Dan Ackman - Niceness Sells

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Put on a Happy Face

By DAN ACKMAN
October 18, 2006; Page D15

As it happens, Leo Durocher didn't say that "nice guys finish last." At least, he didn't say it = in quite that way. The line evolved, he noted in his 1975 autobiography, f= rom a 1946 pregame bull session with Frank Grah= am, a sportswriter. Durocher, then managing the Brooklyn Dodgers, was watching the rival New York Giants take the field, and he compared their players unfavorably with his own Eddie Stanky, a player of limited gifts but burning des= ire. He remarked: "Take a look at them. All nice guys. They'll finish l= ast. Nice guys. Finish last."

Mr. Graham got it right, but other writers elided the sentences, legend grew and Durocher wound u= p in Bartlett's. B= ut even if Durocher didn't say what he said, he did= agree with it. He even took the "nice guys" phrase as the title of = his autobiography, remarking more precisely within it: "If you are in professional sports, buddy, and you don't care whether you win or lose,= you are going to finish last. Because that's how those guys finish, they fi= nish last."

So the issue is joined. Now, two thin volumes with smi= ley faces on the cover have implicitly taken Durocher<= /span> to task. In "The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business Wor= ld With Kindness," advertising executives Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval argue that being nice isn't just a sweet thing to do. It serves the bottom li= ne, through higher sales, lower employee turnover, higher productivity and better karma overall. Ed Horrell, a radio h= ost and customer-service consultant, offers a more ambitious title but more modest claim. In "The Kindness Revolution," he writes = that treating employees with courtesy, respect and dignity will lead to bett= er customer service and, ultimately, higher returns.

According to Ms. Thaler an= d Ms. Koval, the "power" of nice extends to personal well-being. They cite a few studies indicating that nice people are healthier, suffer fewer divorces and are sued less often. And they = make more money. Beyond the "nice principles" they supply -- e.g., "nice must be automatic" -- the authors offer "the tools= you need to start making the power of nice work for you."

Essentially, they argue that leaving a good impression= by smiling, offering compliments, sympathy, kind gestures and little gifts will make people want to do business with you. You will also feel better about yourself. This axiom applies not just to your boss and your custo= mers but to your peers and underlings as well. "Positive impressions are like seeds," the authors write -- i.e., they spread and grow.=

Such advice sounds like the kind of thing your mother = told you, and of course your mother was not wrong. But for "The Power of Nice" to be worth the reader's effort, it must go beyond mom. Sure= ly in their business careers, the authors have encountered one or two folks who are, on occasion, not nice. And there may even be a reason for that. Early in the book, Ms. Thaler and Ms. Koval relate how they were once very nice to Dona= ld Trump's wife. They got paid back when Mr. Trump featured them as judges= on "The Apprentice." He pays them back again by offering them a blurb. What a nice guy! But Mr. Trump, it turns out, is a Durocher man from way back. In one of his own boo= ks, Mr. Trump writes: "When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and as violently as you can." It would be nice if the authors told us when to put their principles aside and turn on the Durocher. But they never even try.

There are those who might call "The Power of Nice= " shallow and banal, but that wouldn't be nice. I'll merely note that the book is a slim 117 pages and filled mostly with air, so it's easy to ca= rt around multiple copies and hand them out as little gifts, thus certifyi= ng your niceness.

If "The Power of Nice" plays on themes of pe= rsonal growth, "The Kindness Revolution" dares to foment institution= al change. "Ask most consumers and businesses today, and they will te= ll you that customer service is at an all-time low," Mr. Horrell writes. He knows this fact from the testi= mony of his radio-show callers and from personal experience. "I, myself= , am sick and tired of the service I get from most companies these days.&quo= t; He is tired of companies who are hard to get on the phone, clerks who a= re unkind and fast-food workers "who [don't] very effectively speak t= he language that I use."

I, myself, am not so sure. That you can't get good help nowadays is an ancient refrain. But in many ways service has never been better. To the extent that it's worse, most folks don't seem to care en= ough to change their ways. The two dominant forces in retail for the past de= cade or so have been the Internet and big box stores. With online retail, you can order goods from anywhere at any time. True, there is no clerk complimenting your selection or treating you kindly. But the range of g= oods is astonishing, not to mention the convenience.

And say what you will about Wal-Mart, the people keep coming. It may be hard to find a sales clerk, but consumers by the mill= ions have abandoned the local purveyors of personal service -- kind, friendl= y, familiar -- so that they can save a couple of dollars on baking soda or motor oil or hundreds of other necessities. Mr. Ho= rrell writes that too many companies treat their workers without kindness; as= a result, workers treat their customers the same way. Such callousness is= a mistake, he says, because kindness is essential for retaining employees= and building customer loyalties. It's pretty to think so, but the revolutio= n is heading the other way.

Mr. Ackman is a writer in Jersey City, N.J.<= /b>