Kim Scott

Primarily it's a problem because it hurts people.

But it's also a problem because it's inefficient.

If I act like a total jerk to you, then you're likely to go into fight or flight mode in your brain and then you literally cannot hear what I'm saying.

So I'm just wasting my breath.

And then there's a third more subtle problem with obnoxious aggression.

I don't know about you, but for me, when I realize I've acted like a jerk, it is not my instinct to go the right way on care personally.

Instead, it's my instinct to go the wrong way on challenge directly.

Oh, it's no big deal, it doesn't really matter.

And then I wind up in the worst place of all, manipulative insincerity.

If obnoxious aggression is front-stabbing, manipulative insincerity is back-stabbing.

It's passive-aggressive behavior.

This is where all the most toxic kinds of workplace behavior, or frankly, behavior at home, in any relationship that you have in any part of your life creep in.

And it is fun to tell stories about obnoxious aggression and manipulative insincerity, because this is where the drama is.

However, the vast majority of us make the vast majority of our mistakes in this last quadrant, where we do remember to show that we care personally, because you know what?

Most people are actually pretty nice people.

So we do remember to show that we care personally, but we're so worried about not hurting someone's feelings or not offending someone that we fail to tell them something they'd be better off knowing in the long run.

And this is what I call ruinous empathy.

Empathy is a good thing, ruinous empathy is not.

In order to explain to you what I mean by this, I want to tell you a story about possibly the most painful moment of my career.

I had just hired this person, Alex.