Transcripts

Russ Edelman:
We did a whole lot of surveying (we surveyed three hundred and fifty professionals) and out of that surveying, sixty-one percent of the people came back and said they believe that they are too nice in business.

Russ Edelman, co-author of the book Nice Guys Can Get the Corner Office, says we often look at nice people in a contradictory way.

I think the virtues of being nice are very much a positive - ethical, honest, integrity-filled behavior. Those are what people typically associate with nice but unfortunately what they also associate with nice is"wimpiness" - being viewed as a doormat, not being able to confront situations and define boundaries properly.

The trick says Russ is for nice guys and gals to find a balance so as not to be perceived as too nice.

And what we're trying to say is become more assertive; learn how to actually step up in a number of different ways. And that's where the real challenge is because it's easy to say it. It's easy to say, "get a backbone." But it's very difficult for a lot of these overly-nice guys to really find it within themselves to do just that.

So you have to start small and begin asserting yourself in little ways.

We find that there are shades of gray with this. At one extreme is the super-nice guy - at the other extreme is the jerk and people fall on that spectrum in some capacity. And to try to find as much balance as possible, be nice but also, if an issue comes up, deal with it.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.