Here’s just one example of my impatience: I can hardly bear long-winded people.

There. I’m out with it.

I try to be nice. I try to be sensitive when someone comes to me with a concern. But, please, just get to the point. If you don’t wear me down with verbosity, I find it’s a lot easier to be nice.

A few mornings ago on the “Today Show,” two authors were talking about their book, “The Power of Nice.” The discussion got me thinking about what gets in the way of my being nice. Impatience is up there. I plead guilty to self-centeredness, too.

The authors, Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, aren’t psychologists. They’re high-powered businesswomen who run a New York advertising agency. Their claim to fame is the Aflac duck.

Their book’s premise is being nice helped them succeed. They preach that being nice can do wonders for anyone’s bottom line.

“Our success was won not with pitchforks and spears,” they write, “but with flowers and chocolates. Our growth is the result not of fear and intimidation, but of smiles and compliments.”

Rehabilitating niceness

Their thesis is as simple as the adage about catching more flies with honey than vinegar. But it’s another saying — the one about nice guys finishing last — they want to disprove.

They point out that being nice has an image problem. It’s almost seen as a defect. We have this prejudice that nice people get stepped on. Or they’re suckers. Nice people don’t see the world as it really is — dog eat dog.

We want kindergarten teachers and nursing home aides to be nice, but we’d be leery about a football coach, political consultant or divorce attorney with a reputation for niceness.

Years ago, I covered a trial lasting several weeks. It was a Friday night when the jury reached a verdict.

Afterward, I approached weary jurors heading for an elevator. I identified myself as a reporter and nicely asked if anyone cared to comment.

Only one man responded. He said it wasn’t a snap decision and kept walking with the rest. As the jurors disappeared behind the elevator door, I heard someone say, “He’s not very aggressive.”

The comment stung.

It’s possible, if I had been aggressive, I would have gotten one of the jurors to delay going home and to offer substantive reflections. I think it’s also possible getting in the jurors’ faces could have backfired. I might well have heard someone say as the door closed, “If he hadn’t been so pushy, I might have talked to him.”

I’ve always thought the thing to do in my line of work was be assertive without coming across as a jerk.

Dropping the ball

I think that practice applies to other interactions as well. You can disagree with someone, for example, and be civil about it. You can express displeasure without being unpleasant. It’s all easier said than done.

Helping my middle-schooler study for a test, I suggested we go outside and toss a baseball while I quizzed him. I uncorked a high fly every time he answered correctly. I congratulated myself on the novelty of the idea.

But after a while I became frustrated because there were some facts he couldn’t get into his “stupid brain.” Yeah, those were exactly the words I used. And he didn’t miss them.

So much for being a nice guy. I again let impatience get the better of me.

On a Web site promoting the book — www.thepowerofnice.com — the authors speak of niceness as a discipline, “a set of skills that can be honed.” They say successful people embrace niceness as a life strategy and consciously practice it. In the long run, it pays off in good things happening to them. I think they’re on to something. Maybe some people are born nice. They’re naturally friendly and positive. Patient, too.

As for the rest of us for whom niceness isn’t natural, it would be nice if we worked at it. blog comments powered by Disqus