Nice Companies Finish First: Why Cutthroat Management Is Over--and Collaboration Is In

The era of authoritarian cowboy CEOs like Jack Welch and Lee Iacocca is over. In an age of increasing transparency and access, it just doesn't pay to be a jerk―to employees, customers, competitors, or anyone else. In Nice Companies Finish First, Shankman, a pioneer in modern PR, marketing, advertising, social media, and customer service, profiles the famously nice executives, entrepreneurs, and companies that are setting the standard for success in this new collaborative world. He explores the new hallmarks of effective leadership, including loyalty, optimism, humility, and a reverence for customer service, and shows how leaders like Jet Blue's Dave Needleman, Tony Hsieh of Zappos, Steve Jobs of Apple, Ken Chenault of Amex, Indra Nooyi of Pepsi, and the team behind Patagonia harness these traits to build productive, open, and happy workplaces for the benefit of their employees, themselves, and the bottom line.

Peter Shankman is the founder of Help a Reporter Out (HARO), the largest free source repository for journalists in the world, as well as the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, Inc., a 15-year-old marketing, branding, and PR company based in New York City with clients worldwide. His PR and social media clients have included AmEx, Sprint, the US Department of Defense, Royal Bank of Canada, Snapple, Saudi Aramco, Walt Disney World, Discovery Networks, Harrah's Hotels, and many others. He is the author of Can We Do That?!, which has been named one of the six "must read" PR books by PR Channel, and Customer Service: New Rules for a Social-Enabled World. He is a frequent speaker and has presented at such venues as South by Southwest, BlogWorld, The Public Relations Society of America, and many other trade shows. Shankman sits on the advisory boards of several companies, as well as on the NASA Civilian Advisory Council.