Be N.I.C.E.

Kindness was never the soft choice. It was always the strongest one.

There's a version of "nice" that gets sold to us early, and it's a lie. It's the version that says nice people avoid conflict, go along, and never rock the boat. After over fifteen years inside Human Resources departments across hospitality, retail, warehouse, culinary, and specialty animal care industries, Abel Garcia has watched that lie play out again and again, producing employees who quit quietly, leaders who mistake silence for harmony, and cultures that call themselves kind while nobody in the room says the hard thing that needs saying.

Be N.I.C.E. is his answer.

Blending real HR case studies, personal memoir, and research-backed insight, Garcia introduces the N.I.C.E. framework: Nurturing, Inclusive, Caring, and Ethical, as a practical model for leading with both compassion and accountability. This is not a book about being agreeable. It's a book about being consistent, even when consistency costs something.

Inside, you'll discover:

• Why genuine kindness requires courage, not softness
• How small, unaddressed moments of unkindness compound into lasting damage
• A four-part framework for building trust, accountability, and psychological safety on any team
• Practical tools for self-assessment, difficult conversations, and lasting culture change
• Why the strongest leaders you've ever known were never the toughest - they were the most consistently kind

Part leadership guide, part memoir, and part call to action, Be N.I.C.E. makes the case that decency still has a place in a world this competitive, and that it was never the weaker path to begin with.