People Pleasing Prevents Powerful Productivity
We’re all hard-wired for people pleasing to some degree. Humans survived because we’re social animals and could band together to hunt and gather food and protect from predators. So we all need to get along to go along sometimes.
However, American work culture and management styles can make people pleasing seem necessary for winning new business and retaining employees and clients. But that style can lead to burnout and loss of clients and revenues instead.
There’s a huge difference between white-glove service for pleasing customers, and people-pleasing because you’re afraid to say no, or worried that saying no will damage the relationship.
Why people pleasing gets in the way of improving productivity in a sustainable way
Sustainable productivity means that you focus on the activities that matter. The ones that help you work towards your goals, instead of moving away from them. By bringing the power of your attention to your priorities, you can get through your tasks faster and have time for the other things in life that are precious (and also help you be more productive, oddly enough.)
The thing is, no one has time for all the things they could conceivably do. We get about four thousand weeks for a lifetime, plus or minus. If you’re Gen X or older, you’ve probably only got two thousand (or fewer!) weeks. That means you probably can’t do everything you want to do, never mind doing the things that other people want you to do.
Most of the business owners I know (as well as myself) want to have a positive impact on the world. If that’s the case, it’s even more important that your decisions be driven by that purpose, so that your activities support it.
That doesn’t mean that every waking minute has to be dedicated to the impact that you want to make, though! You need to make sure that you yourself are being nourished so that you can help others.
But not every opportunity that comes your way is going to support you or your mission, and you need to say no to those opportunities. Even if you like the person who’s offering it, or want to have a good relationship with them.
There are several ways that people pleasing can hinder your ability to reach your goals
You may experience all of these, or you might only experience one or two, depending on the depth and where your people-pleasing shows up.
You’re at higher risk of burnout
This is the one I struggle with the most, to be honest. I have boundaries around work time and when I work on emails and calls and so forth. But when it comes to organizations and groups, especially where I’m a volunteer, I have a hard time saying no.
Especially when I’m new to an area. When I moved to the Coachella Valley in late 2017, I wanted to meet people and get out there for my business. I joined all kinds of groups, and volunteered for several. Within a short time I was asked to do more, and even though I felt like I didn’t really want to, well they asked me… so I did. (In recovery groups, they tell you to say yes to everything, especially when you’re newly clean, and that affected me for a long time too.)
I was working on my business, marketing it, and also attending all these other meetings and lunches and networking events and all kinds of things. It got very tiring very quickly. Also, I’m an introvert, and that didn’t help either.
But even extroverts can get overloaded by what they need to do for their own businesses and careers, plus adding in other obligations.
Being overwhelmed by obligations is a known shortcut to Burnout City. I still volunteer now that I’m in Long Beach, but I’ve become more careful about where I do it and what my limits are, so I can avoid the overwhelm and still make space for helping others.
You’re at the mercy of other people’s agendas
This happens in (at least) two ways. One, if you say yes to everything, that means you’re taking on other people’s responsibilities and obligations and agendas. If you have time for it, it’s not necessarily a bad thing when you do it mindfully. But it can hinder your own achievement when you do it too often.
The second way is when you allow emails, texts, phone calls, and the like to interrupt you when you’re trying to focus on your priorities. When you hear a chime or feel a vibration or see a flash on your screen, your attention is diverted from your task.
In some circumstances it can take up to 23 minutes to get back to where you were on the task. Whatever the other person wants to talk, email, or text about, it’s probably about their goals, not yours. It’s up to you to protect your time and energy, though.
You’re unable to focus on your priorities
This is similar to having unannounced visitors interrupt your focus. When you have an open-door policy all day every day, you’re not able to focus. Either because you have someone in your office, or you’re doing something else as a result of that person being in your office.
There is a management theory out there that if you’re not available to your people at all times, they’ll leave. That’s… not true. Yes, if you ignore your staff and their issues, they'll leave. If you don’t show that you care about them, they’ll leave. If your employees feel that you never listen to them or you never take action on what’s bothering them, they’ll leave.
But all-hours access is not the only way to show employees you care. In fact, it’s not even the best way to show them that you care. Because it interrupts you and doesn’t allow your staff to develop themselves. If you’re always available, they’ll likely default to just asking you questions all the time, instead of trying things out for themselves.
When you have a set time on the calendar for your focus time that no one is allowed to move around or interrupt you during, you get that time to focus. That gives your staff time to try to work things out as well.
You can have “office hours” where you are available for questions and for people to come talk to you. Or you could have regularly scheduled meetings for discussions. There are a number of ways to encourage your staff to talk to you and a number of ways to show that you care – that don’t take away from the priorities.
You might lose out on experiences that could help and/or nurture you
I personally find that there are times when every single networking group on the face of the planet has scheduled an event for the exact same time. If I go to one, I can’t go to another. Or one person I know has scheduled a workshop during a time someone else I know has a different event.
If you’re a people pleaser, you might say yes to someone, even though you’re not super interested in the event. A few days later you discover there’s another event that’s more aligned with what you’re doing, and then you have to decide what to do in that case.
Ghost the first person? Potentially make them feel bad by telling them there’s another event you’re going to instead? Tell them that there’s been a death/illness in the family or a sudden school event? Avoid the second event that supports your mission? Try to get to both somehow?
None of these are good answers, but they’re only necessary if you accept the invite you didn’t really want in the first place. If you’d said no originally, you’d have the time for the aligned event to begin with.
Successful leaders say no all the time
In surveys of widely respected leaders and their leadership, the most effective and successful leaders do not accept all the opportunities that come their way. They look for the ones that align with their purpose and the company’s mission, and decline the others.
You’ve heard that “no” is a complete sentence, and that’s certainly true. In business, though, there’s often a way to say “no” that preserves the dignity and humanity of the person you’re saying “no” to.
It’s important to be clear. If the idea is not something that you’d ever entertain, don’t say something like, “I’m not interested right now.” That’s a good way to reply if you’re interested, but currently have other priorities you’re actively working on.
If you say you “can’t” do something, they’ll ask why not. If you say you can’t commit/don’t have time to commit, you’ll be told how easy and quick the opportunity is.
“Thanks for thinking of me!” can be a good way to start your response. (I always appreciate it when my name comes up for something, even if it isn’t exactly what I want to work on.) You can follow that up with “I’m unable to take this on” or however you want to word it so that your “no” is clear.
Better time management and communication with people are better for productive workplaces
Communication is crucial when you want to be productive. Most people will understand if you tell them that you only check emails a couple of times a day because that gives you the ability to really focus on your clients’ needs.
Everyone knows how annoying it is when you’re really getting somewhere with the thing you’re working on… and then the door opens or the email chimes or the phone rings. When you explain your work batching in terms of focus and paying attention to your deliverables, people get it. You just have to let them know you’re doing it.
I still distinctly recall talking to someone about productivity and how the phone gets in your way, and she told me she had to have the phone nearby in case one of her kids called. So I sympathetically asked how old her kids were… and she said they were adults.
I had to take a moment.
If you tell your adult kids that you’re working from this time to that time, they can hold off on calling you until it’s a good time. It’s easy enough to work out a good time even if they’re in another time zone. You just have to let them know when you’re working, and when you’re available. Communication!
Same with staff, vendors, clients, etc. You can let clients know right away in the onboarding that you and your staff don’t answer queries after 5 pm and will respond during business hours within a certain number of hours (not right away.) If you’re just starting some of these productivity practices, you will have to let them know, and probably more than once.
I know a lot of coaches will really resonate with this one: how many times have your clients (or even your staff) said they didn’t want to bother you because they didn’t think it was important? Somehow those little unimportant things often end up snowballing into something huge. Or something inconvenient.
But what if they knew exactly when you were available? If you said to them, I am always available for even the tiniest issue on these days and times and during these times nothing is a bother, then they’d feel more comfortable talking to you. Because when you make it clear that certain times are expressly for “bothering” you, they won’t feel bad about it.
So let people know. Communicate.
You want me to do a thing? Thanks for thinking of me! It’s a no from me, dawg. But we should catch up (only say this last one if you really mean it!)
Recap (tl;dr):
People pleasing is not a good way to run a business. Yes, there are times when pleasing a customer brings huge rewards for both of you, but too much people-pleasing puts you on the road to burnout and prevents you from achieving your own goals.
Have trouble with the systems and processes you need to make sure no one interrupts you during focus time? Click here to schedule your free consultation to see how we can help.
Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash.