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
26
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. "
What did social scientist Mark Granovetter find in 1973?
选项
A、People’s networks helped them find new jobs.
B、Best friends are important in finding new jobs.
C、People found jobs entirely through "weak ties".
D、People seldom rely on relationships to find jobs.
答案
A
解析
根据题干关键词social scientist Mark Granovetter定位到第七段第二句: In 1973 the social scientist Mark Granovetter found that 56% of people finding new jobs got them through their networks.由该句可知,1973年社会科学家Mark Granovetter发现找到新工作的58%的人是通过他们的关系网找到工作的。A)项符合文意。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/K007777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
A、Toimprovetheintelligencelevelofthenation.B、ToimprovetheEnglishlanguageteachinginAmericanschools.C、Toimprove
A、Shehasfinishedherschool.B、Sheisnotagoodstudentbefore.C、Shehasn’tfinishedherfinalpaper.D、She’sstillastuden
Tobeagoodteacher,youneedsomeofthegiftsofagoodactor:youmustbeableto【C1】______theattentionandinterestofy
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteacompositioninthreeparagraphs.Threeoutlinesaregiventoyouandyouar
Ourmanageris____________(拜访一位重要客户)nowandhewillbebackthisafternoon.
A、Becausetheydon’thavetimetowanderoffontheirown.B、Becausetheycannotspeaktheforeignlanguage.C、Becausetheyhave
A、Atahotel.B、Inaschool.C、Atabookingoffice.D、Inarestaurant.CW:Singleorreturn?M:Single,please.W:Secondsingle
Theauthorthinksthattheconclusionsofanyresearchaboutpeople’sstateofmindare______.Accordingtoananalysis,compa
A、5minutes.B、10minutes.C、15minutes.D、20minutes.D此题为数字题,涉及的是时间。只要在听音时记住15和5两个数字,稍加计算便可得知在交通拥挤时间需要20分钟。
Hehurriedtotheairport,______(结果却发现飞机已经起飞了).
随机试题
以下情况下发生的民事行为,属于无效的是()。
简述临时机关的作用与撤销。
世界上最早的一部药典是
资源税纳税人不定期开采矿产品的,其纳税期限按( )核定。
接管是商业银行已经或者可能发生信用危机,严重影响存款人的利益时,中国银监会对该银行采取的监管措施。接管期限届满,中国银监会就要停止接管。()
某烟厂系增值税一般纳税人,主要生产卷烟。2009年10月发生如下业务:(1)向某小规模纳税人购买一批烟叶,农产品收购凭证上注明收购价款51724.14元,另支付运费5648元,取得货运企业的运费发票;按收购价款的10%支付给烟农补贴款;(
在东西方向的海岸线MN上,有两艘船A、B.在两艘船上用望远镜均可以看到海岛C,已知A、B相距海里,海岛C在船A东偏北45°方向上,海岛C在船B西偏北60°方向上.若A、B两船同时向C沿最短距离开动,且船A速度为50海里/小时,船B速度为40海里/小时.
乡村旅游是以各种类型的乡村为背景,以乡村田园风光、乡村生活和乡村文化为旅游吸引物,以农业和农村特色资源为基础开发旅游产品,以农民为经营主体、以城市居民为目标的一种休闲旅游形式。根据上述定义,下列属于乡村旅游的一项是()。
三个箱子,第一个箱子中有4个黑球与1个白球,第二个箱中有3个黑球和3个白球,第三个箱子中有3个黑球与5个白球。现随机地选取一个箱子,从中任取1个球,则这个球为白球的概率是________;若已发现取出的这个球是白球,则它不是取自第二个箱子的概率是_____
在数据库应用中,一般一个SQL语句可产生或处理一组记录,而数据库主语言语句一般一次只能处理一个记录,其协调可通过下列哪种技术来实现?
最新回复
(
0
)