20 • An Excerpt from Nice Companies Finish First
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niCe CoMPanies Finish First
look at life from a business perspective. it occurred to me that in business, one of the most demonized populations around (with good reason), nice people, actually can and do finish first despite the conventional wisdom that says you have to be a cold, uncaring bastard to succeed in the corner office. in other words, more and more, nice guys do win. That’s why i always take the first meeting and try to have five minutes for someone. you never know where that first meeting will lead, and you never know what can be accomplished in those five minutes. Understand—this doesn’t mean i get taken advantage of. i always tell people (with a smile): “Happy to answer a question you might have, but don’t ask me to write your marketing plan for you.” There’s a big difference between being nice and being taken advantage of. Good leaders know this and work accordingly. if you look under the hood of successful companies, you’ll find that they are made up of people working together in an atmosphere that is conducive to civility and good cheer. There’s no way to institutionalize or “corporatize” niceness—your Hr department is never going to come up with a management structure that magically creates a collegial atmosphere. it has to come from the top, and from there it will filter down through managers, supervisors, staffers, and so on (the same can be true of a negative atmosphere). i’m not just talking about making your business the top in its sector, exceeding sales expectations, or making boatloads of money. First of all, nice ceos can (and do) make great business and plenty of dough (richard Branson at Virgin, shantaul Narayen at adobe, and Kenneth chenault at american express, to name a few). Nice guys have a constant competitive advantage over their nasty counterparts, as illustrated by my airport story. Versions of that same scenario play out every single day, and not just in terms of the ceo who yells at his assistant, but also with the ceo who refuses to answer shareholder questions, who