The problem with people-pleasers

We are conditioned to keep other people happy almost from birth. “Be nice,” say parents; “play nicely,” say teachers…and this continues into the workplace where people are praised for being easy to work with.

The trouble is, if “niceness” becomes your top priority, you can find yourself taking responsibility for everyone else’s feelings except your own. In other words, you become a “people-pleaser”. And the PR and comms industry has more than its fair share of them!

The cost to the individual can be huge: anxiety, exhaustion, overwhelm, burnout.

over-servicing becomes an issue leading to unsustainable workloads and a culture where burnout is the normColleagues may lose development opportunities, get mixed messages in terms of feedback and feel they’re not trusted.

For the organisation, over-servicing becomes an issue leading to unsustainable workloads and a culture where burnout is the norm.

In other words, people-pleasing isn’t great for anyone!

It was so good to discuss this issue with Amelia Bullock Muir on a Big Fish Training “lunch and learn” session last week. She was generous with her advice and we are absolutely on the same page!

The power of the pause

Are you in the habit of saying an immediate “yes” to anything that’s asked of you? If so, you may have people-pleasing tendencies! (A lot of us do in PR and comms.)

Next time, instead of saying yes on autopilot, try the process pause.

This might be a literal pause, where you stop, breathe and check in with yourself before responding to a new request.

Or it might take the form of a delaying phrase, where you say: “Can I think about that, check my calendar and get back to you tomorrow?”

Either way, it takes the heat out of the request and gives you time to think objectively about whether you actually can fit in that extra thing without remaining at your desk until 9pm every day this week or dropping a ball elsewhere. Then you can discuss priorities.

Are you practising the art of negotiation?

I don’t mean in a sales environment (though this is a useful skill that we can teach here at Big Fish Training!) I mean in your everyday working life.

PR and comms is a busy environment and we’re conditioned to be agreeable to additional requests from stakeholders, clients, team-mates and managers. No one wants to be labelled “the difficult one”.

But we can end up saying “yes” to absolutely everything. Cue late nights, overwhelm and burnout.

So learn to negotiate your terms with the “yes…if…” technique:

Timing

“Yes, I'd love to help with this, as long as it's okay for me to get it to you by Friday instead of Wednesday.”

Scope

“Yes, I can give you a top-line report, but I won't have time for detailed analysis today.

Replacement

“Yes, I can do this instead of the other task you've asked me to do, but I won't be able to do both today.”

Process

“Yes, I can do it this time but, going forward, I'd like to talk about how we approach these situations in a different way.”

This technique is still collaborative and helpful but should help protect your time (and your sanity!)

Ask like you mean it

“Erm…would you mind awfully…I mean…if you have time…if it’s not too much…don’t worry if you can’t…so sorry to ask but…do you think you could look at this for me?”

If you hate asking people for help, this may sound familiar!

But, by asking in this way, you’re handing over a number of escape routes to the person you need help from and completely undermining the importance of your request.

Try these phrases next time you want some help:

“I need you to…”

“I’d like you to…”

“Please can you…”

“I need your support with…”

These phrases might sound a bit direct to your own ears to start with but remember clarity is important! They can be said with kindness and you will find them surprisingly effective.

You can watch a replay in full of our “lunch and learn” session recently aiming at banishing “people-pleasing” behaviour in PR here.