is just a Tuesday. He, nor anyone, should feel like they need to be sorry for being a human. 

Nice in practice

As Maya Angelou accurately said, people might not remember what you said but they will remember how you made them feel. Do you have to go the whole way to cathartic existential discussions? No. But, could you offer a personal greeting about the child you know they just moved into college in an email before jumping into business? Can you show interest in the dog you see in the background on the Zoom screen?

Nice is what you want

Think about it selfishly for a moment. When you pick up the phone, do you call the person who is very smart but extremely defensive? Or maybe the colleague who is abrupt and condescending? Whether it is a problem or an idea, we want to interact with the people who will add value AND who will make us feel safe. Think right now about the people you are drawn to in the workplace. If you totally screwed something up, who would you want to be able to call? I’ll bet they are nice to you. What can you learn from them, and your interactions with them?

Nice should be recognized

I’d challenge anyone in a professional situation to consider why being Nice is not on performance evaluations. We couch this sometimes under categories like Collaborative, or some other way of making a subjective description more workplace-valid. But, why is being nice any more subjective than other skill-based metrics? I have a hunch in fact that assessments of Nice would be far more consistent across disparate evaluators than many other more normalized measures.

Nice has high ROI

For me, being nice has been a core value. Not only do I feel better when I am nice, I also see a definitive return. If companies placed value on how we treat one another, there is absolutely no way business performance wouldn’t improve. Fear, anxiety, stress are all short term motivators that eventually have an opposite effect. People stop feeling committed, they look to escape, they take no risks and hide from innovation, and they never develop a sense of belonging or loyalty. Results suffer in the long run, full stop. 

Nice is healthy

There are copious studies now (thankfully) proving that the constant high intensity expectations that have been credited for workplace success is actually the recipe for burnout culture. In that confused culture we have tangled up the idea that handling everything as urgently and efficiently as possible requires being impersonal - “getting down to business.” This in part has led to the normalization of curt, sanitized, brusque communication that would be considered rude in interactions with loved ones or polite society. Where being short has been associated with positive work outcomes, being nice has been silently judged as slower, unnecessary, and non-serious. Why have we normalized two different sets of norms for how we treat other people? In the workplace, do we stop being humans? If there was any other habit proven to make your entire workforce ill, would you culturally encourage it?

Nice improves business results

Let me address one more enormous fallacy - being nice does NOT mean being easy. You can run a tight ship, expect aggressive outcomes, set high standards and still be nice. Being crisp and efficient is entirely possible without being tone deaf. Productivity and ambition are not in opposition with kindness. Our definition of performance is uselessly reductive. 

I’d argue if you build solid relationships with people, if you are known for being kind, and you are not operating from ego, you will see higher performance than any comparable leader who is an asshole.

Nice is math

Businesses want results. Businesses are comprised entirely of people. Being kind makes people healthier. The healthier people are the better they perform to their fullest. The more healthy people in your workforce, the higher their cumulative performance, the better the business results. It’s simple logic.

The world can be tough. No one needs extra bullshit. Be nice. If it’s uncomfortable, work on it; the great news is Nice is a skill.