The problem with being too nice at work | Tessa West | TEDxColumbiaUniversity
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ธ.ค. 2023
- Why is it that when we feel the most uncomfortable during social interactions, we are also the nicest and most generic version of ourselves? In this talk, social psychologist Tessa West breaks down the science of being "too nice" at work, focusing on how overly nice feedback actually harms the recipient. She then gives three concrete actions that anyone can take to create a culture of constructive, helpful feedback to improve communication at work.
Tessa West is a Professor of Psychology at New York University and a leading expert in the science of interpersonal communication. She has received several career awards, including the early career award from the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Theoretical Innovation Prize from the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx
As an autistic ADHD person I would love to see an interactive study like this with autistic and neurotypical people, plus autistic and other autistic people.
I always build rapport before giving feedback. I start with what’s going well and what we can work on and why. It’s still uncomfortable, it does make it much easier to give feedback.
I agree with the building a rapport first, but in a leadership role, it should always be about bettering the other person and empowering them, not how we feel about giving it.
I actually do ask "Do you want me to be nice or honest?"
Anxious niceness just sounds like another way of people pleasing
This reminds me of the quadrant in the book, Radical Candor, called Manipulative Insincerity. It is the least effective management style. In The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*, Mark Manson also goes into the cultural differences of niceness and how Americans have adapted to this way of interacting. Loved learning more about how I can apply constructive criticism in the workplace! Thank you.
Much appreciated
Thanks a lots for everything ....
00:30 🗣 Social interactions are studied in three aspects: what people say (verbal), non-verbal behaviors, and under-the-skin responses (physiological reactions).
02:48 🤔 Uncomfortable interactions prompt physiological stress responses and non-verbal signs like fidgeting, avoiding eye contact, distancing behavior.
05:32 😬 Anxious niceness involves vague compliments, which, if persistent, evoke negative perceptions from recipients, especially racial minorities.
06:26 🌐 Racial minorities tend to synchronize with anxious nice behaviors of others, experiencing heightened stress responses, impacting their own physiology.
08:47 ⚠ Overly positive feedback in negotiations can harm performance and distort perceptions, leading to inaccurate judgments in high vs. low-status interactions.
09:44 📉 Generic positive feedback damages reputations when not substantiated by real data or specifics, affecting how others perceive the feedback recipient.
10:12 🤝 Foster a culture of clear, consistent feedback by gauging interest in tougher, constructive feedback and framing it along specific dimensions.
11:49 🔄 Feedback dynamics involve both giver and receiver, necessitating a shift from asking 'nice or honest' to framing feedback in specific, constructive dimensions.
13:11 🚫 Negative feedback should be specific, focusing on behavioral changes rather than vague requests, akin to replacing behaviors in personal contexts.
15:17 🌱 Transform feedback culture incrementally, starting with neutral, non-threatening specifics, reducing anxiety in both giving and receiving critical feedback.
Thanks!
This talk assumes everyone is from the US, and also doesn't speak about the huge difference between negative feedback given in private or public.
The US is one of the countries that struggles most with negative feedback, which causes everyone else to fail to read between the lines.
If you come to me and you say that my talk was great, but I was staring in the wrong place, I will mostly listen to the first thing you said about my talk being great, and think I should keep doing great talks like these.
Absolutely valuable. I started this content creation and I see my team as a team more than friends. That’s why there are less conflicts between our feelings. But more people are complaining ‘why don’t u be more friendly with me’ ‘why don’t u get personal? Do u agree with me with what I have done? Or did I do anything wrong? Help me!😮😮
@Mr.marketer1 are your content means to be setting up some norms or process to be followed by your team ? Are you requesting for any feedback from your team on your activity ? If you do so you will get the answer.
Your team is help you to get work done. Your job is not walk on the egg shell to take care of fragile feelings of people you work with with, They are not your family or children. They are adults and fully capable of talking care of their emotions. I congratulate you…being professional❤ Do not worry about people who are incapable of being professional. If a leader worry about making everyone “happy” nothing will get done.
@@ArindamGangulyKolkata yes
@@Goddess_erika I've always done this, and always got into trouble. Work is work, family is family and friends are friends. Hasn't worked out for me. Unless, you mean as a double standerd, that only employers can act this way?
Totally agree. Thanks. Best regards. From Vietnam
I really love this Ted Talk
This niceness cultuere has some deep negative holes, that we dont want to see. Thanks for talking about the right way of an ideal interaction, where humans can growth. See ya
This video is facts👌🏾💯
Simply beautiful 😊
Interesting subject matter. This talk had me thinking about the fictional Star Trek character Mr Spock. He would be perplexed by this talk. 😆 Jokes aside, it also makes me think about the idea of being antifragile and how one could use that to navigate the endemic "anxious niceness" in a corporate environment. Or you could take it a step further and become self employed because when you work at a company, it is nearly impossible to feel truly connected/open because no matter what, you are vulnerable to the volatility of a company's financial health. And as a result, there will always be a bit of "acting" going on as a matter of self preservation. The expression, "it's nothing personal, it's just business" idea comes to mind as well and I think most people make their jobs personal, it's hard to not do that, i.e. it's hard to be like Mr Spock.
This talk seems geared towards managers, which is not specified in the title, so it’s not for me. During the talk I kept reflecting on the different work spheres I’ve been in, art, science, banking, and food service. Art has the best development of honest, constructive critiques. I’ve felt that other disciplines could use some practice with art critiques which would ease performance reviews, meetings, and general workplace interactions.
I Love all that, another Nice Human Educator...! 🤔🤔😇😇👍👍
The "being timely" comment could also be a sarcastic comment about the fact that you're always late.
There's a lot going on in a sentence in a conversation. Unspoken words are just important as spoken ones. It is the combination of what you say, what you do and how you act that sends the message of what you're trying to convey.......much like punctuation changes a sentences meaning. (Example:
"Mom's hungry, Dad. Will bring tacos"...means I will bring tacos.
"Mom's hungry. Dad will bring tacos"...means Dad will bring tacos.)
effective work communication is culture-bound ;)
Tessa is wanting to treat us humans men and woman as lab mice. How wonderful to see her just chopping at the bit to analyze us.
I had a recent confrontation with my manager recently. I was being cordial and honest but his own feelings of guilt and dishonesty made him angry. He walked away mumbling something about how I was stepping on people’s toes. He said I implied something. Totally unprofessional behavior. Nepotism is not good at the workplace.
I've seen this in almost every place I have ever worked. There is a real need to be phony, indirect, ambitious and cut-throat without people suspecting. Try being just honest and helpful and watch it backfire. Unless you plan on being around for decades, best to just get what you want and what you need out of it, go with the flow a bit, and move on shortly after. Hopefully you can gain a friend or two out of the wreckage. Robert Greene got it mostly right with "The 48 Laws of Power" book.
In my corporate experience people would much rather pat eachother on the back with toxic positivity than learn through constructive criticism. You may not grow through incessant and vague positivity but you probably will progress.
I'm a former university lecturer and this talk reminds me of the empty drivel that university classes now deliver. I recognise the usual desguise of having some kind of value or being professional. It's mostly all (not entirely) a farce, but at least the piece of paper is still important (for now). I personally know two people who were given this TedTalk platform and let's just say they really gave a performance. In both cases their goal was to get a TedTalk and after they started thinking about what profound things they could share 🙁
Whenever something good happens we expect feedback so that our effort will be got rewarded👍
Feedback is great if a person is open to hearing it.Some people just get defensive
My experience is people do not feel they earn any by giving efforts to feedback in HKU while people do not care about intelligence but keeping a chilled “friendly” agreeable persona in MelbUni……..
Ha, she’s never been in a nurses’ station! It’s more like passive aggressive meanness. Not anxious niceness! If you don’t learn how to be aggressive, you’ll never last.
Before going to work things messed up in mind to cope situation even didn't anything happen weired. Just nervousness 😅
❣️
me suffering and enduring the consequences; I should get over it. shouldn't I?
she embodies awkwardness well
TL;DW: Give constructive feedback like "You did X well, but could improve Y."
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene has other ideas about getting through work and commutations in the work place. It's not a very pretty picture unlike this video paints.
If you can't controll all three things, we aren't playing the same game, sport. Turn your camera on and watch me work. Confirmation bias at it's peak. This is the opposite of mentalism.
go for a run and have a cold shower, get comfortable being uncomfortable... you only grow in discomfort, like it or not
this obviously only applies to people who actually want to grow and improve
It is about what and how. Not about why. If we know why we behave this and that way we can understand situations and act accordingly. She gives so called ‘technicalities’. Anyone can learn these patterns and still be hopeless.
She does cover 'why', along with everything else. You want 'why' in detail, go take her courses. :P That can't be described deeply in 15 min.
Funny, because in my experience, there’s no nicess, there is passive aggressive comments, intensely critical in a destructive way, and judgment mascaraed as “my truth”.
I have no idea with how many different cultures she researched, but after living in 4 different countries I can assure you. Being nice has not been the norm.
Why jump thru hoops to get what u want. Tell them what u want and expect to get it. If not move on. Sheesh!
This doesn't make sense to me, I've always gotten in trouble with work and other, because I am direct and straight forward, but also unwilling to step over anyone's head to get a "better" title, and usually get abused of the fact that I have initiative. I welcome criticism, 'cause that's how we learn other points of views. And this also doesn't account for people with ASD. That have most of these issues. I'm trying to understand how someone, doing the research for 20 years, leaves something like this out. Especially since 80% of ASD people are without jobs because of these reasons, and have a shorter life span than "normal", and a high proportion are also undiagnosed adults because research is not being done for this population except for children. I have an over active childlike curiosity, I really want to understand, please. Cheers. P.S, and a untested recent theory I have of myself is that, body language/micro expressions, might be my first laguage, if that is possible; which also causes me problems .
'direct and straightforward' isn't always good in the workplace, as she notes.
How do you teach that to a brain that functions that way? That the effort to use language just to make sure someones feelings and what nots are not hurt, is extreemly painful, to the brain when people should learn to choose to apply to themselves what is being said just like anyother information. Why's there soooooooo many double standers everywhere? and there's also the fact that people who are in their head more often then others, might not know the "proper" words to apease someone with low self confidence.
@@crichard1815 It's always a deliberately learned skill, just harder for many neurodivergents. I know some who are good at this stuff, and they have to be deliberate and conscious about _everything_ they say and see. It's not easy, but it's doable.
Take her courses.
@@thekaxmaxI am sorry, I forgot, "without burning out". I know "how". I've suffered from migrains my whole life, sometimes my head actually gets hot to the touch like if I had a feaver. I have trouble keeping up with my own mind; Now, imagine how much I have to slow it down to do what you are saying, and imagine that for at least a few decades. Wouldn't you think it takes it's tole? and thank you for responding.
@@crichard1815 There are courses to cover this. Yes, it's tiring, and the people I know who can do this limit the amount they do per day as much as they can.
It never really gets easy, but it can be handleable. Remember, of course, that the more skilled you are at something the easier it is, so don't be put off by initial difficulty because that passes. Think of it as roleplaying as a neurotypical character that's got your memories, working from a character description and checklists. :P
12:00 that’s the problem of American culture. It’s funny when people start their sentence with ‘to be honest’ or ‘Do you want honest answer’. Where other many countries, they don’t even have that idea in their heads.
We are too nice here to the point that dishonest answer is the default!
Open communication start with a
strong handshake. Eye contact Listen with eye contact . Iisten take mental notes
Question: why is society too afraid to call out 1$raeli apartheid ?
Why the $? Like we will never know what u mean bruhhhh
@@ssholez so it doesn't get blocked plus apartheid is built on corruption, so it's to emphisise that
I think that topic is super important but this talk was too short to really understand what is scary and what isnt and what about reason the anxious niceness is trying to make sure doesnt happen is being in a situation that is not civil... that a line got crossed.. that anxiousness I feel has a logic that this talk ignored. So would love to hear more...
too fast speach
Lovely intelligent lady. I just wish she would have chosen another choice of outfit not that it’s not nice it’s just maybe it’s the color choice . Nonetheless love a good talk.
I like it. And obviously so does she. Don't like it, listen and don't watch.
So you have a culture of anxious niceness and it's an issue? Maybe move to a country where people anxiously kill each other... Sounds like you're complaining about a luxury problem here...
I guess you can try to build more safe meaningful relationships with the people closest to you. Where you have the space to really say useful things.
And for the people further from you. You can't save them all. Maybe they are lucky and you understand enough of what they do for you to help them get what they need. Maybe they have bad luck because you don't have the time. That's life.
"Maybe move to a country where people anxiously kill each other"--that's America. The rest of us look at you carefully and stay away. And she mentions you in the talk.
She's been talking for over 15 mins and I have no idea what about
I guess that's a you problem lol
@@hammerfistrevolution5232 well my comment has more likes than yours does so nanny nanny boo boo stick your head in doo doo!
@@hammerfistrevolution5232y
Awkward presentation about awkwardness :)
uuwowwel what kass
Don’t trust everyone
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Absolutely valuable. I started this content creation and I see my team as a team more than friends. That’s why there are less conflicts between our feelings. But more people are complaining ‘why don’t u be more friendly with me’ ‘why don’t u get personal? Do u agree with me with what I have done? Or did I do anything wrong? Help me!😮😮