Incentive Interview: Russ Edelman
September 09, 2008
CEO and strategist Russ Edelman compares being "overly nice" with being "effectively nice," and explains how to succeed in business without being a jerk
By Alex Palmer
Despite the familiar saying, there is no reason that nice guys—and gals—should finish last, according to Russ Edelman. In fact, as the title of his new book, Nice Guys Can Get the Corner Office, indicates, the right combination of compassion, fairness and common sense can be hugely valuable for business—as long as they avoid acting "overly nice."
Edelman wrote the book with his business partners Timothy Hiltabiddle and Charles Manz, who together recently formed Nice Guy Strategies, a speaking and education company aimed at helping organizations work through issues of "overly nice" employees or managers. According to Edelman, excessive niceness is a big problem, and one that he's dealt with firsthand.
A sales and strategy consultant who counts Nike and Microsoft among his clients, Edelman has spent over 20 years in the business world. Throughout his time working with a number of businesses (he is currently founder and CEO of the Burlington, Mass.–based technology consulting firm Corridor Consulting), he had been aware of a set of behaviors that were hurting his effectiveness or the effectiveness of those he worked with, but he couldn't quite identify what they were.
"Throughout my career of dealing with people of all different levels, and all sorts of different capacities, different countries, I was struggling with an issue and I couldn't get my arms around it," says Edelman. "I wasn't sure what it was, but I just frequently felt that sometimes people were just not as effective."
Identifying a Problem
Edelman finally put a name to it a few years ago, while in a meeting with one of his sales reps. Everything went smoothly enough at the meeting, and the conversation with the potential client was cordial, but as he and the rep left the office, it occurred to Edelman that not only did they have few results to show for their efforts, but that actually getting results had not even been top of mind for the rep during the meeting.
"I said, 'How did we fare?'" explains Edelman. "He said, 'We did good; they like us.' I said, 'What new opportunities do we have ahead for this client?' He said, 'I am not sure. I have to now try to follow up with them.'" It suddenly occurred to Edelman that they both had just suffered from "nice guy syndrome."
 Though typically used in the context of romantic relationships, Edelman believes that Nice Guy Syndrome is just as prevalent, and maladaptive, in the business world. It surfaces in a number of ways: An employee who fails to assert himself with bosses and coworkers, a manager who can't say "no" and ends up taking on far too many jobs herself, or an overly nice salesman like Edelman's employee who's more interested in receiving a smile than a hard result.
"Nice guys have the propensity to want to just assume things are going to be okay," Edelman explains, describing how, if he comes home excited about a new project, his wife will now double-check that he didn't have his "happy ears" on, only picking up on the enthusiasm of a new business relationship, instead of looking at the facts.
For his book, Edelman didn't just draw on his own experiences, he includes stories and insights from hundreds of interviews he conducted with "nice guys" like Southwest Airlines' Herb Kelleher and Cirque du Soleil President and CEO Daniel Lamarre.
From this information, Edelman developed the Nice Guy Bill of Rights (far right), including the rights to Be Bold, Set Boundaries and Expect Results. Which, if followed, will keep "effectively nice" guys from becoming "overly nice" guys. Even in customer service it is important to be the right kind of nice. For example, Edelman is careful to set clear expectations with his clients before dedicating the time to put a proposal together.
"You want to be smart about the investments you are making at that point in time. So you really go through a process where you define boundaries to the client. You say, I am willing to write all this, however I just want to make sure I really understand where you are at in the process."
In the end, this kind of openness and consistency will strengthen relationships with clients and coworkers alike, says Edelman.
 Motivating Nice Guys
As important as it is for nice employees to strengthen their spine in workplace situations, Edelman also offers "Nice Company Strategies" to extend the effective ways of handling overly nice behavior to an organizational level. Among the strategies he discusses is recognizing and rewarding employees. While they might shy away from the spotlight and might even be de-motivated at the thought of a highly public kind of recognition, nice guys thrive when their successes are acknowledged. Managers just need to learn what type of reward most appeals to them.
Edelman gives the example of Ross Perot's company, EDS, where, soon after being hired, salespeople would be asked by the manager about what they would value as a reward, even breaking it down into various price levels. Instead of rewarding with an impersonal cash bonus, explains Edelman, "they would then have some way to actually say, alright, 200 extra bucks to this guy. But now it's lined up with something that the guy or the girl has expressed an interest in."
Beyond rewarding a nice guy's performance in the appropriate way, incentives can help to encourage an overly nice person to be more "effectively nice" by rewarding specific results. Since nice guys are willing to "accept ambiguous definitions and assume that everything is understood," according to Edelman. "One of the biggest challenges that a manager faces with employees (especially overly nice guys) is ensuring that expectations are clearly understood and that they are realistic."
Edelman describes having used both highly complex sales incentive plans as well as simplified ones, and says that when they get too complicated, participants tune out or are unable to internalize what results are expected of them. He emphasizes keeping things as quantitative and clear as possible, even if working with such qualifiable data as customer satisfaction scores.
"So that's where you say, 'let's just keep it simple; were they happy, yes or no? Will you refer us, yes or no?'" says Edelman. "You have got to really make sure it's a super, super clean model, and very black and white."
In this sense, incentive programs themselves can suffer from "overly nice" behavior. Giving awards indiscriminately or without clear criteria can have the opposite impact they were intended to accomplish. Just as with employees, salesmen or bosses, being bold, clear and results-oriented is the truly nice way to run a program.
Send comments to alex.palmer@incentivemag.com.
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