On Niceness (In the Workplace)

Author Malcolm Gladwell makes important points about niceness in the following quote, particularly its role as a barrier to good management practices (especially true here in the land of 10,000 lakes, where our culture of "Minnesota Nice" can be positively debilitating in the workplace):

It [is] the practice of niceness that [helps] keep other values, such as fairness, at bay.  Fairness sometimes requires that surfaces be disturbed, that patterns of cordiality be broken, and that people rudely or abruptly be removed from their place.  Niceness is the enemy of fairness.