Why do I believe that genuineness is more important to a healthy work culture than being nice?
Nice in this context to me is almost like peace. You don’t want there to be any disagreements or differences. Of course there and and should be disagreements in any business. I think otherwise that’s a sign of not looking at things from different perspectives. If everyone has the same perspective than either you may need more diverse individuals or create an environment where it’s more conducive to have disagreements in a civil way.
If I believe that work is a way for me to express my full self, which I’ve already established, then being genuine I would say rolls up to that.
Looking at it like peace, there is positive peace and negative peace. Negative peace is not talking about our differences and just agreeing on everything just to do that. I think it’s based from a place of fear. ‘I don’t want to disagree with anyone because I may feel rejected, my ideas not accepted, consequences for my career’, etc.
Nice is an umbrella term that has many contexts and variations. I should be more specific with my diction when I do use it.
Positive peace, on the other hand, is recognizing and celebrating our differences as a way to find a middle ground. I think it’s based from a place of love. “I truly understand your differences because I’ve heard you. I want to learn how you think and what you’re feeling. I will not judge. I hope you can do the same when I share as well. All of our perspectives and perceptions are valid so let’s find a way to find the overlap of our beliefs and be better versions of ourselves.”
I think again it comes back to the 1-to-1 relationships that are ingrained in our everyday life. If we believe that there is a right and wrong, then something can only be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ at the same time. When expanded to this context, if you have that belief then there is no room to be both ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
I think a better way to think about it is that my perspective is one thing and someone else’s perspective is another. And those are both correct.
I think another reason why I believe regarding the original question is the fact that we compartmentalize our life into discrete buckets. Of course, that’s what I’m doing with my Life Domains. But instead of viewing them as buckets, I can view them in a more fluid manner. Because when we compartmentalize discretely with ‘work’, ‘personal’, ‘social’, etc., we can only be a certain personality in certain contexts. ‘Work is from 9-5 pm’, ‘family time is from 7-8 pm’, etc. Those are great ways to get started, I think, of categorizing things but I don’t think we should draw those lines in stone. They should be malleable and ultimately a part of our identity.
How this relates back to being nice vs genuine is nice may imply being a certain persona externally to achieve a certain thing vs. genuine being a certain person internally, whose reflections are just externalized.
Also, by compartmentalizing, we’re associating 1-to-1 again that this setting is one me and another setting is another me. That you get one person at work and another person outside work and that those can’t overlap. That you can’t be your true self at work. So it’s one persona to work and one persona to ‘life.’ And when that one person at work is nice but not necessarily genuine, that can lead to things not expressed, criticism withheld, and lot more impacts on the person’s mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health.
So I’m not implying not being nice. I’m saying where is the intention coming from? If it’s genuine nicety, then I think being genuine will naturally allow you to be nice. So be genuine and nice.
This last week the more and more I think and talk about it, this 1-to-1 relationship pervaded society and limits our thinking to what we can achieve. I think exploring this topic may be one of the books that I publish at some point.
Going to Jordan Peterson’s definition of depth of how many other beliefs are based on another, I think 1-to-1 mindset is so ingrained in us that it might be one of the deepest things we subconsciously believe. Creativity is stifled because we associate only one thing to another. When in actuality, everything is associated with another. I think that’s why something like the butterfly effect is so hard to grasp for people. They want a 1-to-1 cause-effect relationship between everything. Boiled down to simple points that can be explained with 1-3 sentences. Life is more complex than that. And yet somehow more simple. shrug
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