Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Effective Communication

The More You Write, The Better You Become

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Good writing is hard. No matter how much you practice, writing rarely seems to get easier.

The following guidelines are some of the most basic writing advice around, but they’re often overlooked.

  • The More You Write, The Better You Become Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. Keep reminding yourself whom you’re writing for. Tailor your message for this audience.
  • Write from a plan. Write toward an ending. If you aren’t clear about your purpose, your reader won’t be either.
  • Be specific. Specifics outsell generalities. Restructure your sentences and try to say more with fewer words.
  • Avoid superlatives—fabulous, incredible, fantastic, always, never, and so on. Leave the exaggeration to used-car salespeople.
  • Lead with your most significant ideas. Keep your message simple. Prune needless words. Short sentences and common vocabulary make your material as palatable as possible.
  • Provide adequate supporting information to be compelling and helpful enough, but don’t over-complicate your message.
  • Tune your voice. Read drafts aloud. Examine for both form and content. Redraft. Rephrase. Reword. Revise. Rework.

Idea for Impact: If you want to get earnest about writing better, add these two reference works to your shelf: William Strunk and E. B. White’s The Elements of Style (1918) and William Zinsser’s On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (1980.)

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Don’t Underestimate Others’ Willingness to Help

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The biggest barrier to generosity may not be getting people to give but people’s reluctance to ask for what they need.

Mostly, people enjoy helping (but not so much that they can get burned out by their own goodness.) They want to give and be recognized for their giving.

Reciprocity Rings - Don't Underestimate Others' Willingness to Help

People can’t give when they don’t know what others need

According to the University of Michigan’s Wayne Baker, a solution to the awkwardness of asking for help is the notion of reciprocity rings (or reciprocity bulletin boards.) Boeing, Citigroup, Estee Lauder, General Motors, Google, IBM, Novartis, UPS, and others have implemented informal networking groups to facilitate asking—and giving.

'All You Have to Do Is Ask' by Wayne Baker (ISBN 1984825925) In All You Have to Do Is Ask (2020,) Baker explains that these onetime or recurring networking meetings have individuals explain one by one the specific issues they’re facing. The rest of the group taps their knowledge, resources, wisdom, or networks to help the requestor. In a sense, a reciprocity ring is an expanded version of the “daily stand-up,” “daily huddle,” or “scrum meeting” that many teams use to talk over what they’re each working on and where they need help.

Wharton School’s Adam Grant popularized the concept of reciprocity rings in his book Give and Take (2014.) He argues that reciprocity rings normalize asking and giving. They build trust and relationships by creating new and fast connections where they may not exist otherwise.

A charitable mood sets in—reciprocity rings engender altruism.

Helping others without the expectation to have that help reciprocated is the foundation of altruism. A reciprocity ring cultivates an environment of giving. According to All You Have to Do Is Ask, a reciprocity ring helps people overcome their hesitations and fears about asking for help because everyone’s making a request. Baker cites research that the takers in the groups tend to give three times more than they get. Over time, people tend to make more significant requests.

Idea for Impact: Assemble an informal network and facilitate opportunities to ask for and help one another. It’s an easy and effective way to build connections and strengthen the spirit of the community.

Take a cue from Bay Area career coach Marty Nemko, who organizes his own informal reciprocity ring. Nemko’s “board of advisors” meets for an hour every month, and each person talks about a thorny personal—or professional—problem they’re facing and requests input from others.

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The #1 Reason Why Employees Don’t Speak Up

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The #1 Reason Why Employees Don't Speak Up---Self-Preservation

Notwithstanding management’s well-intended open-door policies, employees avoid voicing concerns when they don’t feel safe doing so. They think it’s more harmless to “duck and cover” than to speak up and help the organization.

Employees don’t want to jeopardize their jobs. They don’t want to be labeled troublemakers and alienate themselves from co-workers and supervisors. In some cases, employees’ fears may not be of immediate retaliation but instead a deferred reckoning that could upset their careers years down the line.

The self-preservation motive is so dominant that the perceived risks of speaking up are very personal and immediate to employees. In contrast, the potential benefits to the organization from sharing concerns seem distant and abstract.

Consequently employees often instinctively play it safe by keeping quiet. Often, they rationalize their implied compliance by saying that the concerns are none of their business—and wishing that somebody else would speak up.

Idea for Impact: The freedom to raise questions, concerns, and ideas is at the heart of an open organizational culture. Unless employees are convinced that they’ll be supported to do the right thing, they could hesitate to speak up and help remedy problems before they can blow up.

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Silence is Consent

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Qui tacet consentire videtur, ubi loqui debuit ac potuit. (He who is silent, when he ought to have spoken and was able to, is taken to agree.)
—Latin Proverb

If you don’t speak up at a meeting or ask for a deferral of a decision, you can’t come back later and declare, “I really hated that decision. I don’t want it to happen.”

Silence is Consent at Meetings Make sure to speak your mind when you disagree with something because, for many people, silence indicates consent.

Go to the meeting. Challenge the proposal. Stand up and be counted. Let your feelings be heard. Chip in on the debate. Commit to how the decision will be made.

Idea for Impact: Silence, especially when a new, perhaps contentious proposal, is being discussed, indicates a lack of engagement within the team. People who care speak out in a healthy team environment.

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Entitlement and Anger Go Together

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Exaggerated entitlement could possibly explain what’s driving the recent surge of abusive or violent incidents on flights in America.

We live in a time where everyone seems hypervigilant to the point where even a slight snub can be taken as an act of deliberate aggression—either reactively or without provocation. People want to assert themselves, and every little social interaction seems to turn quickly into a battleground of entitlement.

Self-Protective Efforts Heighten Entitlement

Exaggerated Entitlement and Anger To make things worse, air travel sits at the confluence of so many things involving so many people (and circumstances) where each “participant” has little direct control over what’s happening to them and others around. Political polarization and mask mandates seem to have intensified these anxieties too. Moreover, the FAA’s zero-tolerance policy toward disturbances and the threat of massive fines are unlikely to disincentivize passengers and staff in the heat of the moment.

When people feel entitled, they’re not just frustrated when others fail to acknowledge and entertain—even listen to—their presumed superior rights. People feel deceived and wronged. They feel victimized, get angry, and exude hostility. Worse, they feel even more justified in their demands and thus assume an even stronger sense of entitlement as compensation.

Idea for Impact: Entitlement and Responsibility are Inextricably Linked

Underlying this kind of anger process is a lack of separation of rights from responsibility. No professional, social, or domestic environment can remain stable and peaceful without everyone respecting the fact that rights and responsibilities are inseparable.

Nobody is entitled to compassion or fair treatment without acting on the responsibility to give it to others. If you don’t care about how others feel, you can’t demand that they care about how you feel. It’s a formula for disaster in human interactions.

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The #1 Thing Top Salespeople Do

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It is astonishing how many salespeople aim for nothing and hit it every time.

Average salespeople often don’t have a written “game plan” for every sales call. They may have only a vague idea of how to go about their sales call. They usually wing it and hope for the best. They fail to plan and thus plan to fail.

Planning A Sales Call---The #1 Thing Top Salespeople Do Planning a sales call is vital because it gives you a framework to understand your customer’s buying motivations. You can have “value summaries” at hand to evoke her interest.

  • Establish the call objectives. What do you want to accomplish? Review your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, meeting notes, or whatever method you use to manage interactions with customers. Reexamine what was discussed the last time you met with the customer. What are her pain points? What might she need that she’s not asking for?
  • Develop a list of questions you’re going to ask. These questions should guide the “needs analysis” phase of the sales process—they shape her buying criteria. Being ready with prepared questions help minimize the amount of close-ended questions you’ll ask your customer.
  • Review what you can “value add” to your customers to incentivize getting more business from them. A “value add” could be anything from extending warranties, training staff, selling pre-assembled products, customizing products, providing financing, etc.
  • Think through what resistance you may anticipate. List possible objections that could stall a sale: bad timing, budgetary constraints, new leadership, market uncertainty, etc. Develop a go-to response for each challenge. Ask yourself, “How can I help the customer get past this resistance?”

Planning a sales call helps you get in the shoes of the person you’re trying to sell to and sell it from their perspective.

Idea for Impact: Always have a plan for a sales call. No matter how rushed you are, how well you know a customer, or how routine the call might be, plan the call. Never wing it. Great brands aren’t measured by units sold but relationships built.

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The Problem of Living Inside Echo Chambers

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The Problem of Living Inside Echo Chambers Psychologists use the term realistic ignorance to explain the human tendency to believe that we’re normal—that the way we see and do things is entirely representative of everybody else.

Realistic ignorance is intensified by our natural desire to associate with people similar to ourselves.

Social media algorithms make this worse—they reinforce our attitudes but not change them. They steer us to the type of stuff we already know and like. They make it easy for us to form our own echo chambers, packed with people who share the same views. This causes confirmation bias. Tribal allegiances form flawed ideas and viewpoints about what is typical for organizations and communities.

Idea for Impact: Seek out and engage thoughtful folks who don’t think like you. Discuss, debate, and improve your reasoned understanding of one another and of the crucial issues. Your goal should be to enhance your own awareness of the counterarguments in contentious matters, not win over anyone.

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What’s the Best Way to Reconnect with a Mentor?

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Send a thank-you note immediately after a meeting with a mentor. Include anything that could add to—but not draw out—the conversation you’ve had with her.

A further opportunity to say thank you—and request to reconnect—surfaces after you’ve accomplished something anchored in your prior conversations with the mentor. Write her a sincere thank you note, describe what they did for you, and report the impact. Then, request to get back in touch and say, “I’d love to meet up with you the next time I’m in Chicago.”

What's the Best Way to Reconnect with a Mentor? The only reward mentors often look ahead to is the satisfaction that they’ve made a difference. So your mentor will find it meaningful to hear from you, even if weeks or months later. As a result, she’ll be more inclined to meet again.

Considerate mentors are generally approachable to people who ask the right questions, listen well, put into practice what they’ve learned, and demonstrate that they care sincerely for advice and counsel.

Idea for Impact: Getting your hands on a good mentor is tough enough, but maintaining—and nurturing—that relationship meaningfully can be just as challenging.

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Why Students Should Avoid Plagiarism: 5 Top Reasons

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Plagiarism is considered unprofessional and unethical, and the easy availability of plagiarism tools further makes it difficult not to get caught. We are all put to creating content, researching critical topics, preparing content pieces to complete a degree, excelling at a job.

It might seem like an easy alternative to copying sources available on the internet as a quick fix to projects or assignments. The results are, however, not long-lasting and only end up putting you in a negative light.

Why Students Should Avoid Plagiarism

Tarnished reputation

This one’s a no-brainer. If you are caught with plagiarized content in your assignments, it brings about a bad reputation at school/college. It also has profound implications that may further affect your academic grades and performance. Building trust is equally important as you complete your education, and blatantly copying content from readily available resources puts you as an uninterested and not-so-serious student at university.

Research paper writing by professionals

A better alternative to plagiarism is to get help from professional writers for your research papers and assignment at college as you study. As a student, you can pay for research paper writing at StudyClerk to get the desired grades, submit quality work, and receive the grades you want. The content is of high quality, completely free of plagiarism, and is best for setting a good impression at college among teachers and peers.

Unpolished skills

As an individual, if you indulge in activities like plagiarizing content, then you are also putting your growth and skill development to a pause. This way might be quick and bring results a couple of times but is damaging for the long run.

Take the time to polish your writing, reading skills to become a knowledgeable person whether you are working a job, have your business, or are a student. If you are in a remote working setup and are looking for ways to enhance any skills, then use your time to read the work from home health tips and tricks that help keep you focused, charged, and ready to do more with your time.

Legal consequences

Plagiarism is downright unethical and can attract lawsuits that put you in a bad light, and attract fines and cases that can bring some significant damage to your image. At a working setup, plagiarism, whether done once or multiple times, can get you to a threatening position of losing the job or the title.

The copied content is copyrighted and is protected well within the rights of the law; then, you are in for some serious trouble and image tarnishing. It is always better to be truthful, take the time required to research and study, and proceed with the content pieces that bring you to a better position and get you the due credit.

Why Students Should Avoid Plagiarism

Fresh content is powerful

There is an unmatched power that fresh ideas or content bring to the table. Whether it is a blog, a research paper, or an article, new ideas and perspectives matter; if you are writing about a topic in a manner already present on the web, you will never be able to generate the desired traffic.

We have spoken about the consequences in the above sections, and here the focus must be on having your voice and attract people to come to your page and hear your thoughts. In the world of writing, plagiarism is a sin that can break your career.

Affects brand image

You may have spent years building a product that makes a difference to the end consumers. You have a task to carry your brand image and keep it in a positive light. Plagiarism of any kind puts your brand at serious risk of losing clients, customers and thus end up losing the credentials that you’ve hard for.

A better alternative here is to hire a good content writer for your brand who also has the required SEO knowledge to keep your website on the first few pages of the search engines. Talking about search engines, the algorithms are strict and repetitive content is ranked poorly and subsequently affects you anyway.

Conclusion

As deadlines and quality standards press working individuals and students, plagiarism is often an attractive option that seems to be a quick fix for meeting all requirements instead of resorting to unethical practices as such. Find ways to better time and stress management to deliver quality work without getting caught in the process of plagiarism that has no positive results but only brings negative consequences that curtail growth and development.

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Avoid Control Talk

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If you tend to say the following to your employees, relatives, or friends, you may be too controlling:

  • “I don’t understand why you haven’t completed that report yet.”
  • “I want you to say sorry to Accounting about your problem. I need you to go over there, make amends with them, and inform me of how it went.”
  • “We will meet at 4 P.M.”

Control talk is expected and natural. It often transpires in day-to-day conversation as a device to influence or persuade the world to see and act our way. Within certain limits of performance, control talk is accepted in critical situations.

However, control talk can get out of bounds quickly and become perceived as a threat. When one party to any conversation has more perceived power—formal or informal authority, perhaps,—unreasonable control talk can soon push the other to concede this power imbalance and restrain what he/she wants. As the American family counselor Dr Tim Kimmel writes in Powerful Personalities (1993,) “Control is when you leverage the strength of your position or personality against the weakness of someone else’s in order to get that person to meet your (selfish) agenda.”

Avoid Control Talk

Control talk can promptly engender intense negative emotions. The ensuing conflict becomes evident in the tone of voice, posture, and facial and body expressions. After that, self-defensive reactions will only make matters worse.

Keep all communication with others candid and respectful. Frame your messages in a positive manner that does not contain sarcasm, imply warning, provoke guilt or blame, or suggest intimidation. Summarize what you heard, and ask questions. Practice pauses—they give the other a moment of silence to get beyond the emotional response and allow them to think cognitively.

Wherever possible, ask open-ended questions to de-escalate an argument. Open-ended questions are an invitation to be nonjudgmental, investigate, relate, and see things differently. Try these alternatives:

  • “Tell me more—I want to understand. What can I do to make your job easier?”
  • “Let’s discuss possible solutions to that Accounting problem. How can we change the situation?”
  • “Are you available for a 4 P.M. meeting? Let’s see what we can do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Wise persuasion elegantly combines rational arguments and appeals to positive values and the other’s feelings about a subject. Only when you can engage them emotionally can you change the way they think.

Idea for Impact: When it comes to persuasion, knowing when to push and when to back off is vital. Nobody likes a pushy person.

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