There was a period of time where I answered the question of “What three words would you describe yourself as?” – with one and it was nice. This was directly out of college during my interviews. The facial expressions said, “Huh, what? Couldn’t you pick something more aggressive?” Being nice didn’t mean I wasn’t a go-getter. It did mean that my approach was friendly. We spend too much time with our work colleagues not to like and enjoy them.

When did nice ever go out of style? Sometimes I...