So rang out the scorn of a killer talk show host on a major television station in Ohio. When I was on tour in Cleveland, John Kelly quoted Leo Derocher who said just the opposite -- “Nice guys finish last.” John also quoted from books that stressed the need to be a tough minded, no nonsense guy or gal who intimidated others and took what he or she wanted in his or her activities -- possibly following instructions in a book called, Succeeding With A Swift Kick To the Groin. O K, I admit it, I made that title up but you get the picture. Kelly had done everything except put a dunce-cap on my head as he seated me on a stool before the cameras and, despite his complete ignorance of what I was teaching, proceeded to ridicule my leadership seminar for managers, pastors, teachers and other professionals. He held a copy of this book up for the audience of some three hundred people -- with tens of thousands more watching from their homes, and asked;
Who can believe this drivel? Everyone on earth knows that a nice guy or gal hasn’t a choice in this lousy, rotten world. You gotta be tough and mean to be successful. Everywhere! How many agree with me that this stuff is nonsense? Raise your hands.
That was somewhat premature since no one there had any idea what I was teaching in the seminar, but they voted as Kelly asked them to. Many had preconceived notions and about two hundred people in the studio agreed with John. He then asked, How many agree with -- he didn’t actually say it -- this dunce on the stool, but his nonverbal communication made his meaning quite clear. John was all geared up to take me apart for writing something he didn’t understand. He pointed to the overwhelming number of hands in the air and said; Take it from there. Let’s see how you handle this rejection. He sat down in the audience, as all three cameras zoomed in close -- to watch me sweat, I suppose. But because I knew what my program was all about and he didn’t -- I countered by unexpectedly agreeing with the host. I said;
If you consider a nice guy or gal a doormat, a wimp, a marshmallow -- I agree with you completely. Such a person doesn’t have a chance to succeed in a tough, competitive world in which many other persons are striving for the same things we want for ourselves. The tough-minded guys and gals will run over the wimps in a very short time. I, however don’t think of the doormats of the world as truly nice guys and gals. I see nice persons as competent and intelligent persons who understand the nature of influence, cooperation and persuasion power -- as those who;
MANAGE INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH WISDOM, KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL --And that, I told the group, is my definition of a nice guy or gal, of a decent, emotionally honest parent, teacher, manager, pastor, military officer or what have you!
I folded my arms and sat back on the stool -- waiting, for I had said all I intended to in defense of nice guys and gals. So, I waited and waited -- for John to rouse up from his confusion. I could almost hear the gears whirring in his head as first one camera and then another zoomed in on me and then on to John and panned the audience before coming back to me and John -- for almost a minute. And that, is an eternity of dead time on television. The camera operators were getting frantic when John finally stood, shook his head to clear his thoughts and muttered right on the air;
Well, I’ll be damned! I never thought of nice guys that way.Most people don’t but we then had a great time on his show. I had convinced him that my approach is by far the best way to succeeding throughout life, rather than by clawing and screaming, trying to defeat everyone else, destroying the relationships that create friendship and love, clogging your arteries and corroding the plumbing that keeps you alive -- with bile and acids boiling through your vascular and digestive systems to suck away your life.
John had the people vote again and this time all but two men of the three hundred or so in the audience voted that nice guys and gals did indeed have a greater chance at success if they followed my view of sound relationships. The viewers immediately saw the wisdom in my approach and I trust that you also shall understand it that way! The next Sunday, after I’d returned home to Minneapolis, I drew my pastor aside, told him this tale and joked;
If you had my percentage of conversions, we’d have the largest congregation in the country!This course is about people and about succeeding or failing in life, since some degrees of success and failure are the only real options that are open to us. It is written with the knowledge that neither power nor pleasure exists in a vacuum. Virtually everything good we do in life requires the cooperation of people in different ways. And every one of them has his or her own agenda that is personally important.
Therefore, you will have to overpower, out-skill, deceive, or persuade and reward others before society will consistently allow you to share in the marbles, money, passionate lovers, prestige or promotions you want. Only in this way can you make your life count for something worthwhile.
In this course you can learn how to predict the attitudes and to shape activities of the men and women you must influence every day in order to make your life successful. It also shows you how to influence their choices in ways they approve by using sound methods of personal effectiveness. You can do these things by learning and using powerful techniques developed by some very good psychiatrists and psychologists. These methods are unknown to most people, although professional therapists, consultants and social workers have been using them for decades with much success.
Most people struggle through life the best way they can, succeeding once in a while, but more often failing because they never learned how to consistently make good things happen when and where they are needed. They simply blunder along -- accepting whatever the luck of the draw offers them daily, never really taking charge of their relationships in a mutually rewarding manner that keeps people cooperating with them.
Many persons try to succeed by using the values, attitudes, expectations, choices and skills they chanced on in childhood. Unfortunately, in this age of relentless change, when power and authority are shared by more and more people, to depend on what you picked up as a youngster is a poor way to shape your life into a successful affair. In our conventional behavioral patterns many mistakes have been handed down from generation to generation. At home you were probably socialized not to ask embarrassing questions of your elders. At school you were expected to memorize the correct answers. And if you are like many people, you are still waiting for someone to ask the right questions so you can show what a good student you were. Unfortunately for your welfare, no one is ever going to ask them, since most of the answers you learned in school are no longer appropriate. Yet -- millions of men and women who would never imagine crossing the country by covered wagon instead of jet aircraft, who would never take some medicine man's snake-oil cure, try to succeed in life by using methods that were outdated a century ago. And then they can’t understand why they aren't among the successful achievers.
Today, men and women are having to cope with complex events that are affecting their lives in many crucial ways. Medicine, personal behavior, education, entertainment, sexual customs, politics, engineering and business methods are all changing more rapidly than at any time in history. We no sooner get comfortable than life rolls over once again, forcing us to learn an entirely new set of attitudes, activities and relationships!
And yet, not one of the changes sweeping over us like Pacific waves crashing onto a reef, has such critical implications when making one’s life count for something satisfying as the attitudes that people now hold toward power and control.
The John Rambo mystique ( Tell the jerks what to do!) doesn't motivate competent persons any more. If it ever did! For example, many disasters are caused by fighting the wrong people, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. During our shameful wars against poor, dark-skinned Third World nations such as Vietnam, Libya, Panama, Granada, Hati, El Salvador, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq and others, many perceptive women and men have lost faith in our institutions. After the 9-11 attack on the Trade Towers, an F B I agent was questioning a Minneapolis man about the loyalty of a Muslim neighbor. He asked; Does he ever criticize the American government?
James was flabbergasted for a moment before he blurted out -- Everyone I know criticizes Washington -- including myself and probably you! We see the Congress and state Legislatures consistently selling out to the highest bidder, business executives such as Enron and World Crossing stealing fortunes and disposing of the faithful employees who do great work at the drop of a point on Wall Street, the criminal justice system with politically ambitious district attorneys often convicting and executing always poor, mostly minority men who couldn’t possibly have committed the crimes for which they were convicted. The very flexible morality of primitive politicians, greedy business executives, powerful governmental officials and existentially enraged citizens who feel the execution of any minority man whether guilty or not is a good day’s work -- is a weak reed upon which to lean for cooperation and success.
Not long ago a middle-aged local realtor told me of an experience he had with his youthful secretary. Dan said that Dianne was a hardworking, high-spirited employee who was competent and loyal enough to become his administrative assistant. Then, he began to notice, to his middle age displeasure, that she was dressing more and more casually, as if she were going to a picnic rather than to a business operation. So, he called her into his office and tactfully asked her to dress according to his code -- the long accepted business code set by such giants as I B M, General Motors and Honeywell. The young woman sat silently as he spoke, but when he finished, she stood up and said quite pointedly;
Who needs this crap in an informal business such as this?Then she walked out of his office, returned to her desk, and continued to work harder and smarter for his small company than any assistant he had ever employed. As he related the story, Dan sighed deeply and said there was little he could do about her impertinence, unless, of course, he wanted to cut off his nose to spite his face. He could protect his ego against an outspoken girl -- could fire her and really teach her a lesson, forcing her to take unemployment pay, a month or two of subsidized vacation, and get a job with a company that would not be so stuffy about the way she dressed. But, he would be the real loser. He would spend a month trying to find a suitable replacement, another three or four months trying to help the newcomer learn the job, and another six months blaming himself for letting his ego cost him a year's efficiency in his office. He kept his mouth shut and retained a great assistant -- for he lacked the power to force her to comply with his requirements. Indeed life does go on and we must adapt, must cope with reality in order to succeed, even if doing so makes us suspect that the world is going to hell in a handcart, because humans hate change inordinately and yearn to freeze life as it was when we were learning to mange it. Even when doing so costs us a bundle. Many people do just that because personal prestige is more important to themselves than performance or profits, but it quickly leads to dysfunctional families, schools, companies, churches and communities.
The power that parents exerted over their families, teachers over their classes, and pastors over their parishes, has gone the same way it has with employers. It has passed into the hands of people who refuse to be coerced, so much so that for years I have not met anyone in authority who didn't admit that he has less power than his predecessors did a few decades earlier. For example, for generations, Marine Corps drill instructors were required by their macho commanders to drive their recruits brutally, shrugging it off when a few boots died of drowning or heat prostration, saying you cannot hope to make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Today, that abuse of power will quickly get a D I hauled before a court martial and condemned to a long stay in a military prison.
Because of this distrust of authority and growing spirit of independence and selfreliance, any attempt to use intimidation is usually more harmful than helpful, regardless of popular recommendations to win success through brute strength, to apply raw force. To succeed consistently with and through people, you must master sound personal methods for winning cooperation and commitment. I know of no other place to learn them quickly except here, for I have developed them from different approaches to cooperative relationships over the past forty years. Perhaps you could spend several years in a graduate program in psychology. But even then you would likely find that most university departments stress simplistic behavior control concepts that reflect their behavioral philosophy while failing to adequately deal with an existential or a life-style approach to success. Skinnerian Behaviorism proceeds on the assumption that all we need be concerned with is minute acts of behavior -- that human values, attitudes, expectations and relationships are immaterial to controlling others. I’m a firm believer in the use of rewards but my greatest complaint against behavioral technology is the assumption that the strong and competent persons we must cooperate with will sell out for peanuts -- for a few toys or a pat or two on the back. Face up to it, every person brings to each relationship his or her own needs and assumptions. No employee, student, spouse, in-law or voter is a blank page upon which we can write what we wish without resistance, counter proposals and outright rebellion when we behave as power freaks.
By selecting carefully from all across the field, I have learned many practical methods that will help you understand the importance of personality patterns, to avoid conflicts consistently and win the cooperation of many people so they respond to you in a positive manner. In addition to my work in academic and clinical psychology, I have also got down in the mud and blood of real life as lived by most women and men. In addition to teaching in two very good liberal arts colleges, I served seven years as a church pastor within a denomination to whom ideological beliefs were very important. I was Vice President of Manufacturing for a farm tool company, Manager of Engineering Research, Methods and Training for a huge eight thousand employee UniRoyal chemical manufacturing complex spread across twenty-two thousand acres and director of a Learning and Learning Disabilities clinic in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Thus, I had many rich experiences in both line and staff work before becoming Professor of Leadership Psychology in the Executive Development Conference at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Of course, when you start using the methods taught in this course, you shall realize while many people have an increasing sense of independence, most will cooperate when you help them succeed along with you. People want sound leadership for their activities, successful problem solving and low conflict organizations. Unfortunately, although they yearn to be self-reliant and competent, many men and women continue to interact in the negative ways they learned in childhood and have seldom examined again. This is very close to one definition of neuroticism;
Neurotics are persons who compulsively hold self-defeating attitudes and use harmful activities that failed in the past with the assumption that this time they shall succeed.
A woman who marries and divorces a succession of brutal and abusive men -each time believing that she will succeed in winning their love and support, has a serious flaw in her emotional apparatus. So does a merchant who stiffs his or her customers and then plans on developing a successful store. To help them feel good about cooperating with you, as a means of succeeding with a growing number of people, you must make the revolutionary effort to use the superb methods I have drawn together for your use.
Actually, there are only two basic psychological attitudes and expectations you can hold as you relate to the people from whom you want to win cooperation.FIRST -- You can struggle against learning new ways of relating, persuading and leading others, never discovering how to shape life the way you want it to become.
SECOND -- You can accept the methods that change has brought to our society and its organizations, adapting to people with skill and wisdom and mastering new ways of reaching your goals through cooperation.
If you remain defensive, the best you can do is circle the wagons and fight a rearguard action against those who refuse to cooperate even if you avoid ulcers and your heart doesn’t split like a rotten melon. Then, circumstances and more adaptable persons will control your life. When you need to win the personal commitment of a suspicious stranger, a surly worker or a rebellious adolescent, you shall have to do the best you can with whatever crumbs they toss to you. You shall struggle consistently. That route is already overcrowded with those who have no concept of what is happening in their lives - who have no idea of how to win interpersonal commitment beyond bullying those whose cooperation they need to succeed and attacking those who would make life satisfying if treated wisely and well. At least you will not be lonely in that circle of futility for most of the persons you know shall still be going around and around for the next forty years or so. But you shall not be living the rewarding, stimulating live which competent and successful women and women can enjoy once they learn how to focus their powers wisely along lines of excellence.
You will find, as you apply the concepts and procedures taught in this course, that they can become a normal part of your relationships with other people, an aspect of life they may not understand clearly but which they approve wholeheartedly. They will realize that you have become a more understanding, more rewarding person with whom to live, work, and play, a real winner in the true sense of the word, and they will give you a depth of commitment you will probably find astonishing. I am personally thrilled that my oldest son, now with kids of his own, has used the concepts that appear in NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST as well in my other books like GRACE UNDER PRESSRE, to become one of the finest automotive service managers in the world. That is a documented fact, since his group recently tied for first place nationally in service satisfaction for the Saturn Division of General Motors.
Discuss the following Self-Focus Exercise with another participant if you are studying this as a seminar or write out your answer in two or three sentences if you are doing this program in a self-study manner.
SAMPLE SELF-FOCUS EXERCISEWhy does the author say that a basically negative approach to life, like behaviorism that narrows life down to specific points, causes more problems than opening life up for men and women in an expansive manner.