You say certain virtues in the workplace can be transformed into vices. How does a value become something bad?
When you excuse yourself from tough self-awareness, you allow these bad habits to persist. A classic one is creativity, which is often used as an excuse for narcissistic behavior: Somebody at work comes up with a bright idea and gets everyone else onboard. Too often the workplace doesn’t need the new idea; it’s all about the worker’s need to express himself.
Is there a metric workers can use to determine if they’re turning a virtue into a bad habit?
Yes — if you find yourself explaining away negative feedback from your boss, your colleague, and you’re telling yourself a story that they just don’t get. They don’t understand that this is virtuous — being passionate or being collaborative.
Let’s take a look at a couple of virtues. What about passion?
There’s compelling research that shows passion is harmonious — when it’s checked by other aspects of your life. The problem is the narrow-minded, absolute focus on a passion for winning or success. Hiring managers fall into the trap of just wanting to hire passionate people: They say you don’t want to have to motivate people — they want them to show up self-motivated. But sometimes these people are passionate in a way that leads to burnout and bad behavior.
And how can excellence be a vice?
Sometimes to do an excellent job you have to do less-than-excellent work. I was talking to someone who works in research, and she said she used to focus relentlessly on documenting reports with dozens of sources. And her boss helped her see her job is to help move products through the pipeline quickly.