I’ve been told more times that I can count that I’m a “nice” person. And more often than not, it’s a compliment. But I want to share with you some observations on being called (and often failing to be) a nice person.

Spoiler alert - it’s not as great as it seems.

Observation 1

You procrastinate on having difficult conversations. This procrastination causes you to delay these critical conversations until it loses all semblance of timing and meaning. You never end up having it. The downstream consequences of not giving someone a performance warning or highlighting a behaviour of a loved one that hurts you, for example, are much worse than the original conversation would have been. All because you didn’t want to hurt the other person. Ironic, because you end up hurting them more.

Observation 2

You focus on other people’s feelings far more than your own, which paradoxically, means you’re less likely to have effective compassion.

Observation 3

You never explicitly state what you want or need. And as a result of holding this tension in, you build resentment - resentment of your situation, of the other person and most saliently, yourself. This resentment spirals. You adopt avoidance behaviour and try to escape the situation altogether. What you’re really doing, however, is fleeing from your feelings. In this frame, you’re being selfish, even though you convince yourself that you’re being selfless.

Observation 4

I frame this lesson in first person, rather than second person because it’s easier to explain the experience!

In a number of past meetings, I left saying “Yes, I’m happy to do that”. I then felt reactance as fundamentally I disagreed, yet still did the task begrudgingly or worse yet, I didn’t do it at all and pawned it off. There were several times when I told someone who was clearly doing a bad job, “oh great job” or “you’re getting better” or “everything is totally fine” to keep the peace, but ended up causing a downstream civil war from my inability to tell a hard truth.

It’s through many, many, many, many (just Ctrl + A, Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V the word many more times) mistakes and getting to the root cause that I’ve realised: being nice doesn't mean you’re being kind. Often, being nice stems from a fear of being disliked. Of being rejected. Of the other person taking opposition with what, how or why you’ve said something, and you taking it personally.

Adopting Radical Candor

The framework that governs this principle is Radical Candor, by Kim Scott. It was all the rage decades ago in Silicon Valley and likely still is. Because it’s useful, particularly for people like me (or you!) that struggle with having difficult conversations, saying hard truths and placating people instead of helping them (and you) be better.

Radical candor means you care personally for someone, AND can challenge them directly, as per the matrix below:

If you start to falter on one of these dimensions, you fall into a different quadrant:

Ruinous empathy: you pander to the person because you’re scared of hurting them.
Manipulative insincerity: you pander for more self-serving motivations.
Obnoxious aggression: you’re likely telling a hard truth, but do it in a way that is personal and hurtful.

To be 100% transparent, I still get this wrong. I can still bottle up my true feelings in favour of preserving the other person. And it’s my fear of rejection that incubates opting for niceness, not kindness.

But the reframe that has helped me is that niceness sometimes isn’t kindness. Telling a hard truth, with compassion, because you care and want the best for the other person, your relationship and its future, is kind, but to the other person might not be nice. And it probably doesn’t feel nice to you, either. But being kind adopts a longer time horizon for the relationship than being nice.

Deliberate Practice 1

In the relationship meeting I do with my partner, we highlight the actions we were grateful for, and couple it with the actions we believe hurt us, and if better understood or changed, would improve the relationship. We’re mindful of negativity bias here, and make sure to track the time we spend talking about gaps and improvements relative to the great things we’re doing.

Deliberate Practice 2

I randomly track how many times I have regretted not saying something - privately - to someone, that deep down I know is coming from a place of care. In other words, caring personally and challenging them directly.

Each time that happens, I ask why I didn't do that? What stopped me? And if I feel the reasons for stopping me are bathed in fear, then I make sure to have that conversation with the person. I’ll schedule it, add layers of accountability and make sure it happens (hello multiple points of failure). The onus is on me then to determine if I’ve missed the timing to have that conversation or if it's worth still doing so.

Empathy is all the rage and is probably the most overused word in leadership circles. I prefer compassion. To me, compassion is empathy in motion. And to ensure empathy moves forward, always be kind, not just nice.

Principle 5: Kindness, not niceness.

Principle 4: Choose your desires, don’t let them choose you.

Principle 6: Questions can exist without answers, but answers can’t exist without questions.