The great Terry Pratchett’s Granny Weatherwax is not usually a big figure in management theory.  Which is a shame, because Pratchett’s books are full of useful life lessons.  One of Granny Weatherwax’s key thoughts is that Nice is not as important as Good.  Nice is passive, it’s attractive but it doesn’t act.  It doesn’t tackle the hard problems.  And sometimes Nice can hide malice behind its friendly face.  Good, on the other hand, does act, even if it’s hard.  It says the uncomfortable but necessary truth, from a place of kindness if it can (although in Granny’s face it could be a hard kind of kindness…), but it tackles the issue.

So it was Granny that I thought of when I saw this article by the King’s Fund on the perils of both Nice and Nasty cultures in blocking necessary discussions and proper conversations, and the need for “cognitive diversity” – which is academic for the freedom to disagree and to come up with new ways of doing things.  It’s worth a look.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2019/01/encouraging-cognitive-diversity?utm_source=The%20King%27s%20Fund%20newsletters%20%28main%20account%29&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10232790_NEWSL_The%20Weekly%20Update%202019-01-25%20remail&utm_content=Cognitive_diversity_blog_title&dm_i=21A8,63BO6,FQCH6Q,NX8WT,1