Happy Friday! Here’s your weekly tip on how to be more human at work

Out with “TMI” and in with “NEI”

I’ve never really understood complaints about TMI. For those not familiar with the phrase, it stands for “too much information”. Actually, it stands for that regardless of how familiar you are with the phrase — that’s just how language works. But you didn’t come here for a language lesson so let’s get back to the point.

“TMI” says to another that you wish they hadn’t revealed to you what they just did. Here’s the psychology behind TMI:

Humans seek to find the right balance of intimacy in our social interactions. We choose to be more intimate with some than with others; and even within a given relationship we adjust the level of intimacy in an interaction based on context. “TMI” tells people that their communication assumed a greater level of intimacy than the other person is comfortable with.

In that sense, it plays an important role in social interaction. When you share information with someone that is generally reserved for more intimate relationships, you are, in effect, making a claim or a bid for greater intimacy with them. If they don’t want that level of intimacy with you, they need a pressure release valve to let you know to back off. It’s like someone you don’t know well calling you a nickname that only your closest friends call you. It’s unpleasant because they’re making a claim about your relationship that doesn’t match your beliefs or desires.

That’s the theory behind “TMI”. However, in practice, TMI seems to be reserved for situations when somebody reveals something about their body — mostly to do with what happens in the bathroom or the bedroom.

I can’t recall hearing “TMI” in response to someone commenting about buying IBM stock or liking toast with jam. It’s usually only said in response to someone saying something like how their meal last night gave them awful diarrhea or about some new sexual position they tried or about an extra heavy period they had.

When I hear “TMI” (of course never said to me), I wonder what grown adults are so worried about. What exactly are they trying to protect themselves from? What do they fear will happen to them now that they know Bob took a massive shit this morning?

So I say out with “TMI”. Instead, I want “NEI” — “not enough information”. I want people to engage with each other more as humans; to lean more into sharing the full human experience and not just the bits that pass our weirdly puritanical corporate cultures. I want people to be less protective of their virgin ears and less fearful of what might befall them should someone share something “too personal” with them.

Yes, there are lines that must be drawn. But we’re drawing them in the wrong places. The bias should be toward greater openness not less. We don’t need less human engagement and intimacy, we need more.

This message was brought to you by the humans of Rule No. 1.