Newsday (New York), October 12, 2005, Wednesday

Copyright 2005 Newsday, Inc.
Newsday (New York)

October 12, 2005 Wednesday
ALL EDITIONS

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A08

HEADLINE: When flattery is the best policy

BYLINE: BY CARRIE MASON-DRAFFEN AND PATRICIA KITCHEN. STAFF WRITERS

BODY:
When our editor asked us to write this story, we both said, "What a great idea!" and told him he was the best boss we ever had. The truth is we really engaged in first-degree flattery, which can often get you places on the job.
Harriet Miers, the White House counsel, whom President George W. Bush has nominated to the Supreme Court, knows a thing or two about flattery.
"You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect!" she wrote in a birthday wish to Bush in 1997, when he was the governor of Texas, according to documents released Monday by the Texas State Library. "Keep up the great work. Texas is blessed."
While the flattery might not be the main reason Bush nominated her, it certainly didn't hurt.
"Those of us who don't engage in it like to think it doesn't work," said Bradford Bell, an assistant professor of human-resource studies at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. "But it can be effective in certain contexts."
In a recent study of 1,012 top managers and chief executives at 138 major corporations, those who engaged in "ingratiatory behavior" were more likely to get named to board seats, said James D. Westphal, management professor at the University of Texas at Austin and co-author of the report "The Other Pathway to the Boardroom." That behavior includes flattery.
Doing a good job is just "the price of admission," said Carol Frohlinger, co-founder of Negotiating Women Inc., a Manhattan-based training and consulting firm. And beyond that people have to develop some interpersonal skills - including the art of giving a compliment, she said.
On the other hand, how well flattery plays often depends on the workplace.
In the public sector, for example, "creating that social capital in the workplace is an expected part of the job," Professor Bell said. But the praise's advantage is limited among people whose work is technical and thus more objective, he said.
What's more, not all managers welcome flattery, said Kate Wendleton, president of the Five O'Clock Club, a Manhattan career-counseling service.
"Good managers generally want someone to tell them the truth," she said. They "don't want to be constantly flattered."
That's what David Fagiano, the chief operating officer of Dale Carnegie Training in Hauppauge, expected from a direct-mail salesman who had clinched a deal, until he uttered the fateful line: "Those are really great shoes."
Fagiano looked down to double-check his footwear. He was just wearing a pair of black loafers.
"I mean, come on," he said he wanted to tell the guy. "I looked down to see if I had put on my wife's shoes."