If you want to get to the top without alienating everyone around you—or you just want to get more cooperation from your family and friends—here are a few suggestions that Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman of Wal-Mart Stores, recently shared with New York Times reporter Adam Bryant:

• Be truthful. Nothing, nothing is more important than honesty, Castro-Wright says. People have to find you credible. And if you’ve sacrificed that credibility to further your position, you’ve made a poor exchange.

You can’t expect people to follow your lead, and certainly not to be willing to take risks on your behalf, unless they know they can trust you.

• Be considerate. Businesses focus a lot of attention on understanding cultural differences. But Castro-Wright says, after working in other parts of the world he discovered there are more similarities than differences in people from the United States, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. “Human behavior really doesn’t have a language,” he says. “It’s pretty much the same everywhere.”

You can’t go wrong by treating people from all backgrounds with kindness, politeness, honesty, and concern.

• Be generous. Early in his career, Castro-Wright says, he read that “you can accomplish almost anything in life if you do not care who takes credit for it.” But many people are so busy trying to promote themselves that they dilute their own message.

Mother Teresa didn’t hit the international talk-show circuit to advertise her charitable works. In fact, biographer Kathryn Spink notes she was so disinclined to read any material about herself that she never even realized many writers had erroneously reported her date of birth. Yet despite her humility, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and even years after her death, her name is recognized throughout the world.

Be more concerned about helping others and less concerned about promoting yourself. It’s often said of the bad things people do, but it’s equally true of the good: What goes around comes around.