Recently one of my long-term clients, a C-Suite exec who’s into evidence-based management competencies, was asking about the whole business of research. He was curious about some examples of really practical research. So we talked about Disney’s attention to what they call “dissonant details” that can undermine guests’ good cheer in their parks. From there, of course, the conversation went to the conclusion of more than 200 studies that makes it very clear that “bad is stronger than good.” A little bit of bad inevitably undermines a whole lot of good.
Then he asked about other examples of systematic research. I suggested the “nice-guy” studies, work that hasn’t been quite as front and center recently, but remains just as informative and practical. He was especially intrigued by their usefulness in identity formation for younger managers. The underlying question the research addresses is whether it really pays to be a nice guy.
Since I haven’t written about the subject for several years, here’s my original posting from 2009.
DOES IT PAY TO BE A NICE GUY?
Although research has been dealing with this question for nearly 50 years, it has only been in the last seven or eight years that the answer has become firmly established. Nice guys of both sexes, the kind of warm, friendly people you like to be around, have some of the stuff that makes for relationship success...
"Do I like this guy? Is he or she someone that I want to collaborate with--or buy from?" It's a terrifically important issue for sales people whether they're involved in sales at lower levels or in highly complex strategic settings. Furthermore, the answer to that question assumes a very high priority as employees at all levels are given team and project responsibilities or work in cross-disciplinary settings. As they become the sole drivers for their own careers, needing mentors, and wanting new opportunities or support networks, they will find themselves ham-strung without a nice guy reputation.
Indeed, as competition forces marketing and sales to assume a central role in even such professions as medicine, law and architecture, the answer to the question could very well deal with issues of career life or death.
So, does it pay to be a nice guy?
Yes and no. New data confirm that there are two universally important, required attributes of interpersonal success: warmth and competence. It appears that we start with moral intuitions, "nice-guyness," that our brains find evidence to support. The research on nice-guyness as warmth captures the traits that are related to positive intentions such as friendliness, helpfulness, sincerity, trustworthiness and morality.
Although both warmth and competence consistently emerge as necessary conditions for successful relations, warmth is always judged before competence. Nice-guyness carries a lot more weight. That makes sense to an evolutionary psychologist because another person's intent for good or bad is a lot more important to survival than whether or not a person has the smarts to act on his intentions. Not only do we make nice-guy judgments about someone first, we also make those judgments very rapidly.
To study competence, or smarts, the research included such topics as efficiency, respect, intelligence, skill and creativity. In contrast to warmth, a person's competence takes quite a bit longer to figure out. People also believe that a person who is competent might have occasions when he/she is not so competent--and that doesn't affect their basic belief in the competence of a person.
So when people have have both "nice-guyness" and competence, they've set themselves up for a successful career. If they have competence without being a nice-guy, that's liable not to work very well. The studies reveal that such people eventually have trustworthiness problems. After a few years in the market, most of us have met or worked with competent, but not nice-guys. We often think of them as cold fish, stinkers who eventually get added to our list of jerks to avoid. In contrast, people who are nice-guys but not competent don't get added to the jerk pile. Instead, these warm people elicit pity and sympathy, making them subordinate in status. Sometimes you have to work with a person who's warmly incompetent, but has vested power from the organization. Eventually we may add that person to the jerk pile also.
So what does all this mean?
Well, first of all the issue is not how we see ourselves, but whether others see us as both warm and competent. With issues of this much importance, you'll want to stay on top of feedback, and track the impression you're communicating. Bob Sutton of Stanford provides a free ARSE test and it'll give you some immediate feedback on asshole behaviors, though I never fully trust self-reporting exams. I took it recently and scored 2 out of 24 which means that I don't sound like a certified asshole unless I'm fooling myself. Most consultants with any significant background or mentoring watch these issues like the plague. Interpersonal failure means career failure.
What's very encouraging is that warmth and competency can be learned. In other words, they're grown not born. Warmth and competency are the underpinnings for the six relational skills that support nearly all business expertise. As you check through my list, you can see that warmth and competence are of extremely high value.
- Proactive skills for seeking help.
- Ability to identify potential mentors and coaches.
- Capacity to initiate conversations with individuals who do not know you.
- Openness and skills for sharing your own experiences.
- Ability to establish relations of trust and respect.
- Skills for inviting feedback.
So, does it pay to be a nice guy? It certainly does if you're also competent. But if not, you're liable to end up last.