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In a hurry?  Recommendation   

Leo Durocher, a long-time baseball manager, famously said, "Nice guys finish last." Durocher definitely wasn't a nice guy, and yet his teams often finished far down in the standings.

Durocher's remark is quoted over and over because it captures, in just four words, what a lot of people think—or fear—about the world. The attitude it expresses has a lot of adherents in the business world. They believe that finishing first requires a willingness to do whatever it takes to win, including bullying, back stabbing, manipulation, and so on.

Linda K. Thaler and Robin Koval beg to differ. Their brief book (128 pages), The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness, makes the case that nice people can be very successful as well as healthier and happier. They explain how being nice brings positive business results—not on its own, of course, but in combination with other prerequisites such as competence.

Business self-help
The Power of Nice is the business equivalent of a self-help book. But the authors don't oversell their idea or claim that it's new. They believe in it strongly but aren't hucksterish or sentimental about it.

Self-help books are typically padded with repetition and lots of anecdotes that purport to show the worth of whatever the book is peddling. The Power of Nice by comparison is succinct, reinforced by crisp anecdotes, and is well written. And the authors come across as nice people.

They quickly dispel the notion that nice means "manically smiling and doing everyone's bidding … [or] being phony or manipulative." In other words, you don't have to be soft to be nice. The 2007 Superbowl provided a case study for the authors. Both of the teams were coached by individuals who don't raise their voices or lead by fear. If two nice men can reach the pinnacle of pro football, it can be done just about anyplace else.

In 10 brief chapters, they explore various facets of nice behavior and its effects on a group. This book isn't going to change people who make life miserable for others in the workplace. They need something stronger than this book can provide, like a change-or-else warning. Based on anecdotes rather than research, The Power of Nice isn't likely to persuade business leaders who think paying attention to the emotional climate of their enterprises is a waste of time or, worse, evidence that they are soft.

But for people, especially leaders, who haven't gone over to the Dark Side, this book shows that they can compete in a dog-eat-dog industry (advertising) with nice people from top to bottom. It's too bad the authors don't cite similar companies in other industries to bolster their personal experience. The many suggestions the authors make that foster nice behavior are helpful. I have tried a few myself and have been pleased with the results.

Getting nice on the agenda
The book's biggest service is simply proposing that leaders in particular should value positive, supportive behavior. It's encouraging that, in the business world, emotional intelligence has a widely recognized abbreviation (EI). That is a sign that the emotional realities of the workplace are being taken more seriously than they have been.

Another book with a much more in-your-face title (The No Asshole Rule) takes up the same basic issue from a different point of view—how to contain or get rid of people who like nasty over nice. And there are plenty of examples in the training media.

The Power of Nice is relevant to corporate training because it provides concrete ways to maintain respect at work and shows the benefits of doing so. In the right organizations, this book could--and should--be part of leadership and new supervisor or manager training.

Recommendation
It doesn't take much investment of time to read this book. You might find that it can supplement some of your existing training in useful ways or justify a new approach to improving the organization's culture. In any event, you'll be better off personally for reading it.

The Power of Nice Rating