Friendliness
Other names:
Affability
Affability
Definition:
Behaving appropriately to others; being "suitably adapted to his fellow-men in social intercourse so as to behave toward each appropriately" (CE)
Behaving appropriately to others; being "suitably adapted to his fellow-men in social intercourse so as to behave toward each appropriately" (CE)
Advice:
Empirical Research:
[CSV: Kindness]
Empirical Research:
[CSV: Kindness]
Case examples:
Gifts of the Holy Spirit:
Further reading:
Vices opposed:
Flattery, Quarreling
Gifts of the Holy Spirit:
Further reading:
Vices opposed:
Flattery, Quarreling
Case Study 1
ReplyDeleteMary Kay Ash explains in her book, The Mary Kay Way: Timeless Principles from America’s Greatest Woman Entrepreneur, that she tried to make friendliness the cornerstone of her business philosophy when she opened her own company, recognizing it as essential to effective leadership.
"I believe every person has the ability to achieve something important, and with that in mind, I regard everyone as special. A manager should feel this way about people, but it’s an attitude that can’t be faked. You’ve got to be honestly convinced that every human being is important.
"This is a basic lesson, one that you have probably heard many times before. Yet I remind you of it because many business people become so involved in their work that they forget to apply it. ‘Business is business, Mary Kay,’ they tell me. ‘You don’t have to treat employees that way. My workers shouldn’t expect me to make them feel important. That’s not what I’m paid for.’
"But they’re wrong. Making people feel important is precisely what a leader is paid for—because making people feel important motivates them to do better work. It was John D. Rockefeller who said, ‘‘I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than for any other commodity under the sun.’’ High morale is a significant factor in increasing productivity, which means that a good leader should continually strive to boost the self-esteem of every individual in his or her organization." (23)
...
"How does a leader make people feel important? First, by listening to them. Let them know you respect their thinking, and let them voice their opinions. As an added bonus, you might learn something! A friend of mine once told me about an executive of a large retail operation who told one of his branch managers, ‘There’s nothing you could possibly tell me that I haven’t already thought about before. Don’t ever tell me what you think unless I ask you. Is that understood?’ Imagine the loss of self-esteem that branch manager must have felt. It must have taken all the wind out of his sails and adversely affected his performance. When an individual’s self-esteem is deflated, his level of energy is decreased. On the other hand, when you make a person feel a great sense of importance, he or she will be walking on cloud nine—and the level of energy will skyrocket." (24) (May Kay, The Mary Kay Way, pp. 23 and 24)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteIn Pizza Tiger, Domino's founder Tom Monaghan explains the role of friendliness in his business model. "The little thing you can do is simply be nice to people. I've often remarked in speeches that my objective is to have everyone say that Domino's Pizza people are nice. Not brilliant or charming or models of efficiency, just nice. How can that be achieved? Simply by getting employees to take the opportunity to be friendly, to smile at the customer and say "please" and "thank you" and "sir" and "ma'am." I am very serious about the proper technique for taking telephone orders, how to say the right words and get as much friendliness into your voice as possible. It sounds very basic, and it is. But it's one of those fundamentals you have to stress over and over again, like a football coach harping on blocking and tackling. And though it's a little thing, it pays off big in unexpected ways. If you are nice to other people, they'll be nice to you. Not only will your business prosper, but your customers' return of courtesy will bolster your self-image and you'll become a happier person." (Monaghan, Pizza Tiger, p. 9)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteIn his book, It's Your Ship, Captain Abrashoff explains how he set out to foster a culture of friendliness aboard the U.S.S. Benfold by learning the names and faces of all 310 crew members. "At two o’clock one morning, I woke up suddenly and said to myself, 'The only way I can create the right climate is to tell every sailor, in person, that this is the climate I want to create.' I decided to interview each crew member on the ship so he or she could hear my expectations directly.
"I raced to work that morning, and, without informing my chain of command, I began to interview five crew members a day, one at a time.
"I didn’t know where I was headed when I started the interviews. I just knew I was desperate to set a different tone. I started with very basic questions: their names; where they were from; their marital status. Did they have children? If so, what were their names? (In time, I came to know not only my crew’s names, but those of their spouses as well.) Then I asked about Benfold: What did they like most? Least? What would they change if they could?
"I tried to establish a personal relationship with each crew member. I wanted to link our goals, so that they would see my priority of improving Benfold as an opportunity for them to apply their talents and give their jobs a real purpose." (Abrashoff, It’s Your Ship, pp. 65-66)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteCaptain Michael Abrashoff of the U.S.S. Benfold emphasizes the importance of maintaining a face-to-face, in-person habit of friendliness in his book, It's Your Ship. "My officers knew that they could always use me in their leadership toolkits. They never hesitated to knock on my door and say, 'Hey, Captain, next time you’re out walking around the ship, Sonarman Smith really aced that databank,' or 'Seaman Jones is doing a helluva job in the laundry. Could you stop by and tell him how much you appreciate him?'
"Those conversations were the highlight of my day, and they didn’t cost me or the Navy a dime. The more I went around meeting sailors, the more they talked to me openly and intelligently. The more I thanked them for hard work, the harder they worked. The payoff in morale was palpable. I’m absolutely convinced that positive, personal reinforcement is the essence of effective leadership. Yet some leaders seem to be moving away from it. They stay connected electronically with e-mail and cell phones, but they’re disconnected personally, and many leaders almost never leave their offices. People seem to think that if you send somebody a compliment online, it’s as good as the human touch. It is not. It’s easier, but much less effective. Social interaction is getting lost in a digital world that trades more in abstractions than in face-to-face relations. It’s more than a shame—it’s a bottom-line mistake." (Abrashoff, It’s Your Ship, pp. 181-82)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteCaptain Michael Abrashoff provides an example of how seemingly small gestures can help to create a culture of friendliness in his book, It's Your Ship. "For example, I ordered a big supply of greeting cards that read, 'The Officers and Crew of the USS Benfold Wish You a Happy Birthday.' Each month my ship’s office gave me a birthday list of my sailors’ spouses. I would write, say, 'Dear Marie' at the top and sign it 'Love, Mike.' Every card included my P.S. saying, 'Your husband or wife is doing a great job,' even if he or she were not. I knew the cards worked because sailors often came by to express their appreciation. It was my way of bringing their families into our orbit."(Abrashoff, It’s Your Ship, p. 179)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteIn her autobiography, Tough Choices, Carly Fiorina explains how she learned the importance of cultivating the virtue of friendliness early in her career, while working as a secretary at Marcus and Millichap. "I learned that a simple thing like how I answered the phone could say a lot about how customers viewed the business. I remember a customer coming in and saying he’d decided to do business with us, after talking to a number of other companies, because I was so friendly and helpful when he called." (Fiorina, Tough Choices, ch.3)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteHobby Lobby founder David Green offers an example of how his staff workers strive to embody a culture of friendliness in his book, More Than a Hobby. "I was pleased to hear the story of one man who was sent by his wife to get some floating candles. Rather than hunt around, he walked up to a woman in her late thirties wearing a blue Hobby Lobby vest who was pricing candy near the front of the store.
"'Where would I find those little floating candles?' he asked. By the woman’s hand motions, the customer realized almost immediately that she was speech-and-hearing impaired. She had not heard his question, and she could not speak back to him. But before he could walk away or even feel embarrassed, she had whipped out of her pocket a pen and a small pad of paper. She extended it to the man with a hopeful expression on her face.
"He took the pad and scribbled 'floating candles?' then handed it back.
"Her face instantly brightened as she motioned for the man to follow her. Across the store they trekked, arriving at the candle aisle. She specifically pointed him to the shelf where the floating varieties lay.
"He smiled and nodded, saying, 'Thank you!' even though she couldn’t hear him. And with that, she disappeared back to her candy cart.
"The man told me later, 'I was struck by two things. Number one, that Hobby Lobby was even willing to hire such a person for a retail, meet-the-public kind of job. And number two, that she was totally prepared to answer customer questions. She had thought it all out in advance that she would no doubt be approached by customers, and so she must think of a way to dialogue with them. I was impressed!'" (David Green, More Than a Hobby, ch. 3)
Case Studies
ReplyDeleteIn Everyone's a Coach, Ken Blanchard explains how he prioritizes the virtue of friendliness in his hiring practices and personnel decisions. "When my wife, Margie, and I started our company, we decided that we would only hire people that we liked. Our rule was that if we saw somebody coming in the front door and didn't feel a chemical change in our bodies - a change that would mean we were really glad to see them - then we wouldn't hire them. That was easy when we were running a small mom-and-pop operation, but we still think it's important.
...
“I gave a speech recently at the Ritz-Carlton at Laguna Niguel, California. This hotel had just been chosen the number one resort hotel in the United States. Some of the participants in my session asked me how they got people at that hotel to go out of their way so often for their guests. During the break I approached two Ritz-Carlton employees and asked them, 'Do you all go out of your way for your customers because you're just good people, or are you trained to do that?'
"'Both,' they said. 'We hire good people, but we put them through an extensive training program that includes a two-day orientation and a twenty-one-day supervised work experience. At the end of this time, the new employee sits down with us to evaluate their future with the company.'"
"If you want to win with good people, you can't leave it to chance. You have to hire, train and supervise people to operate according to the values for which you stand." (Blanchard and Shula, Everyone’s a Coach, pp. 65-66)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteInez Threet, a clerk at Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton's original five and dime in Bentonville, notes how Walton's friendly demeanor was part of the key to his early success in Made in America. "I guess Mr. Walton just had a personality that drew people in. He would yell at you from a block away, you know. He would just yell at everybody he saw, and that's the reason so many liked him and did business in the store. It was like he brought in business by his being so friendly." (Walton, Made in America, p. 43)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteIn Eat Mor Chiken: Inspire More People, local Chik-fil-A manager Shane Todd explains how creating an atmosphere of friendliness amongst one's peers and employees is essential to ensuring friendliness towards one's customers. "When people ask what we do differently, I tell them, 'Don't come visit us looking for any gimmicks or gadgets.' We just love our team. We smile at them and tell them we love them. We share their joys and stand by them through hard times. It's amazing how that filters down to our customers.
"For example, I'll be here tomorrow morning at 6:30 with two dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts. For them to see me here with my shirt and tie at 6:30 when I could be in bed goes a long way toward showing my appreciation for them.
"Once a quarter I rent a van and take our college-age employees to tour the home office in Atlanta. They all meet Dan Cathy and as many other executives as we can. I did that even when I was in Raleigh, North Carolina. The only difference was I had to rent hotel rooms for folks.
"But more than what I do for them, it's what they do for our customers that makes a difference. Bennie McKinnley works the register for us in the morning, and recently she saw a picture of one of our regular customers in the newspaper. Bennie took it upon herself to cut out the picture, have it laminated, and surprise him with it on Monday morning.
"Of course, those kinds of opportunities are few. What most customers appreciate are our smiles. We don't tolerate a bad attitude." (Cathy, Eat Mor Chikin, p. 25)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteIn Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People, Chik-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy explains how friendliness has been key to his success. "Ever since I was a teenager delivering newspapers, I have tried not to lose a single customer. I treated each one like the most important person in the world, and delivered each paper as if I were delivering it to the front door of the Governor's Mansion. That's an image that still works to improve customer service. If you were working in a restaurant and suddenly the President of the United States showed up, your voice and facial expressions would change. You'd be eager to serve the President well, make sure he had a clean table, then go up and see if everything was all right, or if he needed anything. If we're willing to do that for the President, why not treat every customer that well?" (Cathy, Eat Mor Chikin, p. 26)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteJ. C. Penney founder James Cash Penney made a special point of forging personal relationships with the hired hands and tenant farmers who worked for his philanthropic agricultural projects at Home Place Farm, Missouri. “For better or worse,” comments David Delbert Kruger in J. C. Penney: The Man, the Store and American Agriculture, “no farm worker could hide in anonymity whenever Penney visited. The department store magnate would simply pull up in an old Plymouth coupe he kept garaged in his hometown, typically with no trace of an entourage, naturally greeting everybody he had previously met by name. Penney’s introductions to those he did not know often involved walking up behind them to examine the tags on their overalls. If Penny deduced their work clothing had not come from a J. C. Penney store, he would simply introduce himself as ‘J. C. Penney,’ adding that the local J. C. Penney store in town offered better overalls for working on his farms, quality tested and at a good price. The tone of his remark was always friendly but was still a firm suggestion about ‘recommended’ future attire in any of his operations. None of Penney’s farming partners, managers, or workers ever needed a second reminder from Penney about where they should buy their clothing.” (Kruger, J. C. Penney, p. 123)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteWhile traveling the country to promote his extensive livestock ventures, J. C. Penney founder James Cash Penney made a point of visiting the local branches of his store and meeting with the managers. “Penney even amazed J. C. Penney associates in rural communities,” explains David Delbert Kruger explains in J. C. Penney: The Man, the Store and American Agriculture, “by personally walking into their local stores unannounced and quietly waiting on customers during his train stops. ‘It would be hard to estimate in dollars and cents the publicity we received through Mr. Penney’s visit to The Dalles,’ remarked one store manager in Oregon. ‘It undoubtedly bettered our standing in the community. Folks are still talking about it.’ A manager in Montana offered a similar response. ‘Everyone seemed to be interested in the fact a man as prominent as Mr. Penney had visited Missoula. For days before and days afterwards it was all I heard on the street.’” (Kruger, J. C. Penney, p. 51)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteIn The Paperboy, Mackenzie Busch, daughter of entrepreneur-philanthropist Timothy Busch, recalls some valuable advice her father offered her on the virtue of friendliness. “I remembered Dad always had this running list of wise sayings that I could never get out of my head... Sometimes, I literally still hear them in my head or say them to my husband whenever moments occur that would suit one of his sayings. For example, Dad always told Garret and me, ‘Don’t burn bridges and respect people.’ And we’ve both done that in our lives because (at least for me) every time a moment comes along where I felt like burning some relationship to the ground, I always hear Dad’s calm voice repeating those magic words in my head.” (Busch, The Paperboy, ch. 1)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteIn Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War and Life, Donald Rumsfeld offers an anecdote on the value of friendliness. “I learned something about the importance of outreach from Nelson Rockefeller, the former governor of New York, then serving as Vice President. He offered an insight into human nature that is useful to keep in mind when dealing with everyone, including the press.
“As we rode together in a presidential motorcade, there were sizable crowds, five or six deep on both sides of the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of President Ford, who was in a limousine ahead of us. Our car, an open-top convertible, followed the Secret Service cars. The Vice President turned to me, his thick-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. ‘Watch this,’ he said. He put one hand out the open window and gave a slight wave to the crowd. He caught several people’s eyes, and they waved back in a similarly muted manner.
“‘Now watch this,’ Rocky waved in a somewhat more extravagant way, his arm sweeping a small arc beyond the open window. Sure enough, people along the route saw him and responded with exactly the same waves. Then he said, ‘Watch this.’ He turned his body toward the side and raised both of his arms, waving them from side to side. Once again, the people along the route repeated his motion, waving their arms back at him.
“Then to my surprise Rockefeller stood up in the back of the car, extending his body above the retracted convertible roof. He waved vigorously with a beaming, ear-to-ear grin. His exuberance was promptly matched by the crowd’s response. The American flags some were holding were practically blurred, they were being waved so fast. The crowd became fully energized.
“As Rocky sat down, he turned to me with a satisfied smile. ‘Don, there’s a lesson here,’ he said. ‘People respond in direct proportion to the extent you reach out to them.’” (Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld’s Rules, pp. 151-52)
Advice
ReplyDelete“Cultivate a tendency to appreciate the good qualities, rather than the shortcomings, of each individual.” (King, The Unwritten Laws of Business, 75)
Advice
ReplyDelete“Make it a rule to help the other person whenever the opportunity arises…The business world demands and expects cooperation and teamwork among the members of an organization. It is smarter to give it freely and ungrudgingly.” (King, The Unwritten Laws of Business, 76-77)
Advice
ReplyDelete“Put yourself out just a little to be genuinely cordial in greeting people.” (King, The Unwritten Laws, 78)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteOne of Michael Abrashoff’s first acts as captain of the U.S.S. Benfold was to conduct a series of interviews with the entire crew, as he explains in his book, It’s Your Ship. “My interviews included more detailed questions: Did they have special memories from high school? How about from their hometowns? I asked if they had goals for their time in the Navy; what about for the future? I always asked them why they had joined the Navy. Until this point, I never knew why people signed up. I learned by listening that 50 percent enlisted because their families could not afford to send them to college, and 30 percent joined to get away from bad situations at home—drugs, gangs, and other violence, for example. Some of their stories broke my heart.
“One sailor was raised by a distant relative after his parents were killed in a car accident when he was very young. Another grew up in a neighborhood where gunfire at night was not an uncommon occurrence. Yet another sailor’s family were immigrants who arrived in this country with nothing and worked any jobs they could get to support their children.
“In just about every case, my sailors were not born with anything remotely resembling a silver spoon in their mouths. But each and every one of them was trying to make something meaningful of their lives. This is one of the greatest strengths of our all-volunteer military force. They are all good, young, hardworking men and women. They deserve nothing but our respect and admiration.
“Something happened in me as a result of those interviews. I came to respect my crew enormously. No longer were they nameless bodies at which I barked orders. I realized that they were just like me: They had hopes, dreams, loved ones, and they wanted to believe that what they were doing was important. And they wanted to be treated with respect.” (Abrashoff, It’s Your Ship, Ch. 4)