Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Etiquette

Stop Trying to Fix Things, Just Listen!

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In these distraction-packed times, it’s harder than ever to create the mental and physical space necessary to really listen—actively listen—to another person.

A common listening pitfall is trying to have all the answers. Instead of fully hearing out a friend, you’re scrolling through your brain, being all frustrated that this problem has an obvious solution and concocting a hasty fix.

As a listener, your most important job is to listen with curiosity and immerse yourself in the person’s message. Just try to understand the person and listen to their feelings. Validate their suffering, take their perspective, and let them know you understand. That’s often what people want most.

Idea for Impact: To be a better listener, talk with each other about the ways they’d like you to give support. People have different ways in which they prefer to seek and provide support.

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You Always Have to Say ‘Good’

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“How are you?” is usually meant less as an actual question and more a greeting-on-autopilot—a casual call-and-response.

The unwritten rule of conversation is that you’re expected to reply with nothing more than a declaration of utter satisfaction with life.

People aren’t usually interested in hearing the real answer. Responding with a “Well, to be honest, I’ve been kind of down today. Had a bad day at work” could be a faux pas. You aren’t supposed to burden every interlocutor with your situation, particularly with people who aren’t close.

So “how are you?” isn’t a bad thing to say at all—most of the time. But, there’re occasions, readable with empathic awareness, when you shouldn’t ask someone how their day is going unless you’re going to listen to their response with genuine respect and interest.

Idea for Impact: Showing that you care about people can do wonders, but if you don’t care, don’t feign that you do—people can see through it.

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How to Reliably Tell If Someone is Lying

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There isn’t one reliable behavioral cue that consistently reveals that a person isn’t telling you the truth, but the most expected sign of dishonesty is evasiveness.

Does the other person evade answering direct questions or declare, “I don’t know,” “that’s about it,” or “I don’t remember doing that?”

Instead of making direct denials, do they seem to have been caught off guard and take more time to think up a believable response?

Idea for Impact: To detect a lie, listen and pay attention. If lying is nothing more than communicating false information, dwell on what’s being said. Does it make sense? Does it align with other facts you’ve mustered or anecdotes you’ve heard? Do the answers to your probing questions stand up to scrutiny? Does the story begin to shift?

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When to Send Customers Gifts

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Gifts are crucial marketing tools, which can help customers remember you throughout the year, not just during the holidays:

  • Send a gift after a sale. Saying thank-you does more than complete the sale—it helps build the relationship.
  • Send gifts after receiving referrals. One of the most rewarding compliments a salesperson can receive is a referral. Send a thank-you soon after getting a referral.
  • Commemorate anniversaries. Observe the day you signed your first contract with a customer, making it a special date to celebrate each year.
  • Remember birthdays. Send customers some birthday cheer, not just a card. Be creative and personalize the gift—send tickets to a sports event that the entire family can enjoy, for instance.

Idea for Impact: Business gifts can help solidify sales relationships and earn even more business. Pay attention to the things your customers enjoy and show your appreciation. As long as your gifts don’t seem patently insincere, they’re likely to welcome them.

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Avoid Blame Language

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Refrain from using the terms “always” and “never” when you’re in a disagreement.

Making statements like “You never think about anyone but yourself” or “You always ignore how I feel!” provokes defensiveness because of the apparent exaggeration.

The actual conversation gets abstracted because the other person understandably resists the all-or-nothing argument.

Making negative judgments or proclamations about the other in extreme, absolute terms gives no wiggle room because making global attacks on their entire personality.

Idea for Impact: Try to voice your concerns in a way that focuses on your own feelings and how the other’s behavior affects you. Try “I” statements, such as “I feel neglected when you make plans without me.”

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The #1 Reason Why Employees Don’t Speak Up

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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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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.”

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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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.”

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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Ghosting is Rude

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In the dating world, the term “ghosting” describes a prospect going abruptly silent and not returning phone calls, emails, and text messages to avoid the awkwardness of saying “no” or ending a nascent liaison.

Regrettably, ghosting has metastasized into the work world. For example, hiring managers regularly ghost job seekers even after interviews.

Of course, people are ever busier, more stressed, and more apt to choose convenience over courtesy. But, as long as an email is not a cold-call, it deserves a response. Dashing off a quick email telling you’re no longer interested is better than not responding at all and hoping that the ghosted person will take the hint.

When someone sends you an email with a suggestion or a compliment, respond to the email, even if to say no more than a “thank you.” On a fundamental level, your action will acknowledge that you’ve received the email.

Yes, you’re contributing to email overload. However, taking but a few seconds to respond “thanks for taking the time” or “I reviewed and I’ll keep this in mind” will bring that interaction to a close. The email is probably still on the sender’s mind.

An email that contains emotional content—praise, criticism, venting—deserves something longer: a sincere, thought-out “thank you” or “I understand how you feel.” you’re thus acknowledging the sender’s effort, recognizing her intent, appreciating her thoughtfulness, allowing for her emotions. It acknowledges the person herself.

Idea for Impact: Ghosting sucks. Whether in dating, job hunting, business communication, friendship, or any other aspects of work- or personal-life, ghosting shows a lack of consideration. Yes, it’s rude … even in the digital age where “no answers” is the accepted norm.

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Nobody Wants Your Unsolicited Advice

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Unsolicited advice may be motivated by a genuine interest in helping. Still, it could have roots in a narcissistic desire to prove yourself useful or establish your dominance or elevated understanding of things.

If you’re inclined to fly your own kite, your heart may not in the right place.

Getting your unsolicited advice can leave other people feeling resentful. They may refuse to give in. They may perceive your “just being helpful” as a transgression and an affront to their freedoms to do as they wish. Nobody wants to be told that they’re on the wrong path or that their decisions are misguided.

Idea for Impact: Giving Unsolicited Advice is Invasive. Reactance theory causes people to resist the social influence of others. People believe that they possess certain freedoms to engage in—and unsolicited advice can threaten this sense of free behaviors.

Now, to turn the tables, if someone offers you unsolicited advice, assume the advice-giver’s good intentions, express thanks to the advice-giver, then accept or reject the advice solely on its merits. Too, consider your relationship with that person. If they’re a stranger whom you may never see again, offer a polite response, and move on. If they’re a co-worker or a family member, have a conversation on setting boundaries.

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