The Problem With Being “Too Nice” at Work | Tessa West | TED

Summary

このスクリプトでは、心理学者が20年以上にわたって不快な社会的な相互作用を研究し、その科学について話しています。彼らは人々の言葉、非言語行動、そして制御できない生理的反応を調べています。特に「不安な親切」という現象に焦点を当て、人々が他人に対して過剰に親切になることでストレスをコントロールする傾向を探求しています。彼らの研究は、少数派の人々や不利な立場にある人々がこのような親切さの影響を受けることを示しており、それは彼らのパフォーマンスや評判に悪影響を与える可能性があると警告しています。最後に、具体的なフィードバックを提供することで、このような文化を変える方法についていくつかのアドバイスを提供しています。

Takeaways

• 🧐 スクリプトは心理学者による、不快な社会相互作用に関する20年以上の研究を紹介している。
• 🤝 研究は人々の言葉、非言語行動、そして制御できない生理的反応を3つの主な結果として分析している。
• 😰 不安を感じる状況下では、人々の心拍数や血圧が上昇し、非言語的な行動に影響を与える。
• 🙅‍♂️ 不安な状況下では、人たちは他人に対して過剰に親切であいまいなフィードバックを与えがちである。
• 🤝 研究ではラボでの対人相互作用を通じて、人々のフィードバックのパターンを観察している。
• 😣 不安な社会相互作用においては、人々は本当の感情を隠して他人に親切なふりをする傾向がある。
• 🏆 交渉の例では、勝者たちが敗者に対して建設的なフィードバックを与える代わりに、彼らを過剰に褒める傾向がある。
• 😔 「不安な親切」は、人々のストレスに影響を与え、彼らのパフォーマンスや評判に悪影響を及ぼす可能性がある。
• 🔍 心理学者はフィードバックを具体的な良いことと悪いことに分け、具体性を重視するよう提唱している。
• 🛠️ フィードバック文化を変えるには、小さな一歩から始めて、中立的なフィードバックを通じて徐々に具体性を加えるべきだというアドバイスが示されている。
• 💬 良いフィードバックは具体的で具体的な代替行動を示すことが重要で、それが人々の成長と発展に役立つ。

Q & A

どのような職業を持つ人がこのスクリプトを話していると思われますか？

このスクリプトを話している人は社会心理学者であり、不快な社会相互作用の科学について20年以上研究していると思われます。

不快な社会相互作用を研究するためにはどのような3つの主要な結果を調べていますか？

不快な社会相互作用を研究するためには、人々が話す内容、非言語的な行動、そして皮膚下の反応（生理学的反応）という3つの主要な結果を調べています。

研究においてはどのような状況に人々を置くことで実験を行っていますか？

研究では実験室に人々を呼び、彼らが異なる状況で互いに交渉したり、お互いに知り合いあったりするようにして、さまざまな相互作用を観察しています。

不快な社会相互作用の中で人々はどのように行動する傾向があるとされていますか？

不快な社会相互作用の中では、人々は他人に対して非常に親切で一般的な態度を取る傾向があるとされています。これは「不安な親切さ」と呼ばれています。

不安な親切さはどのような種類の人々に対して特に見られると研究で示されていますか？

不安な親切さは特に少数派の人々、不利な立場にある人々、または偏見を示すことを避けたいと思われる人々に対して見られると研究で示されています。

不安な親切さはどのようにして受け手に影響を与えるとされていますか？

不安な親切さは受け手に対してストレスを引き起こし、彼らのパフォーマンスや評判に影響を与える可能性があるとされています。

ポジティブフィードバックがどのようにして受け手にとって有害になる可能性があるとされていますか？

ポジティブフィードバックが一般化され、具体性がない場合、受け手にとっては役に立たず、彼らの評判を損なう可能性があるとされています。

フィードバックを提供する際にどのような3つの方法を提案していますか？

フィードバックを提供する際には、まず「ニース文化」にどれだけの人々が賛同しているかを把握すること、次にフィードバックを一般的なものと具体的なもの、良いこととやめるべきことという次元で提供すること、そして具体的な改善策を提供することという3つの方法を提案しています。

ネガティブフィードバックを提供する際にはどのようにすることが推奨されますか？

ネガティブフィードバックを提供する際には、具体的な内容を提供し、改善策も一緒に提案することが推奨されます。

フィードバック文化を変えるためにはどのように始めるべきかとされていますか？

フィードバック文化を変えるためには、まず小さなステップから始めて、中立的なフィードバックを提供し、徐々に具体性のあるフィードバックへとステップアップしていくことが推奨されています。

このスクリプトで話されている「ニース文化」とは何を指し、なぜ問題となっているのですか？

「ニース文化」とは、職場などで一般的に行われているが、具体性に乏しく真意のないポジティブフィードバックを指しており、それは人々にストレスを与え、彼らのパフォーマンスや評判に悪影響を及ぼすことがあるため問題とされています。

Outlines

00:00

🧐 心理学者による不快な社交インタラクションの研究

心理学者が20年間以上の研究を通じて、不快な社交インタラクションの科学を探求しています。新しいルームメート関係、交渉、上司へのフィードバック、患者と医者の間の相互作用など、さまざまな場面でのインタラクションを研究しています。研究では、人々の言葉、非言語行動、そして生理的反応という3つの主要な結果を観察しています。また、実験室での相互作用を通じて、人々のストレス反応を測定し、不快な状況下での行動やフィードバックのパターンを分析しています。

05:02

😣 不安な社交インタラクションにおける「緊張した親切」

不快な社交インタラクションにおいて、人々は周囲の人々に非常に親切で一般化された態度をとることがあります。心理学者は交渉の例を通じて、勝者と敗者との間の相互作用を研究し、敗者に対して建設的なフィードバックを与えることが期待される状況で、実際には過剰に親切なフィードバックが与えられる傾向があることを発見しました。このような「緊張した親切」は、特定のグループに対して特に見られることが多く、彼らが偏見を示さないようにと過剰に親切になることで、彼らのストレスが増すことが示唆されています。

10:05

🤔 ポジティブフィードバックの限界とその影響

ポジティブなフィードバックが表面上では親切に見える一方で、実際には人々のパフォーマンスや評価に悪影響を与えることがあることが指摘されています。心理学者は、ポジティブなフィードバックが人々の評価や推薦状の内容に与える影響についても研究しており、具体性のないポジティブなフィードバックは、人々の評判を損なう可能性があると警告しています。そこで、フィードバックの改善方法として、より具体性のあるフィードバックを提供することが重要だと述べています。

15:06

🛠 フィードバック文化の変革と具体的なアドバイスの提供

心理学者は、フィードバック文化を変えるためには、まず人々が実際に望むフィードバックの種類を把握し、ポジティブなフィードバックだけでなく、建設的な批判も提供する文化を築く必要があると語っています。具体的なアドバイスを提供し、人々に具体的な改善点を示すことが重要で、それがポジティブなフィードバックと組み合わさることでより効果的であると強調しています。また、文化を変えるプロセスは怖いものではなく、小さな一歩から始め、徐々にフィードバックの質を向上させていくことができると励ましています。

Keywords

💡社会心理学者

社会心理学者は、人が集団で行動する心理的なメカニズムを研究する専門家です。このビデオでは、講演者は20年以上にわたって不快な社会相互作用に関する科学を研究している社会心理学者として紹介されています。彼らは新しいルームメート関係、交渉、上司へのフィードバック、患者と医師の間の相互作用など、緊張や不安を感じる状況における人々の行動を研究しています。

💡不快な社会相互作用

不快な社会相互作用とは、人々が他人と関わることによって感じる緊張感や不安、そして社交的な不自在さを指します。ビデオでは、このような状況下で人々がどのように行動し、言葉や非言語的な行動を通じてどのように対処するかが分析されています。例えば、交渉の後のフィードバックや、医師と患者の間のコミュニケーションなどが挙げられます。

💡フィードバック

フィードバックとは、人に対してその行動や成果に対する意見や感想を伝えることです。ビデオでは、フィードバックがどのように与えられるか、またそれが人々の相互作用にどのような影響を与えるかが議論されています。特に、建設的なフィードバックと「癇に発するような優しさ」の間でどのようにバランスを保つかが重要なトピックとなっています。

💡非言語行動

非言語行動は、言葉を使わずに伝える行動を指し、視線や仕草、声の調子などが挙げられます。ビデオでは、人々が緊張や不安を感じるときの非言語行動、例えばじたばたしたり、目を合わせずにしたりすることがどのように人々の相互作用に影響するかが分析されています。

💡生理的反応

生理的反応とは、心拍数や血圧の変化など、身体が応答して出す現象です。ビデオでは、緊張や不安を感じるときに人々が自然と生理的反応を示し、それが他人にも伝染する可能性があることが示されています。これは、私たちのストレスや身体の状態が他人と密接に関係していることを意味します。

💡優しさの文化

優しさの文化とは、人々に優しく接するという価値観が重視される社会的な環境です。ビデオでは、職場などで一般的に見られる優しさの文化が、なぜ建設的なフィードバックが与えられない原因になるのかが議論されています。また、優しさの文化的を変更することで、より良いフィードバック文化を築く方法も提案されています。

💡建設的なフィードバック

建設的なフィードバックとは、人々に改善点や強化すべき点を具体的に指摘し、ポジティブな成長を促すフィードバックです。ビデオでは、建設的なフィードバックを与えることの重要性と、それが人々のパフォーマンスやキャリアに与える影響が強調されています。

💡非建設的なフィードバック

非建設的なフィードバックとは、具体性に乏しく、人々に役立つ情報や助けにはならないと感じるフィードバックです。ビデオでは、一般的な「優しい」フィードバックが非建設的である場合があること、そしてそれが人々の評判やパフォーマンスに与える可能性のある悪影響について触れています。

💡ポジティブなフィードバック

ポジティブなフィードバックとは、人々に肯定的な言葉を与えることで、自信を高める効果があるフィードバックです。しかしビデオでは、ポジティブなフィードバックが抽象的で具体性に欠ける場合、受ける側にとっては無益であると感じる場合があることが指摘されています。

💡ネガティブなフィードバック

ネガティブなフィードバックとは、人々の行動や成果に改善点を指摘するフィードバックです。ビデオでは、ネガティブなフィードバックを具体的で建設的に行うことの重要性について話されており、それがどのように人々の成長に役立つかが説明されています。

Highlights

The speaker is a social psychologist with over 20 years of studying uncomfortable social interactions.

Three main outcomes are studied: what people say, nonverbal behaviors, and physiological responses.

People often become more nice and generic when feeling anxious or uncomfortable in social situations.

Anxiety can manifest in nonverbal behaviors like fidgeting and avoiding eye contact.

Physiological responses, such as heart rate and blood pressure, are measured to understand social interaction stress.

In negotiations, winners tend to give overly positive feedback to losers, avoiding direct critique.

Anxious niceness often involves generic compliments and can be non-specific.

People receiving anxious niceness are often racial minorities or members of disadvantaged groups.

Anxiety in social interactions can be synchronized and affect others' physiological responses.

Anxious niceness can lead to stress and potentially harm the recipient's performance and reputation.

Feedback should be clear, consistent, and specific to be effective.

Positive feedback can sometimes be perceived as lazy or disengaged.

To change feedback culture, start by assessing how many people are interested in constructive feedback.

Feedback should be framed in terms of general versus specific and what to keep doing versus what to stop.

Negative feedback should be specific and accompanied by suggestions for alternative behaviors.

Starting with neutral, non-threatening feedback can help break the cycle of anxious niceness.

Niceness should be incorporated in the delivery of feedback to make it more palatable.

The speaker concludes by encouraging the audience to change the culture of feedback and move away from anxious niceness.

Transcripts

So why is it the case

that when we are feeling the most anxious, uncomfortable,

socially awkward versions of ourselves,

when our hearts are pounding and our palms are sweating

and we feel like crawling out of our skin,

are we also the most nice and often generic to the people around us?

I'm a social psychologist,

and I've been studying the science of uncomfortable social interactions

for over 20 years.

So everything from new roommate relationships,

negotiations,

upward feedback with your boss to doctor patient-interactions,

those moments where you need to break in and say,

"Yeah, for the last 20 minutes,

I actually have no idea what you were talking about.

Can we maybe rewind a bit?"

And to study these things,

I look at three main outcomes.

First, I look at what people say, the things we can control,

how friendly we are,

how much we complement one another,

how much we give gracious feedback.

Second, I look at the things that are tougher for us to control,

our nonverbal behaviors, things like fidgeting,

avoiding eye contact, playing with our hair,

doodling even,

even our tone of voice.

And then I look at the things that are impossible for us to control

our under-the-skin responses,

our physiology, our cardiovascular reactivity,

things like blood pressure, heart rate,

these types of things

that we often don't even really realize that we're feeling.

And the way I do this is by having people come into the lab

and interact with each other in a bunch of different settings,

and I have them negotiate with each other,

I have them get acquainted with each other.

And often it's the case that in these interactions,

people are required to give some form of feedback to their partner.

Tell them honestly what they're thinking or feeling,

come in with an offer for a negotiation,

tell them what they could have done better next time.

And I think we all kind of know what it feels like

to be in one of these studies.

You might not know what it would really feel like to be in one of my studies.

There's a lot of equipment involved,

but we plug people up to all of these things

to measure these under-the-skin responses.

We videotape them to capture those behaviors that I just mentioned.

Now, to get us all into this mindset of what it's like to feel awkward,

but maybe potentially a little bit nice,

I want you all to think

about what was the last awkward interaction that you had.

OK, so keep this thought in your mind.

You can think about it for a few moments,

because in a couple minutes,

I'm actually going to randomly call on someone based on your seat

to have you come up

and share your story of what that moment felt like.

So before we do that,

I just want you all to kind of get a sense of the typical pattern that we see

when people are engaging in these interactions.

So we bring them into the lab,

we hook them up to all this equipment

and within moments, within the first 20 seconds,

we start to see those stress responses that I mentioned.

Their heart rate goes up, their blood pressure increases.

It doesn't take much to get people to start to feel anxious.

Next, we see it in those nonverbal behaviors.

They start to fidget,

they avoid eye contact,

they pull their chair a couple inches away

from the person who's sitting next to them,

in an effort just to get a little bit more distance.

One of my favorite findings is in doctor-patient interactions,

uncomfortable doctors,

they look down at the chart more,

or they look more at the computer screen

instead of making eye contact with those patients.

So let's all return to your awkward moment.

Does everyone have an awkward moment in mind or thinking about one?

How many of you have increases in your heart rate,

maybe your palms are sweating?

You can start to feel yourself getting a little tingly

just with the mere thought of being called upon today?

Hey, a few of you.

How many people would actually be excited about that opportunity?

Not -- OK, same people.

(Laughter)

How many of you, if I did call on you, would walk up here,

you would grin through gritted teeth like this

and you would do it even though you secretly hated me the whole time?

A few of you.

Don't worry, I'm not going to actually do this.

This was all just a ruse to teach you a lesson

which is, in uncomfortable social interactions,

we often don't have a social script of what to do.

Instead of telling people what we really think, what we really feel,

we do the nice thing that makes us incredibly uncomfortable.

Now one of my favorite findings illustrating this effect

is in the context of negotiations.

I went to a major firm and I brought people together

who were used to working with one another,

and we had them engage in a negotiation.

And at the end of it,

there was a winner and there was a loser.

So we said to the winner,

you know, this is really a study about feedback.

And what we would like you to do is give some constructive feedback

to the person who just lost.

What are some things that they could do better next time?

What are some potential missteps?

How many of you think that that's what they actually did,

they really followed our instructions?

OK, nobody.

[You] can see where this is going.

What we found is that even when we're talking to someone

who just lost a negotiation to us, we tend to bend over backwards.

We say things like,

"The way you made that really early offer and didn't even ask for a counter,

that was amazing."

Or "It was so great how you didn't even ask me anything about my side,

or what I was willing to kind of, you know,

change on or be flexible on."

People layered on the compliments

to someone who they just beat in a negotiation,

telling them how great they are.

So often these kinds of interactions

that take the form of what I’ll call “anxious niceness,”

they involve a lot of compliments,

telling people what they do well in a very general, non-specific way.

But a lot of my work actually looks

at what's it like to be on the receiving end

of these types of interactions.

How do you feel when you interact with someone over and over again

who's giving off these kinds of brittle smiles?

These are typically the kinds of facial expressions

that we actually see from people, kind of sneering,

a little bit of side eye,

you know, arms crossed, these types of things.

After a lifetime of interacting with someone

who engages in anxious niceness,

what we find is that most people on the receiving end

are racial minorities.

They are disadvantaged group members,

they are the type of people

that we are worried about appearing prejudiced in front of,

and that anxiety is regulated

by being over-the-top nice to these folks.

We also find that these individuals tend to be more synchronized to

and attentive to the how-we-say-it piece

than the what-we-say part.

So in one study, we had Black and white Americans

interact with each other in a cross-race interaction,

and we brought them into the lab

and we measured the physiology of both partners.

What this allowed us to do is capture the degree

to which people stress.

Those under-the-skin responses can actually be caught by their partners.

And what we expected to find

is that the Black participants would become more synchronized,

physiologically, to those whites.

They'd be more attuned to those, kind of, nonverbal signals of anxiety.

And that's exactly what we found.

The more anxious those white participants appeared,

the more they fidgeted, the more they avoided eye contact,

even the higher their cortisol reactivity,

indicating some real deep, kind of, under-the-skin stress response,

the more those Black participants became linked up to them over time.

And I think this finding is a little bit terrifying.

I think it means that we often think of our own stress and our own physiology

as independent of the people we interact with,

but our bodies are not always our own,

our physiology is not always our own.

And if you spend a lifetime interacting with people who are so nice to you,

in an effort to control their anxiety,

you could potentially catch that stress.

It could negatively affect your bodies.

Now often what we find is the type of feedback

that people are actually getting

isn't always super direct.

Sometimes it's a little bit patronizing.

So you could probably see where I'm going with this.

Having over-the-top positive nice feedback can harm your performance,

it can make it very difficult for you to climb up,

difficult to kind of know where you stand, what you should do better,

what you should stop doing,

but can also damage people in ways that we often don't think about.

It can affect their reputations outside of the interaction context.

So imagine the case that you're one of these people

who loves giving this general, nice feedback,

and you have someone who works for you,

and a recruiter calls, maybe a past employee,

a recruiter calls you,

or someone asks you for a letter of recommendation,

the kinds of things you're going to put are going to be like,

"They're are real team player."

"They have great energy at work."

Generic things.

Yes, they're nice, but they are not very telling

about what that person is really like.

And what we find is that the readers of these things, at best,

think to themselves,

"Wow, they must not really know this person at all.

I don't even know what this means."

At worst, they think to themselves,

"Well, they probably have some real opinions.

They're just afraid to share them."

So these kinds of general positive feedback

tend to actually harm people's reputation when they're not backed up with real data.

So I think we have to then think

about what is the solution to this problem.

Is it the case that we should all just be meaner to each other

in an effort to be more direct?

I don't think that's the case at all.

I think there are some things we can do,

and I'm going to highlight three of them,

to improve the degree to which we give clear,

consistent feedback to people,

particularly in the workplace.

So first we need to ask ourselves the question,

how many people are on board with this niceness culture, really?

There's a bit of a plural ignorance that goes on

when we think about how nice we are to people at work.

What I've found is that for every one person

who loves this kind of general, generic, nice feedback,

there's another person who feels like it's lazy,

who feels like it's not helpful.

And I actually learned this lesson the hard way

from one of my students recently.

She was giving a practice talk in my lab,

and she spent weeks and weeks preparing it,

probably harder than anyone else I'd ever seen

on preparing a talk like this.

And then she went and gave it, and she came back and I said,

"How did the talk go? Did it go well?"

She said, "It was terrible. It was horrible.

It was the worst experience."

I said, "Well, what happened?"

And she said, "All I got were a bunch of 'Great jobs,'

‘That was interesting’

and then some clap emojis from the people on Zoom.

Not a single person asked a tough question," she said.

And I had this moment where I realized

that positive feedback can come across as lazy feedback.

It can come across as disengaged feedback.

And so if we want to change this culture,

we actually need to first do a quick pulse

of how many people are actually more interested in doing the tougher,

constructive forms of this type of feedback.

So you might be thinking to yourselves,

"Alright, I might be on board with this idea of tough,

yet honest feedback.

So what should I do?

Should I go to people and say, ’Alright, do you want me to be ... nice

or honest and useful?'"

No, do not do this.

You will, by and large, get a lot of people telling you,

"You know, I actually just want to keep it nice.

That just feels a lot more comfortable for me."

What I learned in my work

is that this process I've been talking about,

about giving anxious, nice feedback,

is just as much about the feedback receiver

as it is about the feedback giver.

People get into a bit of a dance with each other.

I give you nice feedback, you kind of know it's BS,

but you smile and say thank you and then, you know, go on your way.

It takes a lot to break that interpersonal cycle.

And to do that,

we have to think about how we actually want

to frame our feedback to other people.

So instead of asking people,

"Should I be nice or honest and useful?"

What I like to do is ask people,

"Can I give you feedback on a couple dimensions?"

Can we think about feedback as general versus specific?

Another dimension would be,

can we think about things that you're doing well

you should keep doing

versus things that "please stop."

And I'll get in a moment

to how we can actually frame that form of negative feedback.

So I think a lot of us are actually pretty decent

at the positive general feedback, right?

"I love how timely you are."

But what does that mean?

It could mean that you're on time for meetings,

it could mean that you turn your work in on time,

it could mean it in a very global way of,

"You sure managed to do a lot in five years."

Or it could mean something so specific,

like, “It’s so helpful that you send in your reports by 5 pm,”

but I don't really want to comment

on all those other kinds of forms of being timely.

And when we do the kind of general feedback that is negative,

the "please stop," we need it to be specific.

So kind of, one of the more common forms of general negative feedback people get

is "You don't take enough initiative here."

How many of you have ever been told, “Please take some more initiative”?

I think most of us at some point in our lives have experienced this.

What does that mean?

Does it mean I should speak up more in meetings?

Does it mean I should be quicker on my email?

Does it mean I should do your job without complaining about doing your job,

which is often what it actually means?

We have to break it down into the specifics,

and that could include things like,

"Don't wait for Tom to ask if you found any errors

before you say, 'Tom, I found some errors.'"

Now an important piece here is what people should do instead.

Often if we get to the stage

where we're comfortable enough telling people,

“I have a specific, critical, negative thing I want to tell you,” --

“Please stop interrupting people,”

you know, not telling Tom about the errors,

showing up five minutes late with coffee

so I know what you were doing during those five minutes --

we don’t tend to replace them with anything,

but we know from our personal lives that replacing negative critical,

"please stop" behaviors is absolutely essential.

So I want to take you out of the workplace for a moment.

And we're going to go to the bedroom.

Yes, I said we're going to the bedroom.

So imagine it's the case that you just had sex with someone for the first time.

OK, we're all there, we've done a lot of mentalizing today.

And you turn to the person and you say,

"Those last three things you just did back there,

no good.

They're all bad.

Didn't like any of them."

They're going to look at you in shock and surprise and say,

"Well, what should I do instead," right?

And until we're ready to actually fire the person

or kick them out of bed

or fire them from our team,

we have to focus on those replacement behaviors,

what they should be doing instead.

And I think as we think through kind of, scaling this type of feedback,

it can be very scary to make these types of change.

What I found is that cultures of anxious, nice feedback are ingrained.

They're systemic,

they are deeply embedded in a community,

in the workplace, in a team,

even in dyadic interpersonal relationships.

And so to break that cycle, you have to start small,

you need to start neutral.

And by neutral I mean things

that are not scary to hear critical feedback on.

You might be thinking to yourself,

what's some neutral feedback that you could give me

at the end of my talk?

How about "I would switch the order of the points on your talk"

or "I would change the font."

These types of feedback are specific, and so they're useful,

but they're not scary to deliver

and they're not actually scary to receive.

And what we find is that when people take these baby steps

to work up to this type of feedback,

they are much less anxious in the delivery.

So those behaviors I opened with of people fidgeting,

engaging in what we call a brittle smile,

avoiding eye contact,

they actually go down

and so do those stress responses

when you know and you're anticipating giving this kind of feedback

that isn't going to sting.

And I think as you work through this,

I don't want to be a proponent of killing niceness entirely.

I think it's actually really important

to put niceness in the delivery of your feedback,

and that can come across in a bunch of different ways.

It can come across as by showing you're engaged, you listened.

You know what the person's actually trying to do,

you're aligned with their goals.

The first time I actually got this type of critical nice feedback

was after a talk I gave

and the person came up to me and she said,

"Can I give you some feedback?"

And immediately my heart started pounding.

I'm like, oh great, here we go.

No one likes hearing, "Can I give you some feedback?"

And she opened with three things that she thought I did well.

"I really liked points one, two and three you made in that talk.

They really resonated with me.

But you have this habit when you're concentrating

of looking up and to the right,

and so you spent half the talk kind of staring at the ceiling

or the exit sign in this case,

instead of making eye contact with the audience.

And it's distracting and it creates a distance."

So I thought a little bit about it

with my eyes probably rolled up inside my head,

and I thought, OK, I can actually make that change.

It doesn't feel super scary.

And so I did.

I made that change, and I thought about how she framed that feedback

through this culture of niceness.

So I want to wish you all luck

on your journey of trying to change culture of feedback,

killing anxious niceness,

and hopefully have some concrete steps to help you move forward.

Thank you.

(Applause)