Latest / R3ciprocity.com - Prof David Maslach: Innovation; Research Life; Striving Towards Happiness
How Agreeableness Without Boundaries Leads to Burnout in Academia
Here’s something I’ve learned the hard way: this is how nice people get taken advantage of.
I’m a management professor. I study innovation and failure. But this pattern shows up everywhere. Academia. Hospitals. Small businesses. Big corporations.
If you put a grumpy, irritable, forceful person next to a kind, laid-back, empathetic person, most people will work harder for the grumpy one. Not because they’re better. Because pressure feels decisive. It creates urgency. People respond to it.
The nice person feels safe. Comfortable. Human. And that’s exactly the problem.
Deadlines slip. Effort…
The skinny
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