Author of The Chocolate Therapist, Julie Pech, disagrees with Yergen's assessment. "Being nice is honoring your own values and treating people fairly. Being likable is bending to how you think others' view you and allowing it to become a part of your behavior. Being likable never pays off," Pech continued. "It's better just to embrace your own values for fairness and kindness and not try to bend to others' needs."

College student, Brian Citizen, has already decided that he'd rather be perceived as likable than nice because "nice can have negative connotations in business. Being likable includes some element of niceness but implies that you are strategic in your efforts to be nice, cordial and relevant."

Oddly, Citizen's explanation seems to support Pech's belief that there's something disingenuous about being likable; however, Calla Gold, founder of Calla Gold Jewelry, is in full accordance with Citizen.

"The likability skill is more important in the workplace because likability is being pleasant and easy to get along with, helpful, and being a defuser of tension." According to Gold, some nice people are cloying and needy and get too personal, and she recommends that they stick to just having good manners.

Former Ralph Lauren model and current creative director for Musee-Solomon, Beverly Solomon wants to have the best of both worlds. "I look for qualities which make a person both likable and nice - honesty, positive attitude, dependability, politeness, promptness, consideration, etc. If you made me choose," she went on, "I would have to go with a person who is truly nice from within. People who are truly nice and not just putting on an act are generally likable.

Ruth Sherman, consultant and author of Get Them To See It Your Way, Right Away: How to Persuade Anyone of Anything, agrees with Solomon that being nice and being likable often go together. "I don't know many likable people who are not also nice," she said. "Being nice communicates empathy, helpfulness, a more easy-going personality, and that you are someone unlikely to take himself/herself too seriously. I don't know of any workplace that doesn't value empathy and helpfulness, especially in the incredibly competitive market that is today's reality."

John Beane, founder of John Beane Staff Development Services, has an entirely different perspective. "Likable people usually put more effort into trying to please others whereas, nice people focus on getting their jobs done without upsetting anyone. The nice person," Beane continued, "tries to get along with most people while effectively doing [his/her] job and seems to recognize [he/she] can get more done by using 'sugar' on people. We have found that most of the time likable people are not respected in the workplace while nice people are."

The debate will go on forever. It's entirely possible for someone to be good at his job and be nice at the same time. It's also possible for someone to do a good job while making an effort to be likable. Neither characteristic is any better or worse than the other, although the consensus seems to be that likable people are tough and 'real' and that nice people are spineless and fake. Still, everyone seems to agree that being well liked is a key ingredient in any successful career.

"People do business with people they like," said DeAnna Radaj, of Bante Design, LLC. "People who are viewed as 'nice' can be perceived as naive, a doormat, a pushover ... and therefore, not someone you necessarily want to do business with."