Remember being told as a child to “play nice”? It was good advice coming from your mother. But what does playing nice mean for adults in the workplace? For some, it means hiding our real thoughts and feelings and avoiding confrontation at all costs.

Why do we do this? It seems there’s a common belief that it isn’t nice and doesn’t feel good to be honest and truthful. We think that being nice means treating each other politely face-to-face and avoiding awkward or uncomfortable conversations. We steer clear of giving each other constructive feedback on how to modify, build on or change behaviors. So instead, we end up creating a host of problems that are repeated and don’t go away, no matter how “nice” we are.

One of our current clients was facing this exact situation at one of its manufacturing plants.

Team “niceness” hampered them in myriad ways. In meetings, they were afraid to step on toes. They would hem and haw about decisions rather than run the risk of upsetting fellow team members. In the plant, they wouldn’t take action when rules were violated. It wasn’t until a workplace injury that the severity and magnitude of the issues became undeniable.

We worked with the client to create peer review exercises that allow team members to get comfortable with providing honest and transparent feedback to one another. We helped them understand that honest feedback is actually the best way to be nice - it shows that you care about and value the other person.

Hiding the truth helps no one. By giving transparent, direct and constructive feedback you give your colleagues—and your entire team—real opportunities for growth.

THE EXPERIMENT:

1. Start by sharing the “Seven Myths About Nice Teams” article with your team members.

2. Ask them to rate themselves and each other on each of the seven points mentioned in the article.

3. Create a peer review team to share the feedback with each of the team members.

4. Launch from there.

What other exercises can you develop to promote honesty and transparency in a way that is constructive, fair and not hurtful?

THE CONVERSATION:

Share the results of your experiment in the comments below or contact the author directly at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

DONNA RAE SMITH is a guest blogger for Smart Business.  She has forged a career, enterprise and an applied discipline on the practice of teaching leaders to be masters of change.  She is the Founder and CEO of Bright Side, Inc., a transformational change catalyst company with an emphasis on the behavior-side of change.  For more than two decades, Donna Rae Smith and the Bright Side team have been recognized as innovators in executing behavioral strategies coalesced with business strategies to accelerate and sustain business results. Bright Side®, The Behavioral Strategy Company, has partnered with over 250 of the world’s most influential companies.  For more information, please visit www.bright-side.com or contact Donna Rae at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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