Incentive - September 2008 - (Page 34) INTERVIEW 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.” Edelman with fellow Nice Guy Strategist Timothy Hiltabiddle “Nice guys have the propensity to . . . assume things are going to be okay.” –Russ Edelman 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 South- 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 34 | Incentive | September 2008 | incentivemag.com http://incentivemag.com
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