The September Team Player

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When I was a young child, my father bought a sports car. Not just any sports car, a Pontiac Trans Am. You know the one from Smokey and the Bandit. It was a pretty cool car, but small. One day, we showed up at our grandparents' house in that "cool" car. My grandparents were terrified. They saw that small car and thought that their son-in-law could only afford a small car, and that their daughter was in need of financial help. So, as we left their home that day, my grandparents shoved money in my brother and my pockets, and told us to give it to our mother so that she can take care of everything. Double cool, great car and money.

As much as my mother tried, my grandparents refused to believe that the car was not inexpensive, and that my parents were not in need of financial assistance. Other relatives, hearing of the need, also called my mother, and offered their assistance. No one could understand that everything was fine. Why? My grandparents and elder family members were from a different country and a different generation, they could not understand, nor did they really want to, that a Trans Am was a very desirable and costly car. What happened? The car was never driven to my grandparents' house again. My father actually got rid of the car for other reasons, most likely practicality. And my grandparents were so relieved that they stopped shoving dollar bills in our pockets.

What does this story teach us as managers? Our realities and our employees' realities can many times be different. I hear a lot of stories of wonderful benefit plan rollouts that bomb, sound employment policies that employees resent and more. Many times, reasoning, facts and explanations may not change our employees' perceptions; so we need to alter our realities to accomplish the goals we have set.

New Health Insurance Rules for Maryland Employees with 51 or More Employees

Effective January 1, 2008, the maximum age of a dependent will change to age 25. This is for new plans and those renewing after January 1, 2008. Plan administrators should check with their insurance carriers/brokers to see if HB 1057 applies to them.

Book Review -Kindness Can Take You Far In The Business World

In The Power of Nice, Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval take turns narrating chapters about using kindness in business. The success of their advertising agency, Kaplan Thaler Group, attests to their claim that being nice doesn't mean being a pushover. (Nice follows their book on marketing strategies, Bang!)

Placing others' needs on the same level as your own, they write, will get you everything you want. Studies show that nice people are luckier in love, make more money, and are healthier.

Their Power of Nice principles:

• Positive impressions are like seeds. Kindness can come back to you in unexpected and profitable ways. Once, Thaler made a special effort to make Melania Trump comfortable when she was in one of the agency's commercials. Later, when Thaler was a judge on The Apprentice, Donald Trump returned the favor by describing her firm as one of the hottest ad agencies in the country.
   
• You never know. Treat every person you meet as the most important person in the world. A woman carried a stranger's bags up five flights of stairs and was invited to a farmhouse gathering, where she socialized with Clint Eastwood.
   
• People change. Be nice to everyone including competitors and junior employees who could later send you business.
   
• Small gestures can have a big impact. One company lost out on a huge contract because its executive didn't help the client with her bags at the airport.

Thaler and Koval say even helping opponents is a good way to boost a career. And being genuine produces better results than game playing.

A pleasant read, this book is well thought-out and presented. Don't miss the forward by Jay Leno.

The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness
by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, Currency, 144 pages.

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