Political campaigning in this country has begun, albeit unofficially with presidential wannabes launching their respective advocacy programs. Who would you choose to be the next president of the Philippines or send to Malacañang Palace as its new resident — the aspirant who projects sincere niceness or the aspirant who appears to be nice but actually isn’t? It will be hard to tell anyway since they all put their best foot forward as they try to connect with their targeted constituents. Who would you want to have a professional partnership with? The overbearing person or the one who delights you with reverent moves? Who would you rather promote? A dishonest and resentful subordinate or someone who walks the extra mile to help out other people?
To win or to get what you want, you have to be nice. Adopting a nice façade, though, is not about running around wearing a “close-up smile,” delivering people’s requests fast or giving everyone you meet a handshake or a kiss on the cheek, while silently asking yourself “What’s in it for me?” It’s not about being phony or manipulative. The power of nice is about giving great worth and meaning to good manners and right conduct. It is a compelling energy.
Linda Kaplan and Robin Koval, leaders of a fast-growing advertising agency in the United States and authors of the book The Power of Nice say that being nice isn’t just great public relations. “It makes you feel good and it can benefit the bottom line in all sorts of ways — from employee attraction and retention, to winning new accounts and to producing a better product. Being nice should not be misinterpreted as being a doormat, which is very far from the truth. You can be nice without being a pushover,” they add. Here are a few lessons derived from this skinny little yellow book that can possibly bring wonders to your business and life.
1. Plant positive impressions and you will sow abundant harvests. When was the last time you said a good word to your househelp, greeted your office security guard, chuckled at a co-worker’s shaggy dog story, showed appreciation to an assistant who has done a good job, or treated a stranger with cordiality and reverence? Try and reflect. Didn’t these affable gestures allow you to hurl off a positive force and make you feel good inside? Without a doubt, that force created an impression on the recipient of your congenial act, which got stamped on his consciousness and perhaps reflected outward to a myriad of others that the person met and will be meeting later.
A good act spreads out like a virus, perhaps without you knowing it. Most often, the impact of a nice act is indirect. It may not be apparent for days, months or years, but it has a domino effect. “You may not ever be able to trace your good fortune back to a specific encounter, but it is a mathematical certainty that the power of nice lays the groundwork for many opportunities down the road,” Thaler and Koval stated. These positive impressions are like seeds that allow you to sow abundant harvests.
2. Treat people, even strangers, with great importance. Who are the important people in your life and why do you interact and cooperate with them without hesitation? On the other end, why are you less likely to worry about a stranger whom you believe you will never bump into again? Understandably you behave differently if you are with people with some kind of authority or influence. It’s part of human nature. Expectedly, you cooperate with people whom you interact with often — neighbors, colleagues, co-members in a professional or civic clubs — or those you transact with — clients, bankers, salesmen, front liners in government regulatory agencies and prospective employers.
Truth be told, you’re much less likely to worry about a total stranger. You may even ask, “What does it matter anyway?” When you meet strangers on the street, the assumption is that they aren’t important to you. You avoid contact with the woman sitting next to you on bus or the MRT or race ahead to beat her to the exit door. You’re thinking she’s just some woman who has nothing to do with you. Beating her to the door is more important than being nice to her.
You can never be sure, though. The unfamiliar woman could be the sister of your boss. Or somebody you will have a transaction with in the future. Or a part of a prospective client’s brand team at the brink of deciding whom to award a big business project to. With such vast possibilities, you have to treat everyone you meet as if they are or will be important to you. Maybe the time is not now, but in upcoming days.
3. Offer your kindness and pleasantness to everyone you meet. Be careful how you deal with people who seemingly can’t do anything for you now — people whom you classify as insignificant. The circumstance may or may not be the same when your paths cross again at some later date. The powerless then may be powerful now. Unless you have the special gift to read what lies ahead, you have no inkling of who among the strangers you meet will be important to you 10, 20, or 30 years from now. In show business, there is the familiar warning — be careful how you treat people you meet on your way up because they will be the same people you will meet on your way down.
Thus, you are reminded to avoid a common mistake — limiting your decency or amiability to those who are either above you or at your own level. Be nice to your subordinate, your driver, your telephone operator or your janitor. There is no place for arrogance in a world where so much is based on interdependence, mutual respect and cooperation.
4. Be habitually nice. Being nice is an art that can be learned and a skill that can be acquired. Returning a favor, speaking gently, saying “Excuse me,” expressing a sincere “Thank you” or simply giving a smile back are gestures that come free and are not hard to do. In fact they should be second nature to you for they bring enormous positive impact if done with purposefulness towards people you know, and more so to people you don’t know. As Francis Bacon wrote, “If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that connects to them.”
Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength, and bad manners violate propriety especially if you have a tendency to reveal how much you think of yourself, and how little you think of others. Rudeness and bad manners can lead you nowhere.
5. Avoid sour notes. They can make your life’s melody turn off-key. Unfriendliness creates an awful feeling. Knowingly or unknowingly it attracts destructive forces that spoil relationships. You might weave yourself in front of so many others in a long queue but expect to get irritated reactions. Just as encouraging deeds are like seeds, nasty behaviors and pronouncements are like germs that can easily be spread outward — the repellent influence of your persona may not be evident right now, but the germs are inside you, mutely contaminating and making you and perchance everyone around you nauseous. “Impressions are in the eye of the beholder, and one bad impression can infect everything else you do,” Thaler and Koval emphasized.
6. Move away from the debilitating effect of bad behavior. You may never again see the person you have treated badly, but your harsh action can hauntingly affect your professional or personal performance. You know it and you feel it. It erodes your core values. “It will be in your mind and heart when you walk into a meeting and try to convince the people in the room that they should put their faith in you. And because you won’t believe in yourself, you could jeopardize the outcome of a meeting or relationship,” the authors point out.
7. Resolve disputes via the “echo effect.” To solve disputes, try to be nice and put your head on that person’s shoulders. This thought is anchored on the ancient sage who said, “Learn to walk a mile in the other man’s shoes.” Your sense of compassion will grow by leaps and bounds if you can truly put yourself in the other person’s place. And as you do this, you will discover better solutions to incongruities.
8. Dealing with office politics better with the power of nice. Fundamentally, office politics are typically used with the objective of trying to gain an advantage in the work environment. While you share this goal of striving to get ahead, instead of expending lots of negative energy rushing to grab a slice of the pie for yourself, the authors pushed for thinking and implementing ways on how you can broaden your horizons and bake a bigger pie so everyone gets a piece. When you bake a bigger pie, it’s the ultimate win-win situation. You get more of what you want and feel better about what you’re doing and you create a new recipe for success.
Be nice today and each day of the week. It’s good for the pocketbook and the soul.
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