Dude, Be Nice

A few days ago, I noticed that my wife, Shelly, was wearing a tee shirt that had a printed message in bold script on it. A lot of her casual wear sport a logo or message of some kind so that in itself is not too unusual. But this short and rather direct message came across pretty loud and clear and caught my attention. It read, “Dude, Be Nice”.

I’m not sure what prompted her to don this particular shirt at this particular in time, but the message was crystal clear, and her belief in it has been consistent. Raising three children and teaching them the invaluable lessons of learning how to live in harmony with those you love and who, at the same time, drive you nuts is a life lesson best learned in the safe confines of home. It is in the nuclear family that we learn to coexist with those we share not only mutual bonds, but conflicting desires and agendas as well. The home is where good citizens are cultivated and grown. When children become proficient in learning to live harmoniously with their siblings and others, they become trained and prepared to carry this vital character trait out into their communities and into society.

In the current political and social climate, the message “Dude, Be Nice” could not be timelier. It seems that many people are walking around with ultra-thin skin and chips on their shoulders. Every disagreement easily escalates into a major conflict. We could benefit, as a society, with a refresher course from our parents and again learn the timeless adage that we need to “play nice together”.

We will always face conflicting interests, goals and agendas. We need to learn to navigate these obstacles, to make policy decisions that serve the greater good for the long term. However, we need to do it with mutual respect and care for our neighbors.

There is also an embedded lesson for us, as leaders, to remember from the reminder, “Dude, Be Nice”. As a leader, it never hurts to “be nice”. Often times we get so focused on the mission at hand and the many challenges and obstacles that must be overcome, that we forget the importance of the impact of being nice to other people. Leadership, at its finest, is all about the ability to inspire and motivate people to shift their energies and efforts into a strategically aligned direction. Positional leaders can simply exploit their positions of power and bark the order, “Do this”. That is fine, as long as that person retains that position, and the power to bring the unspoken, “or else!” ramifications. The greatest leaders, however, are those who can cast the vision of a better way, those who can communicate in a way that captures the heart and motivates people to successfully execute the mission at hand. Such a leader will extend their influence far father, and for much longer that one who simply leverages a corner office or more stripes on their shoulders.

Growing up we heard it repeated, “you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” The same can be said about leadership. This point was reinforced by an article I came across on the power of being nice. Take a look at James Phillips “Insights/Thoughts/Wisdom” article from 04MR17:

MARCH 4, 2017 BY

Want More Food At Chipotle? Try Saying Please and Thank You

I have always been a fan of saying please and thank you. From someone holding the door to getting fast food, it does not cost you anything to be nice, say please and thank you and possibly make someone’s day.

As someone who owns several businesses in the consulting world, I often think about the customer/service provider relationship. At the end of the day, happy customers are the key to my business’ growth, and putting out fires is what I do daily.

Knowing the day-to-day responsibilities of all my employees, I wanted to flip the switch on the conventional perspective that the customer is always right. Is it be possible that a customer has the ability to control their experience more than they know? Would a happy, pleasant customer receive better service than a negative one? After all, we’re all human at the end of the day.

I put that theory to test with a simple, but nonetheless indicative, experiment.

Do kind and friendly customers get treated better than customers who are unpleasant or over-demanding?

Below we have please and thank you Evan and not so nice Evan. We sent him to Chipotle 6 times and measured the results.

The control for the experiment was one particular Michigan branch of Chipotle, the American fast food chain specializing in tacos and burritos. A popular lunch spot for many of my employees, I wanted to see whether customers would receive more or less food depending on their manner toward the store staff – to see whether there would be any correlation between kindness and level of service.

I sent one of my great employees, Evan, into the Chipotle for lunch and instructed him to be kind and pleasant. He wore a smile when ordering his meal, said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ after every interaction, and portrayed the traits of a generally agreeable customer. We then took the food he received and weighed it for an exact measurement.

Next, we sent Evan back into the same Chipotle but instructed him to display the traits of an unpleasant customer. He wore an angry expression, did not engage in any niceties, and was generally mean and disagreeable. We took the food he received and put it on a scale to compare.

We did this test six times in total, making three trips as a happy customer and three as a horrible one.

Here are our results:

The kind customer, on average, received more than 75 grams more food than the mean customer. That’s over 2.5 ounces more food, just from being kind!

The kind customer received orders of 833g, 730g, and 722g, and the mean customer received orders of 701g, 703g, and 652g.

Even if you argue that human error can come into play with food service, it’s hard to argue with the difference in amounts of food in this case. I know this sampling size is really small and serving size will vary from server to server but we found this to be a fun test anyway.

Even the most amount of food Evan received as an unhappy customer did not come close to least amount of food he received as a happy customer.

And the discrepancies can be huge, too! Imagine receiving nearly 200g’s more food just from being kind – which is possible taking our highest amount against our lowest amount received!

So the next time you’re hungry and want a bit more bang for your buck, be nice!

It’s amazing how far a smile, a please, and a thank you can go!

Filed Under: Business Insights

Now if I may be honest, I tend to be on the more intense and driven end of the continuum, and there are surly times that I am too focused on the tasks at hand, and not attentive enough to the needs of the team assembled to execute those tasks. That is a flaw and a failure of leadership on my part; I try to be constantly aware of this flaw. I am often amazed to witness how a bit of levity brought in at just the right moment, or sincere expressions of gratitude and thankfulness can change difficult and discouraging situations into challenges and team and comraderies building opportunities. A smile on the face of a leader, when the team is facing a daunting challenge can change the tide of the battle. The leadership lesson of the day is this: being nice costs little, yet the pay-offs can be great.

Thanks for the reminder, Shelly. Today, I will purposely strive to be nicer.

(Now everybody, get to work!)

Stay Strong,

Terry