[Music]
[Applause]
who do you want to be it’s a simple
question and whether you know it or not
you’re answering it every day through
your actions this one question will
define your professional success more
than any other because how you show up
in treat people means everything either
you lift people up by respecting them
making them feel valued appreciated and
heard or you hold people down by making
them feel small insulted disregarded or
excluded and who you choose to be means
everything I study the effects of
incivility on people
what is incivility it’s disrespect or
rudeness it includes a lot of different
behaviors from mocking or belittling
someone to teasing people in ways that
sting to telling offensive jokes to
texting and meetings and what’s uncivil
to one person may be absolutely fine to
another take texting while someone’s
speaking to you some of us may find it
rude others may think it’s absolutely
civil so it really depends it’s all in
the eyes of the beholder
and whether that person felt
disrespected we may not mean to make
someone feel that way but when we do it
has consequences over 22 years ago I
vividly recall walking into the stuffy
hospital room it was heartbreaking to
see my dad the strong athletic energetic
guy lying in the bed with electrodes
strapped to his bare chest what put him
there
was work-related stress for over a
decade he suffered an uncivil boss and
for me I thought he was just an outlier
at that time but just a couple years
later I witnessed and experienced a lot
of incivility
in my first job out of college I spent a
year going to work every day and hearing
things from co-workers like are you an
idiot
that’s not how it’s done and if I wanted
your opinion I’d ask so I did the
natural thing I quit and I went back to
grad school to study the effects of this
and there I met Christine Pearson and
she had a theory that small on civil
actions can lead to much bigger problems
like aggression and violence
we believe that incivility affected
performance in the bottom line so we
launched a study and what we found was I
openin we sent a survey to Business
School alumni working in all different
organizations and we asked them to write
a few sentences about one experience
where they were treated rudely
disrespectfully and sensitively and to
answer questions about how they reacted
one person told us about a boss that
made insulting statements like that’s
kindergarteners work and another tore up
someone’s work in front of the entire
team and what we found is that
incivility made people less motivated
66% cut back work efforts 80% lost time
worrying about what happened and 12%
left their jobs and after we published
these results two things happen one we
got calls from organizations Cisco read
about these numbers took just a few of
these an estimated conservatively
incivility was costing them 12 million
dollars a year the second thing that
happened was that we heard from others
in our academic field who said well
people are reporting this but how can
you really show it does peoples
performance really suffer I was curious
about that too with the MIR eras I
compared those that experienced
incivility to those that didn’t
experience incivility and what we found
is that those that experienced
incivility do actually function much
worse
okay you may say this makes sense after
all it’s natural that their performance
suffers but what about if you’re not the
one who experiences it what if you just
see or hear it you’re a witness we
wondered if it affected witnesses too so
we conducted studies where five
participants would witness an experiment
or act rudely who someone who arrived
late to the study the experimenter said
what is it with you you arrive late
you’re irresponsible look at you how do
you expect to hold a job in the real
world and in another study in a small
group we tested the effects of a peer
insulting a group member now what we
found was really interesting because
witnesses performance decreased – and
not just marginally quite significantly
incivility is a bug it’s contagious and
we become carriers of it just by being
around it and this isn’t confined to the
workplace we can catch this virus
anywhere at home online in schools and
in our communities it affects our
emotions our motivation our performance
and how we treat others it even affects
our attention and could take some of our
brain power and this happens not only if
we experience incivility or we witness
it it can happen even if we just see or
read rude words let me give you an
example of what I mean to test this we
gave people combinations of words to use
to make a sentence but we were very
sneaky half the participants got a list
with 15 words used to trigger rudeness
and politely interrupt obnoxious bother
half the participants received a list of
words with none of these rude triggers
and what we found was really surprising
because the people who got the rude
words were 5 times more likely to miss
information right in front of them on
the computer screen
and as week we continued this research
what we found is that those that read
the rude words took longer to make
decisions to record their decisions and
they made significantly more errors this
can be a big deal especially when it
comes to life-and-death situations Steve
a physician told me about a doctor that
he worked with who was never very
respectful
especially to junior staff and nurses
but Steve told me about this one
particular interaction where this doctor
shouted at a medical team right after
the interaction the team gave the wrong
dosage of medication to their patient
Steve said the information was right
there on the chart but somehow everyone
on the team missed it he said they
lacked the attention or awareness to
take it into account
simple mistake right will that patient
died
researchers in Israel have actually
shown that medical teams exposed to
rudeness perform worse not only in all
their Diagnostics but in all the
procedures they did this was mainly
because the team’s exposed to rudeness
didn’t share information as readily and
they stopped seeking help from their
teammates and I see this not only in
medicine but in all industries so if
incivility has such a huge cost why do
we still see so much of it
I was curious so we surveyed people
about this too the number one reason is
stress people feel overwhelmed the other
reason that people are not more civil is
because they’re skeptical and even
concerned about being civil or appearing
nice they believe they’ll appear less
leader like they wonder do nice guys
finish last or in other words do jerks
get ahead it’s easy to think so
especially when we see a few prominent
examples that dominate the conversation
well turns out in the long run they
don’t there’s really rich research on
this by Morgan McCall and Michael
Lombardo where
anywhere at the center for creative
leadership and they found the number one
reason tied to executive failure was an
insensitive abrasive or bullying style
there will always be some outliers that
succeed despite their incivility sooner
or later though most uncivil people
sabotage their success for example with
uncivil executives it comes back to hurt
them when they’re in a place of weakness
or they need something people won’t have
their backs but what about nice guys
does civility pay yes it does and being
civil doesn’t just mean that you’re not
a jerk
not holding someone down isn’t the same
as lifting them up being truly civil
means doing the small things like
smiling and saying hello in the hallway
listening fully when someone’s speaking
to you now you can have strong opinions
disagree have conflict or give negative
feedback civilly with respect some
people call it radical candor where you
care personally but you challenge
directly so yes
civility pays in a biotechnology firm
colleagues and I found that those that
were seen as civil were twice as likely
to be viewed as leaders and they perform
significantly better
why does civility pay because people see
you is an important and a powerful
unique combination of two key
characteristics warm and competent
friendly and smart in other words being
civil isn’t just about motivating others
it’s about you if you’re civil you’re
more likely to be seen as a leader
you’ll perform better and you’re seen as
warm and competent but there’s an even
bigger story about how civility pays and
it ties to one of the most important
questions around leadership what do
people want most from their leaders we
took data from over 20,000 employees
around the world and we found the answer
was simple
respect being treated with respect was
more important than recognition and
appreciation useful feedback even
opportunities for learning those that
felt respected were healthier more
focused more likely to stay with their
organization and far more engaged so
where do you start
how can you lift people up and make
people feel respected well the nice
thing is it doesn’t require a huge shift
small things can make a big difference
I found that thanking people sharing
credit listening attentively humbly
asking questions acknowledging others
and smiling has an impact
Patrick Quinlan former CEO of Aashna
Healthcare told me about the effects of
their 10:5 way where if you’re within 10
feet of someone you make eye contact and
smile and if you’re within 5 feet you
say hello he explained that civility
spread patient satisfaction scores rose
as did patient referrals civility and
respect can be used to boost an
organization’s performance when my
friend Doug Conant took over a CEO of
Campbell Soup Company in 2001 the
company’s market share had just dropped
in half sales were declining lots of
people had just been laid off a Gallup
manager said it was the least engaged
organization that they had surveyed and
as Doug drove up to work his first day
he noticed that the headquarters was
surrounded by barbed wire fence there
were guard towers in the parking lot he
said it looked like a minimum security
prison it felt toxic within five years
Doug had turned things around and within
nine years they were setting all-time
performance records and racking up
awards including best place to work how
did he do it on day one Doug told
employees that he was going to have high
standards for performance
but they were gonna do it with civility
he walked the talk and he expected as
leaders to for Doug it all came down to
being tough minded on standards and
tender-hearted with people and for him
he said it was all about these touch
points or these daily interactions he
had with employees whether in the
hallway in the cafeteria or in meetings
and if he handled each touch point well
he’d make employees feel valued another
way that Doug made employees feel valued
and showed them that he was paying
attention is that he hand wrote over
30,000 thank-you notes two employees and
this set an example for other leaders
leaders have about 400 of these touch
points a day most don’t take long less
than two minutes each the key is to be
agile and mindful in each of these
moments civility lifts people will get
people to give more and function at
their best if we’re civil incivility
chips away at people and their
performance it robs people of their
potential even if they’re just working
around it what I know from my research
is that when we have more civil
environments were more productive
creative helpful happy and healthy we
can do better each one of us can be more
mindful and can take actions to lift
others up around us at work at home
online in schools and in our communities
in every interaction think who do you
want to be let’s put an end to the
incivility bug and start spreading
civility after all it pays thank you
you
[Applause]
who do you want to be it’s a simple
question and whether you know it or not
you’re answering it every day through
your actions this one question will
define your professional success more
than any other because how you show up
in treat people means everything either
you lift people up by respecting them
making them feel valued appreciated and
heard or you hold people down by making
them feel small insulted disregarded or
excluded and who you choose to be means
everything I study the effects of
incivility on people
what is incivility it’s disrespect or
rudeness it includes a lot of different
behaviors from mocking or belittling
someone to teasing people in ways that
sting to telling offensive jokes to
texting and meetings and what’s uncivil
to one person may be absolutely fine to
another take texting while someone’s
speaking to you some of us may find it
rude others may think it’s absolutely
civil so it really depends it’s all in
the eyes of the beholder
and whether that person felt
disrespected we may not mean to make
someone feel that way but when we do it
has consequences over 22 years ago I
vividly recall walking into the stuffy
hospital room it was heartbreaking to
see my dad the strong athletic energetic
guy lying in the bed with electrodes
strapped to his bare chest what put him
there
was work-related stress for over a
decade he suffered an uncivil boss and
for me I thought he was just an outlier
at that time but just a couple years
later I witnessed and experienced a lot
of incivility
in my first job out of college I spent a
year going to work every day and hearing
things from co-workers like are you an
idiot
that’s not how it’s done and if I wanted
your opinion I’d ask so I did the
natural thing I quit and I went back to
grad school to study the effects of this
and there I met Christine Pearson and
she had a theory that small on civil
actions can lead to much bigger problems
like aggression and violence
we believe that incivility affected
performance in the bottom line so we
launched a study and what we found was I
openin we sent a survey to Business
School alumni working in all different
organizations and we asked them to write
a few sentences about one experience
where they were treated rudely
disrespectfully and sensitively and to
answer questions about how they reacted
one person told us about a boss that
made insulting statements like that’s
kindergarteners work and another tore up
someone’s work in front of the entire
team and what we found is that
incivility made people less motivated
66% cut back work efforts 80% lost time
worrying about what happened and 12%
left their jobs and after we published
these results two things happen one we
got calls from organizations Cisco read
about these numbers took just a few of
these an estimated conservatively
incivility was costing them 12 million
dollars a year the second thing that
happened was that we heard from others
in our academic field who said well
people are reporting this but how can
you really show it does peoples
performance really suffer I was curious
about that too with the MIR eras I
compared those that experienced
incivility to those that didn’t
experience incivility and what we found
is that those that experienced
incivility do actually function much
worse
okay you may say this makes sense after
all it’s natural that their performance
suffers but what about if you’re not the
one who experiences it what if you just
see or hear it you’re a witness we
wondered if it affected witnesses too so
we conducted studies where five
participants would witness an experiment
or act rudely who someone who arrived
late to the study the experimenter said
what is it with you you arrive late
you’re irresponsible look at you how do
you expect to hold a job in the real
world and in another study in a small
group we tested the effects of a peer
insulting a group member now what we
found was really interesting because
witnesses performance decreased – and
not just marginally quite significantly
incivility is a bug it’s contagious and
we become carriers of it just by being
around it and this isn’t confined to the
workplace we can catch this virus
anywhere at home online in schools and
in our communities it affects our
emotions our motivation our performance
and how we treat others it even affects
our attention and could take some of our
brain power and this happens not only if
we experience incivility or we witness
it it can happen even if we just see or
read rude words let me give you an
example of what I mean to test this we
gave people combinations of words to use
to make a sentence but we were very
sneaky half the participants got a list
with 15 words used to trigger rudeness
and politely interrupt obnoxious bother
half the participants received a list of
words with none of these rude triggers
and what we found was really surprising
because the people who got the rude
words were 5 times more likely to miss
information right in front of them on
the computer screen
and as week we continued this research
what we found is that those that read
the rude words took longer to make
decisions to record their decisions and
they made significantly more errors this
can be a big deal especially when it
comes to life-and-death situations Steve
a physician told me about a doctor that
he worked with who was never very
respectful
especially to junior staff and nurses
but Steve told me about this one
particular interaction where this doctor
shouted at a medical team right after
the interaction the team gave the wrong
dosage of medication to their patient
Steve said the information was right
there on the chart but somehow everyone
on the team missed it he said they
lacked the attention or awareness to
take it into account
simple mistake right will that patient
died
researchers in Israel have actually
shown that medical teams exposed to
rudeness perform worse not only in all
their Diagnostics but in all the
procedures they did this was mainly
because the team’s exposed to rudeness
didn’t share information as readily and
they stopped seeking help from their
teammates and I see this not only in
medicine but in all industries so if
incivility has such a huge cost why do
we still see so much of it
I was curious so we surveyed people
about this too the number one reason is
stress people feel overwhelmed the other
reason that people are not more civil is
because they’re skeptical and even
concerned about being civil or appearing
nice they believe they’ll appear less
leader like they wonder do nice guys
finish last or in other words do jerks
get ahead it’s easy to think so
especially when we see a few prominent
examples that dominate the conversation
well turns out in the long run they
don’t there’s really rich research on
this by Morgan McCall and Michael
Lombardo where
anywhere at the center for creative
leadership and they found the number one
reason tied to executive failure was an
insensitive abrasive or bullying style
there will always be some outliers that
succeed despite their incivility sooner
or later though most uncivil people
sabotage their success for example with
uncivil executives it comes back to hurt
them when they’re in a place of weakness
or they need something people won’t have
their backs but what about nice guys
does civility pay yes it does and being
civil doesn’t just mean that you’re not
a jerk
not holding someone down isn’t the same
as lifting them up being truly civil
means doing the small things like
smiling and saying hello in the hallway
listening fully when someone’s speaking
to you now you can have strong opinions
disagree have conflict or give negative
feedback civilly with respect some
people call it radical candor where you
care personally but you challenge
directly so yes
civility pays in a biotechnology firm
colleagues and I found that those that
were seen as civil were twice as likely
to be viewed as leaders and they perform
significantly better
why does civility pay because people see
you is an important and a powerful
unique combination of two key
characteristics warm and competent
friendly and smart in other words being
civil isn’t just about motivating others
it’s about you if you’re civil you’re
more likely to be seen as a leader
you’ll perform better and you’re seen as
warm and competent but there’s an even
bigger story about how civility pays and
it ties to one of the most important
questions around leadership what do
people want most from their leaders we
took data from over 20,000 employees
around the world and we found the answer
was simple
respect being treated with respect was
more important than recognition and
appreciation useful feedback even
opportunities for learning those that
felt respected were healthier more
focused more likely to stay with their
organization and far more engaged so
where do you start
how can you lift people up and make
people feel respected well the nice
thing is it doesn’t require a huge shift
small things can make a big difference
I found that thanking people sharing
credit listening attentively humbly
asking questions acknowledging others
and smiling has an impact
Patrick Quinlan former CEO of Aashna
Healthcare told me about the effects of
their 10:5 way where if you’re within 10
feet of someone you make eye contact and
smile and if you’re within 5 feet you
say hello he explained that civility
spread patient satisfaction scores rose
as did patient referrals civility and
respect can be used to boost an
organization’s performance when my
friend Doug Conant took over a CEO of
Campbell Soup Company in 2001 the
company’s market share had just dropped
in half sales were declining lots of
people had just been laid off a Gallup
manager said it was the least engaged
organization that they had surveyed and
as Doug drove up to work his first day
he noticed that the headquarters was
surrounded by barbed wire fence there
were guard towers in the parking lot he
said it looked like a minimum security
prison it felt toxic within five years
Doug had turned things around and within
nine years they were setting all-time
performance records and racking up
awards including best place to work how
did he do it on day one Doug told
employees that he was going to have high
standards for performance
but they were gonna do it with civility
he walked the talk and he expected as
leaders to for Doug it all came down to
being tough minded on standards and
tender-hearted with people and for him
he said it was all about these touch
points or these daily interactions he
had with employees whether in the
hallway in the cafeteria or in meetings
and if he handled each touch point well
he’d make employees feel valued another
way that Doug made employees feel valued
and showed them that he was paying
attention is that he hand wrote over
30,000 thank-you notes two employees and
this set an example for other leaders
leaders have about 400 of these touch
points a day most don’t take long less
than two minutes each the key is to be
agile and mindful in each of these
moments civility lifts people will get
people to give more and function at
their best if we’re civil incivility
chips away at people and their
performance it robs people of their
potential even if they’re just working
around it what I know from my research
is that when we have more civil
environments were more productive
creative helpful happy and healthy we
can do better each one of us can be more
mindful and can take actions to lift
others up around us at work at home
online in schools and in our communities
in every interaction think who do you
want to be let’s put an end to the
incivility bug and start spreading
civility after all it pays thank you
you
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