Stop! In the Name of Like!

Jenni Fields joins the pod to show why workplace effectiveness depends on likability, not on being liked. (Our Gen Z and Boomer discuss the the up and downsides of riz.)

Some years ago, a manager cautioned me about my performance. I took the warning seriously, because I’d made some mistakes that confirmed what I took to be his poor opinion of me. Maybe he gave me the caution because he was genuinely trying to help me out. Maybe I nodded my head because I was trying to be openminded. But it was clear we didn’t like each other very much.

Although we smiled a heckuva lot, the room was thick with mistrust.

The discomfort was so distracting in fact that I didn’t notice the backhanded compliment in his cautionary word:

“You know, well-liked people,” he said, nodding in my direction, “have to be careful.”

I wish now that I’d held up my hand like Diana Ross of The Supremes, “Stop! In the name of like!” I wish I’d said, “Boss, it’s time for a mode/switch!” I wish I’d said that the real question wasn’t, ‘Am I well-liked at work?’ but ‘Am I likable?’” But I couldn’t have said those things back then, because I hadn’t yet read Jenni Field’s excellent new book Nobody Believes You.

This week on the Mode/Switch Pod, it’s time to rewrite work-culture communication! Jenni helps correct the confusion between the Michael Scott Syndrome (I Need to Be Liked) and the quality of credible leadership that Jenni calls likability (I need to be warm and competent). If you’re wondering what the difference is, you’re in good company. Our team—Ken the Boomer, David the Xer, Emily the Xennial, and Madeline the Gen Z—had quite a time “unpicking” (as Jenni would say, in her British idiom) all sorts of complex emotional qualities like charisma and competence and lightheartedness.

Jenni’s great laugh is contagious, and her flexible thinking will help you find flow in the trickiest dynamics of working community.

She's also an authentic work-culture sage. Wait, scratch that! She dislikes the word authentic and prefers the word credible, a term she’s thoroughly discussed in Nobody Believes You, a book that helps you (as her subtitle puts it) “Become a leader people will follow.” (She’s also written the resourceful text Influential Internal Communication: Streamline Your Corporate Communication to Drive Efficiency and Engagement, which is sitting at my elbow as I write this podcast description.)

This is our 93rd episode. I think it may be our very best. The conversation moves fast, but goes deep. It allows for difference but shares good humor and good will. Jenni has a way of pouring wisdom into people around her and then pulling it out of them as well.

So, if you’ve been reading these podcast descriptions over the past few months and thinking that, sometime in here, you really oughta listen. This is your sometime.