Being nice isn’t the same as being weak. Showing kindness to colleagues or to folks you’re doing deals with is hugely important — and it drives significant success.

At work — and in much of life — pretty much everything is negotiation. Whether it’s with outside parties you’re trying to strike a deal with, or you’re debating the best path forward with colleagues, or you’re simply trying to figure out what to have for dinner… We wrangle a lot of negotiations in our day to day lives.

I’ve written about negotiation a couple times already. My opinions on negotiation that I’ve already shared include that transparency is key, and that the best negotiations are conversations.

Quoting myself:

I’ve joked that a successful negotiation is like a successful compromise: everyone feels comparably annoyed about the outcome. The truth, though, is that the best negotiations are the ones where everyone feels like they won — because they feel fair.

I’m no babe in the woods, nor am I a Pollyanna. But another incredibly important key element to successful negotiation is kindness.

I don’t have many parenting regrets, but I do regret that I didn’t have them watch Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. I’m not a Fred Rogers historian, but I do know that he was a kind man, and he taught kindness, patience, empathy, and understanding. He told people when he was proud of them, he simplified difficult subjects, and he worked hard to give people his undivided attention.

Mr. Rogers was a good guy.

Without becoming a children’s television host or puppeteer, you can still emulate some of Mr. Rogers’s inspiring qualities in ways that serve you — and the people you work and interact with — well: Regarding that aforelinked piece I shared about transparency in negotiations, I’d actually argue that transparency is a form of kindness.

We’re often worried that someone could be trying to gain an upper hand against us, that the other side — of anything! — might be trying to take some unfair advantage. Showing genuine kindness, patience, and understanding gives people comfort and reassurance. People who sincerely like and trust you are, unsurprisingly enough, more likely to agree to the deal terms you’re after.

I think most humans are pretty good at detecting faked kindness. I’m not asking you to change your personality. I think most people want to be good most of the time. But I also think there’s a too-common inclination that we need to be tough or aggressive or stoic at work.

I think that inclination is wrong. Thanking folks, responding quickly, and showing real humanity, generosity of spirit, and kindness — it works. Even if you don’t put on a cardigan and starting singing to the folks you’re working with, offering patience, niceness, and gratitude works. It helps to get more deals done, and it makes you feel great, too.

Some folks have reputations as being tough as nails. Aim to score the more coveted reputation — that you’re one of the good ones.

I remember the era of “no laptop” meetings. You’d ask everyone to close their computers so that we could all focus on the discussion at end with our full attention.

That era is over.

Every video call obviously requires you (and everyone else) be staring at a computer screen. And if you’re an in-person attendee, you’ll have your laptop in front of you and your iPhone buzzing away. And even if you’re somehow able to avoid the allure of your ever-growing inbox, your Mastodon notifications, your news alerts, your texts, your DMs, the warning that it’s time to BeReal… you still know those alerts are piling up. You know you have another big meeting to prep for. Or maybe there’s just other work weighing on your mind.

My advice? Take notes. Take notes even if you don’t need the notes. Take notes even if you’ll never look at them again. But take great notes.

I could — and maybe one day will! — write a whole essay on how best to take notes. I sometimes get into full transcription mode (because I’m a fast typist), and use bold type for anything I want to follow-up on or ask about, because I can hit Command-B fast without missing a word. You might prefer taking notes by hand, or using a less-verbose outlined approach.

I support whatever note taking method suits you — so long as it’s legit. If you’re playing at taking notes, you’re not going to help yourself focus. I’m a doodler, and every time I try to take handwritten notes I end up with goofy faces in the margins — visual reminders that I stopped paying strict attention.

So if you’re not going full transcription mode (and I don’t blame you!), just make sure you’re taking notes that are good enough that you could talk a non-attendee through everything that was covered in the meeting they missed. Again, if you won’t have to do so — the act of paying good enough attention to take copious notes will help you stay focused on the meeting itself. And as an added bonus, you might sound even more cogent and thoughtful when you chime in on the meeting discussion, since you have all those lovely notes to refer back to!

First, a quick housekeeping note: Most posts on Your Intermittent Lex are free. There are sometimes posts just for paying subscribers. Most paid posts don’t even email free subscribers, because I don’t want to clog up your inboxes with posts you can’t read all of.

But business sense requires that sometimes free subscribers need to see premium posts, or they’ll never upgrade. A couple of you will be annoyed by posts like these and unsubscribe, and I’ll get an email notification that you’ve done so, and I’ll feel bad. Ideally, though, one of you will get motivated to upgrade, and I’ll feel like overall, the system works. You take the good, you take the bad.

Earlier this weekend, I auditioned for a musical. A nearby theater is putting on a production of Avenue Q, one of my absolute favorite musicals — it involves puppets and profanity! — and I’ve been planning my audition for months. A couple trusted friends I spoke to prior to the actual audition mentioned to me that they weren’t used to seeing me nervous. And indeed, I was nervous: I really want to get cast in specific roles in this show, I relish the idea of being on stage puppeteering with Muppet-inspired voices, and auditions are high-stakes, one-and-done deals.

Of course, I aimed to exude confidence when I walked into the audition itself. But I was thinking about my nervousness, and why I’m often less nervous in even a big business meeting, and I have a few thoughts to share. Let’s dive in.

First, I should acknowledge that there’s nothing wrong with nervousness itself. The problem to be wary of is when nervousness — the fear itself, or the fear of BEING nervous — holds you back from doing things you want to do.

That said, feeling nervous is no fun. Nervous energy is jittery. I don’t want the physical signs of nervousness (for me, a quivering voice, heavier breathing, visible vibrations in my legs and hands) to make people question whether I’m the right person for whatever I’m pitching them on — casting me in a role, hiring me for work, or trusting my great ideas.

Overall, I do tend to feel confident in a work meeting because I know what I know, and I know have years of experience to back up my arguments, and I have a track record of success. That’s good!

An audition and a business meeting are not the same. Put simply, auditions suck, and meetings — even high-stakes meetings — don’t.

Good meetings and even presentations that you’re leading involve some sense of give and take. You can read the room, get feedback, see how things are landing. You can rely on your expertise, you can acknowledge what you don’t know, and you can explore nuances as needed.

Auditions don’t operate the same way. The director/producer/audition panel — by design — don’t want to give a ton of feedback in real-time; they’re not going to tell you if what you’re doing really is or really isn’t working. They don’t want you to fix mistakes; they want you to blow right past them. An auditioner asking for a do-over (“I missed that note, can I start again?”) is an auditioner who likely won’t get cast.

So I was nervous going in because a lot of my techniques for exuding and feeling confident in a business meeting don’t apply to auditions. And I was also feeling nervous because auditions are extremely subjective. If the director’s sister is getting a lead role, and I’m a foot taller, I may be ineligible before I open my mouth. I might audition with a song that the musical director hates. Auditions are one-and-done; they’re going to cast the show and move on, and if you or the audition panel had an off moment for the five to ten minutes you spend together, you’re out of luck.

Knowing all that, I decided ahead of time to use several of the techniques that I find work for me in life and business at the audition.

As I mentioned, Avenue Q involves puppets. The theater mentioned that they would provide a puppet workshop and do some light puppeteering work at callbacks, for actors who passed the first wave of auditions. I love puppets, I own many puppets, and I decided I’d take a puppet with me to audition. That was a risk.

Taking my own puppet with me was extra. I knew this going in. I knew I had to ask right at the start if I could use the puppet, and that if they said no, I had to make things as not-awkward as possible.

My dream version was asking “I know it’s unorthodox, but I’d actually love if my friend Arlo could help me out with this audition.” And then they’d be confused, and I’d pull out the puppet and say this is Arlo.

I didn’t go with this version for two reasons: While some salespeople love to put buyers on their heels, a) this isn’t sales, and b) it’s not my preferred approach. Asking about involving a friend would immediately confuse the panel, even if they quickly got what I considered a cute, funny setup.

When I’m making a cold call, or even calling customer service, the part I stress about is the 30 seconds of setup at the start of the conversation. How do I set the tone and explain what I want clearly and non-annoyingly at the outset?

Auditions — and meetings! — are a lot about do I like this person enough to want to work with them / trust them / etc.

So I said this: I know you’re doing puppetry work at callbacks, but I wanted to ask whether I could actually use a puppet for my audition today. No problem if not!

I said the first part about callbacks because I didn’t want them to say “Oh, we’re doing puppets at callbacks” if I started directly with my question. One, because I wanted to use the puppet now, and two, because it could cause them to infer that I hadn’t read the audition details closely, which I had.

I’m not incredibly proud of the “No problem if not,” which is an admission of nervousness. But I felt it was important here, to establish that I wouldn’t be fussed and it wasn’t awkward if they said no. Saying that was a crutch, but sometimes you need a crutch.

As it turned out, the director responded enthusiastically. So I had to turn back to my backpack and get Arlo the puppet out. As I did so, I saw his rod (which controls the arm) had come off, so I had to take a moment to reattach it. I didn’t want this to feel like downtime, and I wanted to make a good, “this guy could be fun to work with” impression, so I kept talking while I got the puppet and fixed the rod. “I will admit that I was warned asking about bringing my own puppet could seem a little extra, but I figured it was worth a shot! Plus he begged to come with me.”

The director said he loved it, so go for it. Great.

Now the next question was what song I’d prepared to audition. (If you’re not familiar with musical auditions, most of the time you’re asked to prepare a song in the style of the show, but not from the show, which is such an odd tradition if you ask me, but I digress.)

I just wrote “I cheated” as a two word sentence to start this paragraph, but that’s not true. I didn’t cheat. I hacked my audition song.

“I actually arranged a two-song medley of ‘Rubber Duckie’ and ‘C Is For Cookie’ from Sesame Street.”

If you’re not a regular musical theater auditioner, trust me, this is a little extra, too. That said, the parts I want in this show (where actors often play more than role) involve a guy with an Ernie-esque voice and affect (Nicky), and a monster with a Cookie Monster-esque voice and attitude (Trekkie Monster). I wanted to show off my ability to do those voices, and this was the way I could do so.

The director indicated enthusiasm for that, too. But what I liked about saying what I said was both that I got to demonstrate the skills I wanted, but also to make clear that I’d spent real time prepping this audition, and that I took the parts seriously, goofy though they are.

Maybe I’m overthinking all this, which I acknowledge. But summing all the subtleties and maybes together, optimizing my approach for maximum success, helped me show the confidence I wanted to feel, despite the nervousness that was present, too.

I don’t know how this story ends yet, by the way. I scored a callback, but I won’t know about the show’s casting for a week or two. I could get no role, could get just one of the two roles I want, get cast in a totally different role, or get precisely the two roles I’m after.

The best outcome would be getting what I want, sure. That said, I can’t overstate how pleased I am that I left it all on the field at my audition. Had I gone in doing less, I’d be saddled with what-ifs: What if I’d brought my own puppet? What if I’d done the voices? It could be those decisions doomed me (though I really don’t think so), but I’d rather go down swinging.

I’m sharing all this with you lovely paying subscribers because these same philosophies influence how I present myself in meetings, pitches, presentations, etc. I’m going to be me. If you’re going to like me, you’ll like me for me. I’d rather lose because we’re not a fit than lose because I wasn’t me.