Sunday 8 June 2008

Book ~ "The Power of Nice" (2006) Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval

From Amazon.com ~ Coauthors Thaler and Koval submit their own success in the cutthroat world of advertising as evidence that nice girls can finish first while taking home more than a dozen Clio awards along the way. Following up their bestselling look at creating compelling marketing strategies—Bang!—they turn most truisms about business inside out, arguing that good deeds are returned, not punished. Warning against a me vs. you mentality, they even suggest helping opponents as a good way to boost a career. Game face on? Thaler and Koval say, take it off. Being genuine, they explain, produces much better results. From crediting their friendly building security guard for helping them sign new clients to recommending chocolate as an accompaniment to presentation materials and invoices, they build their case for using little gestures to get you what you want. Though a lively and pleasant read, this is not a cutesy little bonbon of a book. Well thought-out and crisply presented, it offers key principles, case studies and exercises to help make niceness habitual. Some exercises, like turning personal disappointment into positive energy, are even quite therapeutic.

A nice reminder to be nice!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's that saying? You catch more bees with honey than vinegar. More than bees. Be kind. Michele thinks so too.

Jay said...

Looks like you were out enjoying the weather too. Yay!

Mom Knows Everything said...

I think if everyone was a little nicer then the world would be a much better place.

Anonymous said...

Linda Kaplan Thaler is a huge hypocrit. She writes a book on the power of kindness yet she is now sitting next to the likes of Gene Simmons, helping to soul rape auditioners on the new show CBS Jingles. They start insulting some auditioners as soon as they enter the room. How does that equate to her book. I guess her philosophy is thrown out the window at the chance to market herself and make a buck. What a joke.