BETWEEN SESSIONS – Nice doesn’t just happen

Between sessions is when Dr Audrey reflects on what has been going on during the week –  and this week it’s about how to keep things “NICE”…what I mean by that is, sometimes, when things feel really great to be a part of, we don’t always think about who made it that way…and without appreciation, recognition or support, some of those things might just slip away!

About the Show

Each Thursday at 4pm, we broadcast on LinkedIn and YouTube, with the podcast released on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more. 

Then every Friday at 8am, you’ll also receive a bonus podcast episode (like this one) - a carefully selected recent conversation offering practical insight and timeless support.

Wherever you listen, you’re invited to pause, reflect, and reconnect: 

PODCAST: https://mentalhealthmatters.buzzsprout.com

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5dbYRwciNQ3c2hZwpsfxnNIvpijH4S2b 

Today's show is hosted by

Dr Audrey Tang www.draudreyt.com  @draudreyt

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello and welcome to Mental Health Matters. This is the Between Sessions podcast where I reflect on what's been going on during the week. Nice doesn't just happen. So how do you keep it that way? Let's put this out there. For every positive experience, any place, any time, someone or something has made it that way. And if that someone or something remains unrecognized, unloved, unappreciated, it is going to burn out or run out. Nice doesn't just happen. People or processes make it happen. A pleasant environment has been created by a person or an organization, or in the best cases, a whole system which celebrates the beauty of the organization and the person that you are interacting with. But the glaring hole I found in all my work is that too often an individual creates the positive, the organization sees it but doesn't quite understand it, and then they try to monetize it or demand it when actually all they need to do is offer a little bit of appreciation and support. And if you take this onto an individual level, who wouldn't feel put out if you've put time and effort into something or someone only to get a cursory, oh cool, if that, as if the whole project was easy. So with little thanks for the effort, why bother? Nice runs out. Nice costs. It may not, although it sometimes does, cost financially, because for someone to be generous to you, they've chosen not to be generous to themselves, and that works at every level of financial wealth. It costs emotionally. For someone to spend time and effort on you, it is time and effort not spent on themselves. It costs physically, as often something in the environment needs to change. And yes, the outcome may be beautiful, and yes, often the person or people who do it love it. And this is not going to go into people pleasing or overgiving, but always giving is a contributing factor to burnout. And just at the very surface of this, a simple acknowledgement or thanks should be given. Gratitude and reciprocity is part of maintaining nice. I can put this into the work context when it comes to invisible work. This is often the bane of the IT world. They've come to fix a problem, and whilst they're there, someone else says, Could you just and often in organizations there's a system of logging. But if they're a mate and they're right there, who wouldn't? And the team member themselves feels the emotional pull of exactly those reasons. But the consequence is the work is done, it's not logged, you function well, and probably faster than putting in the request in the first place. But that person, they don't know where their time has gone, and neither does the mechanism for logging KPIs. They work harder. Nice burns out. Nice is also often perceived as the mountaintop, not the climb. And this is an even more nuanced one. When someone works hard and then brings others into their orbit, it's really easy to take that space for granted. Oh, this business class flight is so nice, rather than thinking, whose work got me here? If it's your own, have at it, you've earned it. But even for the most privileged, opportunities don't always translate into outcomes unless you work at them. And the danger of just seeing the nice at the top is entitlement. And that, if you burn out or the person runs out who brought you there, means you're going to lose the advantage you had in being there in the first place. If we mistake gaining access because of someone else's work for entitlement, and we ourselves don't do the work to stay there or keep it nice, the burden of maintaining nice becomes unsustainable for the one who carried it in the first place. And nice stops. Being nice sustains nice, and there is a caveat to that. In my thesis, the solution I thought was simple. If an organization supported the team worker in the creation of the nice experience of the customer, it would create a virtuous cycle rather than the more common, vicious cycle of the management saying, oh, that's nice, let's demand more, and the staff burning out. Another element to this was the management and staff working as a team, sometimes having to put the customer or client in their place rather than the manager letting the team member deal with the problem that wasn't originally of their making and that they might have little authority to solve. But it's worth noting, whilst the customer or client may be grateful, the irony is that sometimes keeps the staff member in a toxic system longer than it's healthy because they are getting praise and they can see their work as being appreciated. So let's bring it back. Nice often starts with a person, but it is maintained by the system. In the healthiest organizations and also friendships and personal relationships, nice or nicer is created by an individual but needs to be maintained by the collective. And whether that's through gratitude or reciprocity, which is better than gratitude, or embedding it within the system or environment and making sure it is remunerated fairly, making sure it is appreciated in the way that becomes sustainable. At an individual level, positive change can happen, but it's harder to maintain. When people work together in contributing the invisible things, time, efforts, recognition, reciprocity, sometimes even finances. Nice can last.