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See - nice guys don't always finish last!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michael Andrews <mandrews@ips.edu>
Date: Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: the economic value of decency - Kindness can be the hardest
word - Tom peters
To: Neil Callahan <ncallahan@rosemontseneca.com>


Are you still in Washington? Do you have time to talk on the phone briefly?
What I like about Rosemont Senaeca is that I sense tthe leadership and the
firm has internalized the message in this article. Michael

On Aug 25, 2010, at 11:58 AM, Neil Callahan wrote:

Thanks, this is great.

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 11:35 AM, Michael Andrews <mandrews@ips.edu> wrote:

> I have attached the article by Tom Peters I mentioned yesterday.
>
>
> Kindness can be the hardest word
> By Tom Peters
> Published: August 23 2010 19:48 | Last updated: August 23 2010 19:48
>
> In 1903, King Edward VII journeyed to Paris. Crowds lining the streets on
> his arrival made clear that he was not welcome. But he maintained an
> imperturbable demeanour during the ride to the Elysée palace and for the
> duration of his 96-hour visit. In *The Guns of August*, Barbara Tuchman
> reports that the king charmed the French without let-up. “Everywhere he made
> gracious and tactful speeches about his friendship and admiration for the
> French, their ‘glorious traditions’, their ‘beautiful city’, his ‘sincere
> pleasure’ in his visit, his belief that old misunderstandings are ‘happily
> over and forgotten’” – and all in perfect French.
>
> When the king left Paris, the crowds this time shouted: “*Vive notre roi!*”
> Hard work remained but, less than a year later, the *entente cordiale *was
> signed between France and Britain – and the history of the world was
> reshaped.
> EDITOR’S CHOICE
> Robert Sutton: Separating the best CEOs from the dolts<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f05eeca-a95f-11df-a6f2-00144feabdc0.html> -
> Aug-16
> Octavius Black: ‘I don’t have time to think’<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/752af806-a3eb-11df-9e3a-00144feabdc0.html> -
> Aug-09
>
> In the same city, 126 years earlier, another charmer had his way with the
> French. Representing a budding American nation that was out of money,
> without allies and marching backwards, Benjamin Franklin alighted in Paris
> or, rather, the salons of Paris. He charmed the ladies and became a
> favourite of the court. Courtesy of a modest American victory against the
> British at Saratoga and Franklin’s tireless charm offensive, the French
> became an ally – and the history of the world was changed.
>
> I have amassed a collection of hundreds of such tales, which became the
> impetus for my most recent book, *The Little BIG Things*.
>
> In the process of writing a book, there is nothing more difficult than
> choosing an epigraph – a dozen words that encapsulate one’s work. In this,
> my 16th book, I was for the first time satisfied thanks to Henry Clay, the
> 19th-century American statesman: “Courtesies of a small and trivial
> character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating
> heart.” (The runner up, from David Ogilvy, the father of modern advertising:
> “We don’t take people to the elevator – we take them down to the street.”)
>
>
> For good or ill, I am rather widely considered to be a fiery orator. And
> perhaps, now past 65, I’ve gone soft. But I don’t think so. If good business
> is built on great people and superb relationships – and it is in 2010 as it
> was in 1910 and, doubtless, 1710 and 1810 – then it is built on a bedrock of
> decency, thoughtfulness, empathetic listening and murmurs of appreciation.
> Indeed, it is built on Clay’s “courtesies” and Ogilvy’s willingness to
> escort clients to their car at street level in Manhattan.
>
> This is, in fact, an old theme for me. The signature of my first book, *In
> Search of Excellence* (written with Bob Waterman), was a six-word phrase:
> “Hard is soft. Soft is hard.” As Bob and I examined the problems besetting
> US corporations circa 1980, we believed they and their advisers had got
> things backwards. We said that in the end it was the supposedly “hard
> numbers”, so readily manipulable as we have seen of late, and the “plans”,
> that are so often flights of fantasy, that were soft. And the true “hard
> stuff” was what the business schools and their ilk undervalued as soft:
> people issues, character and the quality of relationships inside and beyond
> the organisation’s walls.
>
> Thinking about all this led me to the softest word of all – and the word
> with perhaps the most lasting impact in dealings among humans: kindness. The
> novelist Henry James said: “Three things in human life are important. The
> first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”
> My observation: Kind works! And pays off!
>
> In the tradition of my “hard” engineering background, I put forth an
> equation, facetiously labelled “all you need to know”, on a PowerPoint
> slide: K = R = P (Kindness = Repeat business = Profit).
>
> As to the “R” and “P”, the evidence is clear: profitability, whether at the
> corner shop or a global company such as Boeing, is directly related to
> repeat business. As to the kindness connection, I offer as evidence the
> tales of King Edward VII’s magical 96 hours, Benjamin Franklin, and a host
> of others, from George Washington to Nelson Mandela. The power of my
> collection is the indubitable link between small courtesies and
> earth-shattering events.
>
> If people and relationships are the *sine qua non* of enterprise success,
> and I flatly assert that they are, then decency, thoughtfulness and the
> likes of attentive listening should know no peers in the management canon.
>
> I will stake my professional reputation on it; “soft” is indeed “hard”, and
> Kindness = Repeat business = Profit.
>
> Then. Now. Tomorrow.
>
> www.tompeters.com
>
> *The writer is the author, most recently, of ‘The Little BIG Things’*
>
>
>


--
Neil Callahan
Rosemont Seneca Partners
917-945-9516


--
Neil Callahan
Rosemont Seneca Partners
917-945-951