Toxic positivity seems to be a major method of communication for human resources.
Toxic positivity does more harm than good
191–200 of 296 posts
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#192I've felt a lot of "false" positivity espoused by project managers, especially those in charge of agile ceremonies. Examples: "I'm really {proud,impressed} of all of you for your output this sprint", "You guys are {killing,crushing,owning} it", "You all should be very proud of what you guys did", etc. These aren't given after periods of crunch time, they're literally every week to the point where it feels so contrive…
I like my feedback in cash, if you like my work give me more money, I seem to be in the minority though.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#193As a manager what every report wants is to be genuinely listened to by their manager. If you make the effort to really listen to what your report has to say you don’t need to worry about praise or other feedback.
The downside is real listening is incredibly time consuming - I struggle to get under 60 min per person per day (not all at once of course) without compromising its effectiveness.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends. Your output may feel great to someone else, but you may not feel excited about it personally. (and there may be no conflict, or fakery of praise in it) Perhaps based on how perfectionist you are, or based on what you like about the work. You might be excited/motivated by different aspects of your work than your manager. To me it would come down to whether I think other person is praising my work just to get…
Perhaps it would be better to express a genuine feeling instead. Praise implies being in a position to praise at all. Having some authority or mastery with regard to what is praised. Often enough, I am that authority. I don’t expect praise from my clients. I’m getting payed precisely because they lack the mastery I offer. Instead I would be happy to hear about their true feelings. Stories of gratitude, or relief, or…
Yes, I understand. But a lot of the time people express feelings indirectly, and it's pointless to try to change everyone's communication style. So people sometimes use praise if they're happy about something, or whatever, and I interpret that in a way that suits my well being.
It's just part of the communication style of someone, or even part of a culture of a country. If it bothers me, and it is the relationship I care about or looks to be long term, I may ask the person to communicate differently with me.
But most of the time I get praise from random people on the internet, and I just interpret it that they are grateful for my contributions, regardless of what they say.
Sometimes they want something from me, and are probably not comfortable with just asking for it, so they pad the communication with some praise about the software or me. Some state that they're uncomfortable asking for help more directly, some just add praise at the beginning/end of each reply. (which gets kinda strange after 3-4 interactions :))
It's nice if someone communicates more directly, but I can try to understand the other people, too, regardless of communication style.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it would be better to express a genuine feeling instead. Praise implies being in a position to praise at all. Having some authority or mastery with regard to what is praised. Often enough, I am that authority. I don’t expect praise from my clients. I’m getting payed precisely because they lack the mastery I offer. Instead I would be happy to hear about their true feelings. Stories of gratitude, or relief, or…
Yes, I understand. But a lot of the time people express feelings indirectly, and it's pointless to try to change everyone's communication style. So people sometimes use praise if they're happy about something, or whatever, and I interpret that in a way that suits my well being. It's just part of the communication style of someone, or even part of a culture of a country. If it bothers me, and it is the relationship I…
"Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept" ;)
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#196The article is mentioning Instagram as an amplifier of this need to fake being happy. But I think Facebook is responsible for it as well. I was once talking to a colleague who was showing me some old vacation pictures. Some tropical area. I commented that they were looking amazing. He said that actually there was a pile of garbage next to them, but they only put the good looking photos on Facebook. Everybody wants to…
Not to downplay the mental harm discussed in the article, but the more mundane issue you touch on here is what gets to me. With this constant demonstration of happiness / positivity, it's extremely difficult to get a real, honest read on something. Not everything you ate was incredible, not everywhere you went was perfect. In fact, 50% of them were below average! I wish more people would quit performing and give the…
its the same in small teams at work.
having worked in a small, close knit team which was in constant discussion and "conflict" with each other because people in the team where very passionate about the work.
its far note liberating to a have work environment where everyone can critique freely instead of taking up appearances just to be "nice".
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#197Prime example is the current Cosmo row about putting obese models on cover ("This is healthy") while Covid is rampaging in the US and killing obese people https://www.rt.com/news/511466-cosmo-fat-healthy-covid-cover...
It's funny that people got so mad about that cover because the article within is about how to be positive when going to the gym and doing the exercise that you're able to do. Not going "well I'm so fat already, hope is lost" For all the fat hate, there are also the people who genuinely think that being obese is healthy. What better way to get through to those people than to trojan horse them with that controversial c…
If it said "Smoking is Healthy" they would have been sued to hell, and obesity cuts more years of your lifespan than smoking.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So "we need to work harder" for behind plan That will just get me angry. If you screw up your commitments that’s on you. Own up to it and talk to your stakeholders. Don’t make me work harder for your mistakes.
So you can never make mistakes in your commitments?
I do. Sometimes I work harder to compensate, some times I apologize. But then it’s my mistake so I can negotiate with myself.
Sometimes working harder is warranted. Some salesperson screwed up, and it’s not really possible to reneg the multi million dollar contract. “I’m sorry guys, what can we do?”
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#199Something that I realized is, negative thoughts and emotions are normal and part of life. It's the counterproductive or hurtful behaviors we may engage in, as a reaction to the negative thoughts or emotions, that we can try to avoid. Feeling bad about having negative thoughts or emotions and being afraid to express them, only makes it more likely we'll engage in counterproductive coping behaviors.
this raises a good point.
being negative is almost always culturally seen as a bad thing, especially in the US, while in would argue hiding your negativity is far worse in the long run because it occludes your state of mind to your peers.
having moments when life just truly sucks is absolutely normal, but expressing it happens is not.
Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good
#200No it doesn't.