首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The Power of Nice In fiction, film and popular culture, nice is the last word ever associated with bosses. There’s Lord Suga
The Power of Nice In fiction, film and popular culture, nice is the last word ever associated with bosses. There’s Lord Suga
admin
2013-08-22
58
问题
The Power of Nice
In fiction, film and popular culture, nice is the last word ever associated with bosses. There’s Lord Sugar, with his complaining "you’re fired" image; Gordon "greed is good" Gekkos and next week brings the opening of the film Horrible Bosses, in which three friends so hate their bosses that they plot to murder them.
Descriptions such as this carry the assumption that being nice means getting defeated or being an unconfident coward. But that is not the case. People who are nice, treat others with respect, listen to them, are accountable for what they do, are courteous, deliver, apologise when necessary, are cheerful, authentic, dedicated, warm and a general pleasure to be around. They are the antithesis of the monsters in Horrible Bosses.
Particularly in the business world, being nice is vastly underestimated.
Yet nice sets you head and shoulders above others. Here is how Dr. Stephan Chambers, of the Said Business School, University of Oxford, defines it: "It’s who we’d like to be with, who we’d like to be esteemed by, who we’d like to work with and for, and how we’d like to be."
And it particularly matters now.
That’s because when times are enduringly tough, when our banks fail, our jobs disappear and our newspapers close, the relationships we have with the world—and how we think about it—change. If we can’t trust core elements of a system, the only option we have is to build trust with individuals instead. That’s when relationships start to matter so much more. Relationships are the one thing you can work on to make better, because you can protect, grow and invest in them if you choose to. Our relationships give us the stability that institutions, regulation and cash can’t.
And our relationships are fundamental to the opportunities we get. In 1973 the social scientist Mark Granovetter found that 56% of people finding new jobs got them through their networks. Most importantly, of those people who found jobs, 83% found those jobs through "weak ties"—in other words, from friends of friends, or contacts they rarely saw.
Granovetter’s study was copied 20 years later by the researchers Deborah Brown and Alison Konrad. Today, many organisations are holding back on advertising new jobs: relying on networks is much cheaper. This means that your contacts—the people who’ll recommend you—are ever more important.
So what does it take to get recommended? No surprise, it’s your reputation: and the key ingredient is being nice. You’ll only have a decent network if people like you, and they like you because you’re nice.
Think about it the other way round: you’ll never open a door for someone you actively dislike. Nasty leads only to dead ends. Which is why people who are nice are starting to reap such large dividends(红利).
But this isn’t new news.
There is a lot of research which shows that nice has always succeeded over nasty. Common sense tells us that. After all, how many nasty friends do you have?
We first understood the power of being nice at work in the 1980s, when Dean Tjosvold, Professor of Management at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, carried out studies which showed that nice leaders got more out of people than nasty ones. Now we can calculate the cost of poor leaders who exercise power through fear or intimidating. First, because they lose team members; second, because their employees spend a lot more time and effort covering their backs rather than getting on with their jobs; and third, because their negative emotion spreads within a social network. That network invariably includes clients and customers.
Our research at the iOpener Institute for People and Performance estimated that the cost of this misery adds up to about £ 3, 378, 000 per 1, 000 employees in terms of sick leave, employee turnover(人员更换)and the reduced time that staff focus on their work. On top of that, it also results in employees looking to get even—to rebalance their psychological contract.
Tiziana Casciaro, of the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, published a revealing article in Harvard Business Review about the "power of nice" in 2005. She and her colleague Miguel Sousa Lobo showed we all want to work with people who are highly competent and very likeable. But when they are not around, we would rather work with colleagues who are nice over colleagues who know their stuff. Her subsequent research clearly shows that we will keep making an effort for nice colleagues in a way that we won’t for people we actively dislike.
Our research, based on data collected from 8, 000 people over six years, also shows how important likeability is. In fact, it’s a key element for high performance and happiness at work. When it comes to getting a contract, a promotion or simply being noticed, we like those who share our values, help us, build mutual respect, achieve important goals together and push us to be the best we can. And we like them when they are nice to us.
But nice people can be tough, too. Being nice doesn’t mean failing to set direction or letting people off the hook. As Paul Boissier, a former submarine commander and CEO of the RNLI, told me, "even when things are difficult and you have to deliver change, you don’t need to do it in a heartless, authoritarian style."
"The ’nasty’ boss is, in my experience, someone with too much ego, too little self-confidence or too little ability. A nice person isn’t threatened by the people who work for him or her, no matter how able they are: rather they benefit from the skills, ability and passion of everyone around them."
That gives you a strong clue to what being nice contains. Nice goes hand-in-hand with a certain level of humility and a lot of recognition.
If you want to know what nice really looks like, watch out for this: a boss, a colleague or a friend who isn’t too grand to involve themselves when the chips are down and who will be your best cheerleader even as they lend you a hand. Who will tell it to you as it is, who won’t let you down, who give you praise when you deserve it.
Women are very good at nice but until now we haven’t been rewarded for the real hard and measurable value that it brings.
I’ll close with what Bill Liao, the Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of Xing and We Forest, said: "All the best people aren’t just nice: they’re wonderful. "
Tiziana Casciaro and her colleague said that when competent and likeable people are absent, we prefer to work with nice colleagues rather than those who______.
选项
答案
know their stuff / are competent
解析
根据题干关键词Tiziana Casciaro,competent and likeable定位到第十五段第三句;But when they are not around,we would rather work with colleagues who are nice over colleagues who know their stuff.由该句可知,当他们(能干的、让人喜欢的人)不在时,我们更愿意和友好的人共事,而不是那些精通业务的人。应填入know their stuff或are competent。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/4007777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
A、Language.B、Culture.C、Misinterpretation.D、Disagreement.C文中一开始就谈到,如果交流的某一方有误会,那么交流中就出现了错误,因此答案是C。
Themen’sWorldCupisconsideredthemostpopularsportingeventintheworldandisfollowedwith【S1】______interestaroundthe
Themen’sWorldCupisconsideredthemostpopularsportingeventintheworldandisfollowedwith【S1】______interestaroundthe
Thereisonepartofwomen’smagazinesthateverymanreads.Itisthesectionpopularlyknownasthe"agonycolumns",wherewom
Thereisonepartofwomen’smagazinesthateverymanreads.Itisthesectionpopularlyknownasthe"agonycolumns",wherewom
Thereisonepartofwomen’smagazinesthateverymanreads.Itisthesectionpopularlyknownasthe"agonycolumns",wherewom
随机试题
补体系统的激活必须参与的成分是:()
小儿的结核病最早可以出现PPD试验阳性时间()
尿道口溢出脓液常见于下列哪种疾病
位于县城的某卷烟厂为增值税一般纳税人,主要生产销售同一牌号规格的卷烟,2018年有关经营业务如下:(1)全年共销售卷烟5000标准箱,取得不含税收入26000万元,销项税额共计为4395万元,与卷烟配比的销售成本为5350万元。(2)全
材料:一般人常常以为对任何问题不求甚解都是不好的,其实也不尽然。我们虽然不必提倡不求甚解的态度,但是,盲目地反对不求甚解的态度同样没有充分的理由。不求甚解这句话最早是陶渊明说的。他在《五柳先生传》中写道:“好读书,不求甚解;每有会意,便欣然忘食
下列哪一项不能参加助理医师资格考试?()
研究人员通过基因工程技术将特定基因引入作物,使其能够编码合成Bt毒蛋白,该蛋白能杀死侵袭的害虫。某地广泛种植转基因Bt棉花,有效控制了棉铃虫的危害,但与此同时,另外一种害虫——盲椿象却泛滥成灾。对此,研究人员认为,盲椿象泛滥并非是转基因Bt棉花导致的,而是
计算机操作系统通常具有的5大功能是
—Howareyoufeelingnow?—______.
A、TourEcuador’sAndesMountains.B、Earnanannualincomeof$2,800.C、Purchaseaplottobuildahomeon.D、Sendtheirchildren
最新回复
(
0
)