The good four-letter word
Being nice isn’t just great public relations, it feels good and it can benefit the bottom line in all sorts of ways, from employee attraction and retention, to winning new accounts, to producing a better product. Writers Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval believe that a little kindness goes a long way — in both business and your personal life. “It pays to be nice,” the founders of a billion-dollar advertising agency declared.
• You will sow abundant and upbeat harvests when you plant positive seeds. When was the last time you said a good word to your house help, greeted your office security guard, chuckled at a coworker’s metro rail story, showed appreciation to an assistant who did a great job, or treated a stranger with cordiality and reverence? Try and reflect. Didn’t these affable gestures generate positive vibes and make you feel good inside? That force created an impression on the recipient, which for sure got stamped in his consciousness and perhaps to a myriad of others the person met and would be meeting.
• A good act spreads 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 said. These positive impressions are like seeds that allow you to sow abundant harvests.
• Treat people, even strangers, with great importance. You have important people in your life and you interact and cooperate with them without hesitation. On the other end, you are less likely to worry about a stranger you will never bump into again. You avoid contact with the woman sitting next to you on the bus or the MRT, or maybe even race ahead to beat her to the exit door. Maybe you’re thinking she’s just some woman who has nothing to do with your business or your life. Beating her to the door is more important than being nice to her. Never be sure, though. The unfamiliar woman could be the sister of your boss. Or somebody you will deal with for a business transaction. Or a part of the brand team of a prospective client deciding on a consultancy partnership. With such 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 the future.
• The powerless then may be powerful now. Thus, it is prudent to 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 you classify as insignificant. The circumstance may or may not be the same when your paths cross again in the future. Unless you have the special gift to read what lies ahead, you have no inkling who among the strangers you meet will be important to you 10, 20, or 30 years from now. In show business, there is a fair 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. Avoid the common mistake of limiting your decency or amiability to those who are either higher in status or 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.
• Being nice is an art that can be learned, a skill that can be acquired. You can be habitually nice. Returning a favor, speaking gently, saying, “Excuse me,” expressing a sincere thank you or simply giving a smile back are gestures that 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 said, “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. This is especially true if you have the tendency to reveal how big you think you are, and how little you think of others. Rudeness and bad manners lead you nowhere. There is no excuse for such negative behavior.
• Impressions are in the eye of the beholder, and one bad impression can infect everything else you do. By all means, avoid sour notes because 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. Just as encouraging deeds are like seeds, nasty behaviors and pronouncements are like germs that can easily spread — the repellent influence on your persona may not be evident right away, but they are inside you, mutely contaminating you and everyone around you.
• You may never again see the person you have treated badly, but that harsh action can haunt your professional or personal performance. As such, move away from the debilitating effect of bad behavior. You know it and you feel it. It erodes your core values. Thaler and Koval proclaimed, “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.”
• To solve disputes, try to be nice and put your head on that person’s shoulders. This thought is anchored in the ancient saying, “Walk a mile in the other man’s shoes.” Disputes can be resolved via the “ echo effect.” “Your sense of compassion will grow by leaps and bounds if you can truly put yourself in the other person’s place. And you will discover better solutions to disagreements,” Thaler and Koval stress.
• Office politics can be dealt with 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 the goal of striving to get ahead, instead of expending lots of negative energy rushing to grab a slice of the pie for yourself, think about 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.
• The power of nice is giving great worth to good manners and right conduct. Taking on a nice façade is not about running around carrying 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, what’s in it for me? It’s not about being phony or manipulative. Niceness is a compelling energy. Do one nice thing each day of the week. It’s good for the soul.
Nice is not the same as being a doormat. It shouldn’t be misinterpreted as a bad four-letter word. There is nothing wrong with it, and it doesn’t have a serious image problem. You can be nice without being a pushover.
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