Recently, we had a company-wide town hall webcast. It was a
video call from headquarters. We noticed that each of the executive speakers
had a popular song playing as they approached the stand. So, in our team’s follow-up
conference call, we indulged in choosing our own “walk-up songs” for when we’re
called up to speak. I blurted out “You’ve Got a Friend in
Me,” from the Toy Story movies. After the initial laughter, my colleagues
seemed to agree that it was a suitable song for me. “Great,” I thought sarcastically.
“I just revealed myself as being NICE.” (Though that’s no big revelation.)
But niceness is not a weakness. It’s confident, supportive,
civil, and persuasive. It’s also pleasant and friendly. I made informal
observations of my educator/instructional designer colleagues. Along with their
high organization and creativity traits, a lot of them have
mentoring/shepherding traits. I suppose
it helps to be nice when you’re teaching something. (I know that’s not a hard
and fast rule. Some content demands a disciplined mind for it to be learned.) Being
nice doesn’t exclude me from my career crowd, though. It seems to go with the
territory.
So, don’t shy away from being nice. It’s a superpower. And,
by the way, you’ve got a friend in me.
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