5 ms·

Don't trust nice people in business

22 points by dumbfoundded 7y ago

soneca 7y ago
> "Let's step back and define nice. A nice person is one who tries to get you to like them" That's not my definition of nice, so I realized there was no point in reading the rest of the text (if the clickbaity title wasn't enough of a hint already)
- JohnFen 7y ago
  The rest of the text isn't particularly valuable, in my opinion. Essentially, the author seems to believe that everyone is really a greedy ass who is trying to deceive you, and considers people who act nice to be particularly dastardly because they're trying to hide that they're a greedy ass. It's a dark view of humanity that, in my opinion, is not supportable.
  - dumbfoundded 7y ago
    To clarify, I don't share that dark view of humanity. I just think we value the wrong things in business. You shouldn't value someone who is friendly. You should value decency in actions and general respectfulness. Nice is a red herring I observe greedy people using to land deals. More than anything, I wrote this for people to protect themselves.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      But in doing so, you are tarring a lot of people in business who are genuinely nice. You've set it out as a a bad thing, to be avoided. If your position is that "nice isn't sufficient", then I would agree entirely. If your position is that "nice is a red flag", then I could not disagree more. Singling out niceness as an indication of deception is a dark view of humanity. I would argue that the essay also has the potential of encouraging nice people to start faking meanness out of a fear that their niceness will make people think they're con artists.
      - dumbfoundded 7y ago
        In social contexts, I view niceness almost entirely as positive. In business contexts, I think you have to be much more paranoid. In business, if the goal is to make money (usually it is), you generally want to avoid niceties and get to the real questions like: is this other party honest, reliable, has a solid history in their relationships. I see it as a red flag when someone trying to sell something or make money off a relationship with me is focused on how much I like them personally. Salesmen, in particular, try to connect to customers on a personal level with the minimal effort required to do so. And then leverage the positive feelings into a sale. I believe this is unethical and a risk. Especially for people that consider themselves kind. In the context of business, I prefer someone who is upfront about how they plan to make money from or with me and then accurately explains the value or roi they provide. I also have more information about my business than the other person. Maybe I share something that makes the partnership a bad idea from a business standpoint. At this point, I respect people who walk away and stay in touch for when that relationship would make sense.
- MrAlex94 7y ago
  And then the article says: "But secret assholes pretend to be nice too." So it's being able to tell the difference between someone genuinely nice and someone pretending to be nice? I guess that's just life and comes with experience and time. I've known nice people who are also very sharp at business.
- dumbfoundded 7y ago
  How would you define nice?
  - MrAlex94 7y ago
    Don't know if it's a British-ism or just me, but I would define it as someone who is pleasant.
  - soneca 7y ago
    To use your own words, people who are "decent in actions and general respectfulness" would be a better phrasing. The way you define I would only consider nice those who are genuinely kind to me. If it's not genuine, they are not nice, just pretending to be nice. So, by (my) definition, I would trust nice people in business.
    - dumbfoundded 7y ago
      I think your definition is fair. I based mine on the dictionary.com definition which is pleasant, agreeable. I don't feel that these traits overlap with honesty, respect, and decency. There are positive traits that are easy and cheap and ones that are expensive and hard. Compliments are cheap and easy so I don't trust when people use them in the course of a sales conversation. Trust and respect are hard and expensive.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > Let's step back and define nice. A nice person is one who tries to get you to like them That's how we define Nice(TM), and that attitude is generally quite transparent and not well-liked at all, at least in my experience. Whether that's also regarded as being 'nice' plain-and-simple, is actually going to differ quite a bit. Some people would call it nice; some wouldn't.
__s 7y ago
HN Discussion of author's blog post from last week, "Not being an asshole will make you more money": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504897
- dumbfoundded 7y ago
  Nuance is important. You can be a mean asshole and a nice asshole. You can also be a mean, decent person and a nice, decent person. My goal is to get people to look at things that matter like respect, decency in actions rather than the surface level features we associate with them.
lbj 7y ago
And conversely: If you're not nice I'll never do business with you. But I do take his point: If someone is active attempting to manipulate you using 'pretend' friendship, then that is a flag. Not red, yellow perhaps.
- 6510 7y ago
  or pink!
_aleph2c_ 7y ago
I think you can put more weight on "nice" being just nice if you are going to be working in a partnership with that person for a long time, and they have a reputation of working in longer term relationships. But if you are signing up for a short duration, by all means be skeptical.
Zigurd 7y ago
I'm not a secret asshole, but secretly I'm sarcastic and even snide. My idea of humor is sometimes obscure and hard to get. That's hardly ever good in business communications, so I hide it. I'm nice.
syndacks 7y ago
There's something incredibly perverse about this; that business is inherently about exploiting others. You don't hear similar advice in medicine, education, entertainment, politics, etc. Sure, you can manipulate people at any juncture in life, in any industry. But business? Capitalism? "Fuck you", basically.
- dumbfoundded 7y ago
  Education and medicine, in particular, are fraught with corruption and value extraction. How does a $2 trillion education loan bubble form if colleges aren't pushing worthless degrees? How are medical emergencies the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US?
CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
> A nice person is one who tries to get you to like them. They want to be friendly and [amicable]. Most people who have ever talked to me in a professional setting would probably describe me as "nice". I don't give two flying fucks if people like me. I'm not trying to be friendly or amicable. I'm nice because I'm not weak. I should elaborate. There are a lot of shitty people in the world, and they come from all walks of life. Having grown up in a low-income family in a low-income area in Florida, I learned very quickly that the worst humans have one trait in common: They cannot help but confuse kindness for weakness. Enter me. I'm a direct communicator. I will stand up for my beliefs and values. I will enforce my own personal boundaries, as well as anyone I'm working with, to the best of my ability. (e.g. Want to co-opt a meeting to drop something on a team member, without consulting them about their schedule? Hell no.) I choose to be nice not because I want to benefit more from a transaction. I choose to be nice because it subverts the expectations of the shittiest humans while making life more pleasant everyone who's not shitty. Game theory 101. > Every single person I've ever met has a dark side. You find it eventually. Watch out for the people that hide their dark side as long as possible. Or even worse, pretend they don't have one. > No one is perfect. Everyone has anger, fear, sadness, shame, and a host of other negative qualities. If someone is hiding their "dark" side--unless they're also something super terrible like a serial killer or sexual abuser--chances are they only do so because they've learned through painful experience to not be vulnerable. People can and will take advantage of them. Which means: If you find someone who is "hiding" their "dark" side... they're actually showing you their own insecurity, and thus some of their dark side. If they continue to hide it from you, maybe you're coming across as judgmental? People are complicated. It costs nothing to just be nice.
- dumbfoundded 7y ago
  I like the balance you achieve. There's a big difference in what you put out into the world and what you let the world do to you. I highly value respect, politeness, and decency. Interactions with other people shouldn't suck by default. I actually try to be nice. I just place no value on others being nice to me. I care much more about do they treat me with respect and decency? Are they honest? I believe valuing "nice" in and of itself in others is exposure to shitty people. If you value people simply because they are nice, some of them will inevitably take advantage of you.
xtiansimon 7y ago
I love discussions of language. IMHO, when you play this game of claiming word misuse, you have to draw a distinction with the other words you feel are more appropriate. The words you mean when you say the other word. Then the claim would be ‘polite’ and ‘respectful’ are what people really mean when they say someone is ‘nice’. I like it! Nice wants to be your friend. We all need friends. I agree ‘respect’ is a quality I appreciate, and ‘disrespect’ is an aggressive attitude. Suggests a power imbalance. But ‘polite’? Is it specifically required in business? Retail, certainly helps. What do you have when someone is polite, but ‘unfair’? Or how about when someone acts ‘respectful’, but they ignore the details of what you’re saying? At that point ‘clarity’ is more important. And I like it when people get to the point. Too much ‘respectful’ and ‘polite’ talk can just be word salad working to confuse the issues. (Some offshore customer service people say things like, _I understand your concern_ or, _i understand how frustrated you must feel_ but do they? Or are they just trained to say that?) I’m in business services, so we value brief and pointed conversations. But who is fooled by ‘nice’ anyway—work colleagues and associates are not your friends. You didn’t choose who you work with. You can become friends, but at the end of the day who’s going to quit their job, or willingly lose money to be your friend?

22 points by dumbfoundded 7y ago

> "Let's step back and define nice. A nice person is one who tries to get you to like them" That's not my definition of nice, so I realized there was no point in reading the rest of the text (if the clickbaity title wasn't enough of a hint already)

JohnFen 7y ago
The rest of the text isn't particularly valuable, in my opinion. Essentially, the author seems to believe that everyone is really a greedy ass who is trying to deceive you, and considers people who act nice to be particularly dastardly because they're trying to hide that they're a greedy ass. It's a dark view of humanity that, in my opinion, is not supportable.
- dumbfoundded 7y ago
  To clarify, I don't share that dark view of humanity. I just think we value the wrong things in business. You shouldn't value someone who is friendly. You should value decency in actions and general respectfulness. Nice is a red herring I observe greedy people using to land deals. More than anything, I wrote this for people to protect themselves.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    But in doing so, you are tarring a lot of people in business who are genuinely nice. You've set it out as a a bad thing, to be avoided. If your position is that "nice isn't sufficient", then I would agree entirely. If your position is that "nice is a red flag", then I could not disagree more. Singling out niceness as an indication of deception is a dark view of humanity. I would argue that the essay also has the potential of encouraging nice people to start faking meanness out of a fear that their niceness will make people think they're con artists.
    - dumbfoundded 7y ago
      In social contexts, I view niceness almost entirely as positive. In business contexts, I think you have to be much more paranoid. In business, if the goal is to make money (usually it is), you generally want to avoid niceties and get to the real questions like: is this other party honest, reliable, has a solid history in their relationships. I see it as a red flag when someone trying to sell something or make money off a relationship with me is focused on how much I like them personally. Salesmen, in particular, try to connect to customers on a personal level with the minimal effort required to do so. And then leverage the positive feelings into a sale. I believe this is unethical and a risk. Especially for people that consider themselves kind. In the context of business, I prefer someone who is upfront about how they plan to make money from or with me and then accurately explains the value or roi they provide. I also have more information about my business than the other person. Maybe I share something that makes the partnership a bad idea from a business standpoint. At this point, I respect people who walk away and stay in touch for when that relationship would make sense.
MrAlex94 7y ago
And then the article says: "But secret assholes pretend to be nice too." So it's being able to tell the difference between someone genuinely nice and someone pretending to be nice? I guess that's just life and comes with experience and time. I've known nice people who are also very sharp at business.
dumbfoundded 7y ago
How would you define nice?
- MrAlex94 7y ago
  Don't know if it's a British-ism or just me, but I would define it as someone who is pleasant.
- soneca 7y ago
  To use your own words, people who are "decent in actions and general respectfulness" would be a better phrasing. The way you define I would only consider nice those who are genuinely kind to me. If it's not genuine, they are not nice, just pretending to be nice. So, by (my) definition, I would trust nice people in business.
  - dumbfoundded 7y ago
    I think your definition is fair. I based mine on the dictionary.com definition which is pleasant, agreeable. I don't feel that these traits overlap with honesty, respect, and decency. There are positive traits that are easy and cheap and ones that are expensive and hard. Compliments are cheap and easy so I don't trust when people use them in the course of a sales conversation. Trust and respect are hard and expensive.
zozbot234 7y ago
> Let's step back and define nice. A nice person is one who tries to get you to like them That's how we define Nice(TM), and that attitude is generally quite transparent and not well-liked at all, at least in my experience. Whether that's also regarded as being 'nice' plain-and-simple, is actually going to differ quite a bit. Some people would call it nice; some wouldn't.

__s 7y ago

HN Discussion of author's blog post from last week, "Not being an asshole will make you more money": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504897

dumbfoundded 7y ago
Nuance is important. You can be a mean asshole and a nice asshole. You can also be a mean, decent person and a nice, decent person. My goal is to get people to look at things that matter like respect, decency in actions rather than the surface level features we associate with them.

lbj 7y ago

And conversely: If you're not nice I'll never do business with you. But I do take his point: If someone is active attempting to manipulate you using 'pretend' friendship, then that is a flag. Not red, yellow perhaps.

6510 7y ago
or pink!

_aleph2c_ 7y ago

I think you can put more weight on "nice" being just nice if you are going to be working in a partnership with that person for a long time, and they have a reputation of working in longer term relationships. But if you are signing up for a short duration, by all means be skeptical.

Zigurd 7y ago

I'm not a secret asshole, but secretly I'm sarcastic and even snide. My idea of humor is sometimes obscure and hard to get. That's hardly ever good in business communications, so I hide it. I'm nice.

syndacks 7y ago

There's something incredibly perverse about this; that business is inherently about exploiting others. You don't hear similar advice in medicine, education, entertainment, politics, etc. Sure, you can manipulate people at any juncture in life, in any industry. But business? Capitalism? "Fuck you", basically.

dumbfoundded 7y ago
Education and medicine, in particular, are fraught with corruption and value extraction. How does a $2 trillion education loan bubble form if colleges aren't pushing worthless degrees? How are medical emergencies the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US?

CiPHPerCoder 7y ago

> A nice person is one who tries to get you to like them. They want to be friendly and [amicable]. Most people who have ever talked to me in a professional setting would probably describe me as "nice". I don't give two flying fucks if people like me. I'm not trying to be friendly or amicable. I'm nice because I'm not weak. I should elaborate. There are a lot of shitty people in the world, and they come from all walks of life. Having grown up in a low-income family in a low-income area in Florida, I learned very quickly that the worst humans have one trait in common: They cannot help but confuse kindness for weakness. Enter me. I'm a direct communicator. I will stand up for my beliefs and values. I will enforce my own personal boundaries, as well as anyone I'm working with, to the best of my ability. (e.g. Want to co-opt a meeting to drop something on a team member, without consulting them about their schedule? Hell no.) I choose to be nice not because I want to benefit more from a transaction. I choose to be nice because it subverts the expectations of the shittiest humans while making life more pleasant everyone who's not shitty. Game theory 101. > Every single person I've ever met has a dark side. You find it eventually. Watch out for the people that hide their dark side as long as possible. Or even worse, pretend they don't have one. > No one is perfect. Everyone has anger, fear, sadness, shame, and a host of other negative qualities. If someone is hiding their "dark" side--unless they're also something super terrible like a serial killer or sexual abuser--chances are they only do so because they've learned through painful experience to not be vulnerable. People can and will take advantage of them. Which means: If you find someone who is "hiding" their "dark" side... they're actually showing you their own insecurity, and thus some of their dark side. If they continue to hide it from you, maybe you're coming across as judgmental? People are complicated. It costs nothing to just be nice.

dumbfoundded 7y ago
I like the balance you achieve. There's a big difference in what you put out into the world and what you let the world do to you. I highly value respect, politeness, and decency. Interactions with other people shouldn't suck by default. I actually try to be nice. I just place no value on others being nice to me. I care much more about do they treat me with respect and decency? Are they honest? I believe valuing "nice" in and of itself in others is exposure to shitty people. If you value people simply because they are nice, some of them will inevitably take advantage of you.

xtiansimon 7y ago

I love discussions of language. IMHO, when you play this game of claiming word misuse, you have to draw a distinction with the other words you feel are more appropriate. The words you mean when you say the other word. Then the claim would be ‘polite’ and ‘respectful’ are what people really mean when they say someone is ‘nice’. I like it! Nice wants to be your friend. We all need friends. I agree ‘respect’ is a quality I appreciate, and ‘disrespect’ is an aggressive attitude. Suggests a power imbalance. But ‘polite’? Is it specifically required in business? Retail, certainly helps. What do you have when someone is polite, but ‘unfair’? Or how about when someone acts ‘respectful’, but they ignore the details of what you’re saying? At that point ‘clarity’ is more important. And I like it when people get to the point. Too much ‘respectful’ and ‘polite’ talk can just be word salad working to confuse the issues. (Some offshore customer service people say things like, _I understand your concern_ or, _i understand how frustrated you must feel_ but do they? Or are they just trained to say that?) I’m in business services, so we value brief and pointed conversations. But who is fooled by ‘nice’ anyway—work colleagues and associates are not your friends. You didn’t choose who you work with. You can become friends, but at the end of the day who’s going to quit their job, or willingly lose money to be your friend?