Forget niceties; how about just being pleasant
beingzoe 4 months ago // Business Interests Tips, tricks, and advice

After reading a post by Hal Becker at bizjournals.com entitled _ Being friendly takes only a second of our busy lives_ I was reminded of a variety of things.

In his article, Hal poses the question, “What happened to being nice,” and goes on to describe how he has seen a steady decline in even the smallest pleasantries in the past years.

“Is it our busy lives now, with so much stuff hitting us each day, such as e-mails, voice mail, faxes and regular mail? Or is it the pressures of just trying to keep up in this increasingly fast-paced society?”

He goes on to suggest two simple suggestions for building “nicer” habits in the modern age.

1. Wave. Yes just wave to say hello, I am acknowledging your existence. Could be coworkers, strangers in the car next to you when you make brief eye contact, or whenever.
2. Smile. Same thing as waving but even easier and less “time consuming.” Just smile when you make that brief eye contact with anyone.

I would go further and suggest that maybe we even say, “Hello.” Out loud and to the person. You don’t have to turn into Crocodile Dundee, attempting to personally greet everyone who is walking down a busy street. But if you are standing in line at the bank or the grocery store, try smiling and acknowledging the existence of the person you behind you.

Hal Becker points out that the decline of “being nice” in the modern age might easily unlearned by consciously choosing to “be nice” and in turn break what might be little more than bad habits.

While suggesting people be nice to strangers, we can certainly apply this to everyday business. I can’t tell you how many businesses I may never revisit because the workers and sometimes even the owners/management (you actually deal directly with owners/management in many smaller businesses) were unpleasant. More than simply lacking a jubilant attitude, but flat out being unfriendly.

We all have bad days, I understand that. But if there is a decline in pleasant courtesy in general society, this is going to “trickle-down” to the people who are representing your business. Making the need to build a happier society a potentially “mission critical” business move.

This concept extends to digital communications. It is a tired and well known fact that people are more inclined to write things in an email that they would never say directly to a person, as well as making comments and remarks that require a “tone of voice” to truly appreciate and comprehend. While I don’t endorse overuse of emoticons (and especially not animated smilies) modern business owners need to be vigilant to remember that their digital communications are a part of their brand, and an easy way to maintain and build healthy client relations.

I agree with Hal. The modern age seems to be getting less nice. And we should all consider the implications of that. Everybody is talking about green issues, and how we should want to leave a better world for the future. Well I think that includes the occasional smile and random conversation with a stranger.

I also agree that behavior can be modified by consciously choosing to break bad habits. So take a few moments each day to be more pleasant. You might just save the future of the world, and improve your business relations in the process.

Work hard & be nice to people… image courtesy of Wurz at Flickr under a creative commons license.