– This is the nicest project team I worked with, my fellow colleague shared enthusiastically.

– What makes it ‘nice”? my curiosity jumped in.

– We think alike, act alike, talk about the same…

I noticed that they even wear similar glasses frames. Black and bold. It’s just the fashion trend, perhaps.

Research shows that nice teams give you the feeling of daily comfort, cosiness even. And less-nice teams are like a good hot bitter -sweet coffee, with a long-lasting after taste. These teams however tend to be more productive, focused, diverse, authentic, out-spoken and result-driven. They are exactly the type needed to deliver projects on time, within budget and with lasting effects. The culture of these teams is of respectful openness and unbiased information sharing of any kind. They are truthful to themselves and the project’s sponsor/client.

I wondered what is behind, what makes them the way they are. The article by Jonah Sachs “At work a respectful culture is better than a nice one” offered insights and answers to my questions.

As a project manager, one has to ask him/herself: do I want it nice or truthful? Do I create and maintain a culture of safe sharing of information? Do I tune in my emotional intelligence to react to all kind of information coming from all members of the team? Do I have a ‘confirmation bias”? What effects these have on the project team members?

As Jonah Sachs puts it: “Those further from the centers of power risk more and have little to gain in terms of increasing group harmony by speaking up. So they don’t. To make matters worse, women, more than men, have been raised with cultural expectations that they will be always be nice, further silencing important but perhaps inconvenient contributions they might make. Nice workplaces thus quickly become tyrannies of conformity and inequality. ” more on https://work.qz.com/1260571/at-work-a-respectful-culture-is-better-than-a-nice-one/

Project managers have the choice of leading by example and setting the tone of the team work. With the right skills and commitment, respect will ensue.