I love to read, and not just books. But the other day, I realised with a shock that every year, it’s getting slightly more difficult for me to read. The image of a frog sitting in a pan of water that slowly reaches boiling point came to mind. The frog doesn’t jump out because the temperature increases very slowly. Having studied frogs in college, I know that it’s only an analogy. But the point still stands: we underestimate slow changes. Slowly but surely, short videos are eating away our attention-spans.
Anyway, while reading, I came across an interesting idea: as you go upwards in any hierarchy, your work gets more and more abstract.
That made me stop and think.
Is my work really ‘abstract’? Isn’t my work very practical, straight-forward? But I realized that this generalization does make sense. No matter how practical you are, if you are managing a team, then your team is doing the ‘concrete’ work, while you are getting concrete things done. A CFO doesn’t pass accounting entries. You can’t point to a concrete work product of a leader. In a way, managers are not directly responsible for any task, but they are responsible for all the tasks their team is supposed to do.
Let me be clear, there’s nothing wrong with ‘concrete’ or ‘abstract’ work. Both are crucial. But as a manager/leader moves up the hierarchy, their soft-skills become increasingly important. I believe that a manager who doesn’t know how to do the concrete tasks they assign to others is a hack, a con-artist. If you want to lead, you have to know the way. But things like being good at time-management, strategizing, planning, assessing people’s abilities, and standing your ground and saying no become extremely important as you move up.
The last one is not a very popular soft-skill. Generally, we are taught the importance of being polite, likable, and compassionate. Especially women (but also men, to some extent), are expected by society to be soft-spoken, nice, considerate, and never saying ‘no’ directly. Most are good qualities in most social situations, but not all of them.
One of my acquaintances is a very polite woman, let’s call her Pallavi. It doesn’t matter who she is because this is the story of so many people to some extent. When Pallavi was little, she was taught to never shout, never question, and never argue. When she protested against something, she was told off by her parents. In school, when she didn’t agree with the textbook, and kept asking questions, she was shut down. As a result, she became very… nice. She would never hurt a fly.
When her parents arranged her marriage, it didn’t even occur to her that she had a choice. Now she does everything her husband asks. She is lucky her husband ‘allows’ her to work. But Pallavi is very intelligent, and works very hard. So, she was promoted recently, and was given the responsibility to manage a team.
Her good habits, niceness and politeness, have now become serious disadvantages, in both her personal and professional life. When her team member comes in late every day, she doesn’t know how to confront them. When she assigns work to them, she can’t communicate her authority. She can’t ask why a deadline was missed, nor can she raise/ harden her voice when she is angry.
Naturally, her team adores her. “How’s your new boss?” She is nice, they say. Ask for a leave, you always get it. Just ask for help, and she will do half the job for you. Everyone gets an increment in salary, every year! It’s the best job in the country!
Meanwhile honest, hard-working people in the team end up over-working, including Pallavi.
I have seen so many ‘Pallavi’s, in corporate India. Although my parents weren’t anything like Pallavi’s, I grew up in the 70s and 80s. So, looking at the larger society I became a bit of a Pallavi myself, even though that was never my nature. It took me years to understand and adapt according to my role in the business world.
Let me be clear: compassion is a very noble emotion. It’s what makes us human. When someone asks for help and is genuinely in trouble, of course you help them. When your team member has a genuine health issue or an emergency, it would be heartless to demand results from them. There are managers (and people in general) who behave heartlessly, and that’s why the other side of niceness is important.
So this is for everyone who is too nice for their own good:
When the boss asks for an impossible timeline, and you want to say no, you need to say it. When your team member asks for the eleventh leave of the month for their third cousin’s wedding, and you want to say no because you are accountable for the team’s performance, you need to say it. When your spouse, a friend, a coworker, or a parent asks (or demands) something unfair, and you know it’s unfair, or unethical, or downright cruel, so you want to say no, you need to say it.
Some people don’t have any integrity – I have a specific insult for these people: Useless. Useless people will take advantage of your niceness, compassion, and politeness. They know you’ll agree to anything and never show anger or frustration. They know you never push back. So when you start saying no, they will push you. They may be well-intentioned, and they may not even do it consciously (in which case they aren’t useless, but simply used to your tendency to agree).
it could be your aunt, insisting that you come visit her for a month in the USA. Or it could be someone doing it consciously, for their own personal gain, truly useless people. It could be your boss, or your team member, or a co-worker pushing their own work onto you when your plate is full, or worse.
When they push back, they might do it directly:
“I don’t want to hear it. I need that file by today!”
Or casually:
“Don’t be such a soar grape, it’s only a couple thousand rupees… Don’t you think I will pay you back?”
“You don’t drink? Why not? Don’t you like fun? Come-on, just one drink! I promise, you will like it.”
Or even politely:
“I know I’m asking for too much, but I wouldn’t ask if there was an alternative… Please?” (Useless people have three alternatives lined-up if you say ‘no’)
Or they might negotiate:
“I understand, but can you at least take on half of this project?”
When they push back, it’s important to notice that that’s what they are doing. And then it’s important to stand your ground. When you know they are making an unfair demand or request, don’t give them an inch.
If you find it impossible to say ‘no’ on the spot, say that you need time to consider it, and end the conversation. This way, you can look at the situation objectively and decline the next time you see them. But it’s important to decline explicitly. If you say “I don’t know…”, or “maybe next time”, they will call you out on it.
With small, gradual steps, like the frog in the pan of water being slowly heated, you can start being assertive. One day, you might find yourself demanding results from your team in a stern voice, at the same time being compassionate & kind when appropriate, creating a strong bond of mutual respect with your team members and co-workers.
