I’m a really nice guy. Polite. Courteous. Thoughtful. Kind. Everyone who knows me knows this. It’s a significant part of my self-identity. I genuinely like being helpful and nice.
Being nice has been a limiting factor in my success at times.
I have learned that there is power of acting outside of your normal range.
I rarely use swear words. (I think them too often, and utter them rarely.) My mother trained me to use a large vocabulary of non-swear words in order to make my points. I had heard updates for three months about a critical-to-others project that was moving so slowly that “glacial speed” would have been a compliment. I interrupted the umpteenth excuse-saturated update by saying “What the fu** are you going to differently so you can give me an account of actual progress next week? If you don’t have an answer by tomorrow I will cancel this fu**ing work order!” The project took a positive turn quickly. My only regret was waiting so long to do it. I also learned to bid some projects as a total bid, rather than per-hour.
One of the unexpected bonuses of my choice: that story spread. A few people starting saying, “Oh yeah, Glenn is a really nice guy, but he has been known to call people out.” As another man put it –he knows much more about my complicated past – “Glenn is an Eagle Scout but he’s no boy scout.”
Another situation: I failed to get across my exasperation with a remote contractor. He did not pick up my frustrated “tone” in email. I was weary of platitudes. If we’d been together in person I could have raised my voice – or lowered it into a range he would have instantly interpreted as dangerous. I knew he had young children, and they had watched Toy Story, so I used this phrase to make my point: “Mr. Glenn is unpacking his angry eyes.” Message received.
Reserve the “out of normal range” behaviors as special ammunition for specific situations. Fifty F-bombs in a 10 minute tirade has none of the impact of a single F-bomb used judiciously.
Also, I’m still going to be nice. It’s helpful for people to know I’m not cuddly teddy bear to the core, and can bring out a razor edge.
