The Nice Blog

Sat, October 02, 2010 - 3:29:38

Compliments and Flattery: There’s a BIG Difference

Abraham Lincoln was famously quoted as saying, “Men will stand a great deal when they are flattered.” And in many ways, this is true. In our book, THE POWER OF NICE: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness, we explain how giving compliments to others is a kind gesture that can help you build lasting relationships and plant positive seeds wherever you go. But, a recent post on Mike Myatt’s blog, N2Growth, got us thinking about the difference between compliments and flattery. And while one is certainly a NICE tool, the other is not.

Often, flattery and compliments are misconstrued as one and the same. But when it comes to being NICE, they couldn’t be more different. Where compliments are sincere, flattery is artificial and disingenuous…about as far from NICE as you can get. In fact, we’d argue that instead of “getting you everywhere,” as the old saying goes, flattery can actually hurt your future professional prospects.

Posted by Linda and Robin
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Fri, October 01, 2010 - 2:48:38

Say Something NICE

Earlier this week, we came across a wonderful post from Operation NiCE blogger, Melissa Ivone in which she shares a powerful NICE encounter she had recently with a fellow audience member at a rock concert—and we simply had to share it with all of you.

As the band left the stage and the crowd cheered for an encore, this adorable young woman who was sitting in the row in front of me turned around, grabbed my wrist, and leaned toward me to say something. She had to shout because the audience was still very loud. She said something to the effect of, “I saw you sit down earlier before the show, and I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re really beautiful!” [continuing] “I just don’t think women tell each other things like that enough. And I think you’re doing everything right!”

I nearly started to cry. Her words meant so much. Inside, I’m still that insecure, dorky 6th grader with a horrible perm, overbite, and uni-brow. The girl that never got asked to the dance. The girl that was teased, even in college. So receiving a compliment like that made me feel so incredibly special.

Posted by Linda and Robin
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Sun, September 26, 2010 - 9:43:16

Laughter is Good for Business and Health… and That’s No Joke!

At our agency, the Kaplan Thaler Group, we believe one of the biggest factors in our success has been our sense of humor. It’s helped us create advertising icons—from beloved Aflac duck, to the hilarious Swiffer campaign that swept the nation, to our breakthrough Herbal Essences “Yes, yes, yes!”—and helped foster the close-knit, collaborative environment that is integral to generating Bang! ideas. By being playful, goofy, and even daring, we’ve produced some of the most impactful (not to mention laugh-out-loud funny) campaigns out there. And as it turns out, our NICE approach to humor isn’t just good for business, it’s actually good for your health.

Thanks to a Twitter tip from the Happiness Project author and blogger, Gretchen Rubin, we came across a study released this summer in the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine indicating some very promising findings: having a good sense of humor keeps you healthy until retirement age, or age 70. But, as Norwegian University of Science and Technology researchers caution, it only applies to people whose humor is friendly. In other worse, if you’re mean-spirited or hurtful, you might not see any benefit from your snarky laughs.

Image courtesy of Claudia Vieria on Flickr

Posted by Linda and Robin
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Fri, September 24, 2010 - 2:09:46

NICE Can Help You Navigate these Angry Times

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in psychology to know that these are angry times. Turn on the television, login to Twitter, or open up the newspaper and you will find people airing their grievances about everything from local politics to global warming. People are mad—and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Although some mistakenly assume that our NICE philosophy means you have to stifle your emotions and never get angry, that’s simply not true. Anger, like any emotion, is part of being human. The problem is when people take their anger and unfairly unleash it on others.

With many people feeling particularly touchy these days, however, it’s sometimes unavoidable—and as Sue Shellenbarger writes in the Wall Street Journal recently, if you happen to work in customer service, you probably understand this all too well. Fortunately, there’s a great way for people to deal with anger when it’s directed at them, regardless of their occupation. Instead of following the natural inclination to “give it as good as you get,” the best approach is actually to “put your head on their shoulders,” as we like to say in our book, and be NICE. It doesn’t just help assuage the situation. It can help you feel better, too.

Posted by Linda and Robin
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Fri, September 17, 2010 - 11:05:10

The Power of Nice Brings Neighbors Together

In yesterday’s New York Times, Hilary Stout writes that apartment living in New York has long been considered to be a socially isolating experience. Neighbors ride silently together in the elevator, barely utter a hello when checking their mailboxes, and know each other by apartment number instead of by name. But, now, Stout argues, the old, anonymous neighborhood is becoming a thing of the past. Yes, even in our plugged-in, socially networked age, real-life neighbors are becoming more social than ever. And surprisingly, it has more than a little to do with small talk.

Posted by Linda and Robin
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