The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness

by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, Currency Books, 110 Pages, $17.95 Hardcover, September 2006, ISBN 0385518927

There are weighty tomes that require serious concentration and contemplation. But bigger doesnt always mean better. This book weighs in at just over 100 pages, but this penultimate airplane-read is the classic example of good things coming in small packages. The book starts with a Jay Leno forward, then proceeds to a surprisingly meaty interior. One of the chapters is called, Bake a Bigger Pie. The premise is that we should share and if your share is too small, bake a bigger pie, instead of envying someones bigger slice.

[B]eat out the competition; grab your slice of the pie before they get it first. Because if you dont, youll be left with only crumbs. Right? Wrong. Life is not a zero-sum game: If the other person wins, I lose, or vice versa. Theres no need to squabble over who gets the biggest piece of piewe just have to bake a bigger pie. After all, who says the pie is finite? The universe isntthe universe is infinite. Our capacity for love isnt finite, either, as any parent knows. You have your first child and you think your heart couldnt grow any bigger. Then you have a second child and it doubles, or triples.

At the end of each chapter they have one paragraph takeaways For example:

Nice Cube: Make a difference

As the Beatles said, And, in the end, the pie you take, is equal to the pie you bake. OK, thats not exactly what they said, but you get the point. In other words, every time someone gives you an idea, a job tip, or a loanmake sure you pass it on. It doesnt have to be an exact quid pro quo. If someone higher up in your company gives you good advice, think about passing it on to a more junior person you would like to mentor. If a competitor recommends you for a job she cant take, try to come back to her with some worthwhile contacts. Or just do something nice. Visit a home for the aged. Or call your grandmother, for goodness sakeshes dying to hear from you.

As you can see this book has special advice that will last you a long time.