Category 1: Urgent and important tasks that allow you to keep your job (crises, deadlines, pressing problems).Setting goals, generating visibility, solving company problems in the blink of an eye—these all sound great in theory, right? But when you’re a newbie in the business world, you consider yourself lucky if you can just make it through the day without dropping one of the 10 plates you have spinning in the air. Besieged by a constant influx of new assignments, you can’t even stop to consider how you’re using your time. Forget about managing your career and monitoring your performance to achieve optimum results. Some days, work seems so out of control that you just want to put your head down on your desk and mutter “uncle.”
Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to live this way? What if you ruled your schedule instead of the other way around? What if you were the most effective person on the team, not wasting any energy hating the colleague who never misses a deadline or the one who always leaves the boss’s office with all of his questions answered? All of this is totally possible if you take the time to develop a few new habits. In this chapter, I’ll cover how to make the most out of the eight-plus hours a day you spend at work—from effective time management and organization to making every piece of communication count. Internalize these skills by reflecting on them outside the office when you have a moment to breathe, and by planning how you can implement sanity-saving processes in advance. I think you’ll find that the more proactive you are in managing your workday, the more you will actually achieve—without losing your hair or your bathroom breaks!
It took me a long time to get out of the mode of thinking that a corporate job is similar to school. When I first started working, I treated everything as though it was an assignment I would be graded on. I had no choice but to complete whatever was asked of me, because I would “fail” if I didn’t. Eventually, I realized that I couldn’t possibly do it all, and that I was going to have to prioritize if I was going to survive. Some things are just meant to slip under the radar. After all, if a task is relatively unimportant and no one will notice if it isn’t done, is it really worth burning out over?
Leslie, 25, Ohio
It’s impossible for one human being to do it all, and unless you want to spontaneously combust before the age of 30, you shouldn’t try to. If you’re thinking that you don’t have any say in how you spend your time at work, consider whether this is a subjective state of mind or an objective reality. Is your boss really watching you every second of every day? Probably not—he’s got his own work and schedule to manage. I don’t care if you’re inundated with assignments that could potentially keep you busy for the next decade, the only person who can truly control your schedule is you.
Here’s the thing: struggling to get through each day by running frantically from one task to the next won’t bring happiness or job satisfaction. You’ll be exhausted, stressed, and unmotivated, and you won’t have accomplished much in respect to your long-term career goals. For the first year of my career, I was so fried that you could see my hair crackling with electricity. I was so anxious for every senior person to like me that I accepted assignments indiscriminately—like a dog scarfing down table food. Boy, was I earning my $25K salary! I thought that all those days of nonstop agita would certainly earn me a promotion, so naturally I was surprised when I was passed over. At the time, I didn’t understand that in the process of doing seven million unrelated and unimportant tasks, I had neglected my professional development and hadn’t acquired the core skills I needed to move to the next level.
As a general rule of thumb, you must manage your time strategically if you want your efforts to translate into personal fulfillment and career advancement. You can do this by organizing your schedule around your priorities. What makes a task a priority? Think back to the personal mission statement from Chapter 1 and the goals you set in Chapter 4. For the most part, your priorities should focus on results and relate back to your master plan. Here’s an example: My friend Lou’s personal mission has always been to live on a farm, but he went to school for hotel management. When Lou started his first job as a hotel front desk attendant, his goal was to develop the skills and knowledge base needed to manage his own country inn. In keeping with this goal, Lou made it a priority to interact with and learn from the Guest Services staff. Several years later, Lou is living on a farm, and the visitors to the country inn he runs pay the mortgage. By leveraging his hotel experience, Lou was able to achieve his long-term vision.
Focusing on tasks that contribute to your big picture sounds like a good idea, but how do you do it? Let’s look at the approach advocated by Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. To paraphrase Covey, there are four types of tasks:
Category 1: Urgent and important tasks that allow you to keep your job (crises, deadlines, pressing problems).
Category 2: Non-urgent and important tasks that allow you to develop professionally and work toward a promotion (relationship building, new skill acquisition, opportunity assessment).
Category 3: Urgent and non-important tasks that allow you to maintain your reputation as a team player (interruptions, certain emails and phone calls, certain meetings, certain administrative work for senior team members).
Category 4: Non-urgent and non-important tasks that will get you fired if you’re not careful (busywork, shooting the breeze with colleagues, instant messaging).
By “urgent,” Covey means that the task is highly visible and insists on action. An important task is relevant to your personal mission and corresponding goals. If you’ve been spending your days running around like a chicken with its head cut off, you are probably spending 90 percent of your time in Categories 1 and 3, and you might have noticed totally irresponsible people who hang out permanently in Category 4. When you master effective time management, you stay out of Category 4 and decrease the time spent in Categories 1 and 3 to allow more time for Category 2. Do this on a regular basis by scheduling time each week to achieve Category 2 tasks that relate to your goals, leaving space for unanticipated Category 1 and Category 3 activities. Review your schedule every day and take the time to reassess it, if needed. Remember to be flexible, because, unfortunately, life doesn’t always work out the way you plan, and people often don’t behave consistently.
You’ll feel more on top of things if you keep a running “to do” list. Mentally separate all of your tasks into their respective categories, and then decide which ones you can eliminate, delay, or delegate. As you undertake a Category 1 or 3 task, think about how you can achieve the maximum impact with the least amount of effort. Remember to keep your department’s processes and your own work style in mind. For example, if your group has status meetings every Tuesday morning, you might want to schedule your personal preparation for late in the day on Monday so that you can be prepared to deliver the most up-to-date information. Alternatively, if you are a morning person and your energy is highest just after you wake up, maybe you can slot an hour before office hours on Tuesday to organize your material.
When you’re an overworked and underpaid junior member of your company, it’s easy to fall prey to low morale. However, by developing strong time-management skills and focusing on tasks that will help you attain your long-term goals more quickly, you’ll be able to approach each new day with a sense of purpose.
By virtue of their low rank in the organizational hierarchy, twenty-somethings are responsible for meeting the needs of the many individuals who qualify as supervisors. Work rolls downhill from all the people above you and lands in a giant heap on your plate. Many older—but not necessarily wiser—managers have no qualms about piling it on and watching an eager-to-please twenty-something scramble around like a rat in a maze. Well, even if you’re an efficient multitasker, you’re never going to be Superman. Don’t sabotage your goals by taking on more work than you can do just because someone asks you to. Staying true to the priorities we talked about in the last section means learning to say no sometimes.
No is a tricky word in business, because you always want to be perceived as a can-do employee. In general, you should try to preempt situations in which you will have to decline an assignment. A good first step is to formalize your daily responsibilities with your official boss. Find out who on your team is authorized to delegate work to you, and note the type of assignments you can expect from each person. Let’s say that Joe, who is outside this core group of delegators, gives you a bunch of client invoices to process. How should you respond? It’s perfectly appropriate to politely reply that you would be glad to help, but that you would appreciate it if Joe would check with your manager first. Joe may or may not pursue the matter, but, either way, you have extricated yourself from an awkward situation and have placed the ball squarely in your boss’s court. In all likelihood, your boss will say no to Joe for you, especially if processing invoices is outside your area of responsibility.
Now imagine that Jane, a member of your core group of delegators, leaves an urgent assignment on your chair that must be done by the end of the week. Jane has known about the task for a few days, but now it’s Friday morning and the deadline is looming. As my mother used to say, don’t let another person’s lack of planning become your emergency. If your own “to do” list dictates you do something else, speak up. Tell Jane that you wish you could do the task for her, but you are currently working on a project with Tom that requires your attention. Give her the option of resolving the issue with Tom or your boss, and emphasize how much you enjoy working with her. Ideally, Jane will leave the interaction with the perception that you sincerely do want to help her, but that you can’t help being caught between conflicting responsibilities.
What if your boss is the one with an urgent request that you don’t have the time to attend to? In a way, this is the least painful scenario, because all you really have to do is ask her to help you prioritize your various assignments. You can say something such as, “I’d be happy to take care of that, but today I’m researching statistics for Tom’s presentation. Which do you think I should do first?” If your boss wants to snatch your time at Tom’s expense, that’s her prerogative. Again, though, you have made someone else accountable for deciding which of the competing tasks you should direct your energy toward. Note that in all of these cases, you have declined to take on a new task. However, the actual word no and the phrase I don’t have time are absent from the conversation. Always strive to present yourself as a hardworking and disciplined employee with the best interests of the department and organization at heart.
One last point: subscribing to the servant mentality is not good time management, even if you’re not preoccupied with any urgent tasks. When you get into the habit of springing into action the moment a higher-up appears at your desk, people will come to expect that you are always available. Suddenly your delegators won’t think twice about asking you to do all kinds of Category 3 (urgent and non-important) tasks. Meanwhile, Category 2 (non-urgent and important) priorities, such as professional development and on-the-job training, will slip further and further down your “to do” list. Remember, in the big-picture scheme of things, Category 2 should be ahead of Category 3, so no matter how busy your department is, always make time in your schedule for Category 2 activities. Have trouble doing this? Take note of the time it takes you to complete Category 3 assignments. For example, if you think it will take you an hour to create a new database for your boss, tell him you’ll have it done by the end of the day. Also, instead of asking for new work the second you encounter a few free hours, spend some quality time researching your company’s products, participating in training courses, or meeting with your mentor (Category 2 activities). It’s probably long overdue.
It might be difficult to turn your back on a Category 3 task that’s presented to you or to set aside company time for your own Category 2 needs. But think about it this way: You have to say no to something. It’s either the non-important or the important things. You decide.
We all procrastinate in one way or another. Just because something is worth doing doesn’t mean it’s easy to get started. Even at work, we’re constantly tempted by activities that are more fun and take less effort, such as chatting with a coworker or texting a friend. However, when you’re trying to stick to a schedule of prioritized tasks, repeated procrastination can wreak havoc on your master plan. It may start with a simple decision to take a longer lunch instead of making headway on your first business plan, but, next thing you know, your goals are taking longer to achieve and your upward mobility has slowed to a crawl.
To fight this battle and win, you first must acknowledge that you are procrastinating. Did you actually schedule time to play Solitaire, or are you just putting off doing work? Confront the procrastination demon head-on and ask yourself why you’re avoiding the task. Could it be that the task isn’t worth the effort? Maybe the benefits of completing the task don’t outweigh the time and energy you’ll spend on it. If this is the case, reconsider whether it’s a priority. Should you decide that the task is important, however, now is the time to rally your sense of discipline and get moving. Following are reasons you might use to put off work. Arm yourself with the motivational arguments I provide, and begin the battle against procrastination.
You can do it later. Think about whether a momentary reprieve is worth having to overhaul your whole calendar to reschedule a particular task. Do you want to repeat this same dance again later, or would you rather just get the task over with now?
The task is boring and you’d rather do something fun. Think about the big picture. Sometimes the most worthwhile activities require the most effort, and, in turn, produce the greatest rewards. Besides, how can you really have fun when you’re feeling guilty about blowing off your work?
You’re afraid the task will be too hard or take too long. Consider that every minute you spend procrastinating is one minute you could be using to complete the task at hand. Instead of looking at the task as a never-ending dark tunnel, break it up into a series of short, manageable assignments, and think about resources you could call on for help at each stage.
You don’t know where to start. Choose the least complicated part of the task, and work at completing it as swiftly and efficiently as possible. Once you’ve successfully finished one component, you’ll gain momentum. The task will no longer seem like such a bear, and it will be much easier to move to the next component.
Don’t forget to reward yourself for beating procrastination and finishing a task. Instead of moving on to the next assignment right away, block out time to do something you enjoy. Long hours of hard work will pass by much more easily when you can anticipate a fun activity at the end of the process. As I was writing this book, for example, I’d tell myself that each time I finished a section, I would spend a few hours watching a movie on cable or playing a video game. We all have our mindless vices. Remember Jack Nicholson in The Shining? All work and no play makes Jack a dull (not to mention psychotic) boy. So if you’ve earned it, go ahead and indulge!
Thanks to good old Microsoft, I became a pro at scheduling meetings for my team, which was dispersed across the country in four different offices. Somehow I thought that a meeting equaled progress on a project. It took me about five meetings to realize that we were always discussing the same topics, but never making decisions or creating action plans around any of them. It was like the clock had stopped. No matter how much we talked, we never accomplished anything. The meetings were actually a huge productivity drain because they took up so much time that they prevented us from getting our individual work done.
Seth, 27, Texas
Have you ever noticed that the most stressed-out folks at work are habitually disorganized? In their defense, it’s easy to lose track of an important document, project, or deadline when your smartphone is beeping every second. However, there are only so many things in the professional world that you can control, and the way you organize is one of them. When you’re organized, you’re more confident, efficient, and dependable. You’re also much less likely to be forced into early retirement by a heart attack or a nervous breakdown.
Before I launch into a discussion of ways to preserve your sanity by incorporating organization into your daily routine, let me admit something. I do tend to believe that organization is one of those pesky inherited traits. If you have it, it’s likely that you’ve had it all along, and you probably skipped ahead the second you saw this section’s header. If you don’t, these suggestions might not be as easy to implement as they sound. Take heart, though. If you can take one thing away from this section and use it to become more effective at work, reading it will have been worthwhile.
In Chapter 2, I talked about utilizing good organizational skills as you begin a new job, and I recommended starting at home base: your desk. To briefly recap: please do not buy into the misconception that an Armageddon of a cubicle makes you look super busy and hardworking. Remember that the professional world judges performance by results, not effort, and your managers will doubt that you can achieve such results in the midst of total chaos. For those of us in a constant state of information overload, keeping a neat workspace requires vigilance. I suggest thinking of every new item arriving on your desk as an insect that is infiltrating your territory. Your job is to dispose of it as quickly as possible, either by chucking it in the nearest recycling bin or putting it in its proper place. The only material on your desk should pertain to the task you’re working on at that very minute. Everything else should be labeled and filed for easy access.
Treat your email inbox the same way. Delete spam and other messages you don’t need as soon as they pop in, and if you know you have to respond, get in the habit of doing so immediately. When you receive a new task via email, don’t let it linger. Add it to your master “to do” list. Should a message require follow-up at a later time, flag it, and place it in a subfolder that you review on a daily basis.
I’m frustrated with a few people I work with who don’t read their email and always seem to be unavailable. I’ve tried everything from tagging messages with read receipts to automatically re-sending messages that bounce back with one of those cheerful “Out of the Office” replies. I’m sure these email neglecters have their reasons, but think about this: If I know they’re not staying on top of their mail, other people, including their managers, must know it too. Even if these people haven’t been seriously burned yet, their reputation is being compromised as we speak. Don’t get tripped up by this one. During the business week, unless you’re on vacation or in a meeting or seminar in which checking your phone would be rude, make it your business to read and respond to email several times a day.
These 21st-century productivity hacks will ensure that you have more time for the important things and can stay at the top of your game.
Smartphone: If you’re similar to me, sometimes the smartphone can be more trouble than its worth, especially when the old Wi-Fi connection is spotty. However, as an Android user, I recently discovered Tasker (tasker.dinglisch.net). Apps like Tasker essentially allow your phone to read your mind by using certain contexts to trigger tasks or setting changes. A context could be something as simple as the day of the week, a headset being plugged in, having a certain battery percentage, or entering a certain location. Once a context takes place, it triggers an action like turning off auto-sync, loading Pandora, or sending a text message to a certain person. Next, there is the Holy Grail of automation that is the If This Then That, also known as the IFTTT app (ifttt.com). IFTTT connects up to Google apps and others and allows them to talk to each other without your intervention. Basically, you create your own recipes such that if a particular trigger is present, an action is generated. One example of a recipe? “If I am endorsed on LinkedIn, publish a tweet on Twitter.”
Social Media: Once you arrive at the office, take a vow against spending too much time on social media and not enough time working. Fortunately, there are tools to help. Use Hootsuite (hootsuite.com) or Tweetdeck (tweetdeck.com) to schedule social media posts, retweets, and anything else you want to publish or respond to that day. You don’t have to bother logging on multiple times to see if someone mentioned you either. These apps will tell you automatically so that you can respond appropriately in real time. Real-time too much for you? Try Twilert (twilert.com) to alert you to any Twitter keywords you may want to track, several times or just once a day, just like a Google Alert.
Storage and Backup: At the end of a busy day at work, you’ve probably accumulated more paperwork than is useful to anyone. How about automating your note-taking and document storage via a tool like Evernote (Evernote.com)? Evernote not only allows you to save your ideas, things you hear, and things you see throughout the day, but you can also scan the day’s papers directly to an Evernote virtual notebook. Two major advantages of Evernote: it works with every kind of mobile device and computer, and it allows you to encrypt confidential data. As for all of those business cards you’ve collected, consider downloading an app like ScanBizCards (ScanBizCards.com) that allows you to automatically input card data right into your online contact database so you don’t have to worry about losing or storing the physical cards. One hard drive crash in a lifetime is too many. At the same time, you don’t want to spend your days thinking about backup. Fortunately, you can automate regular backups of your devices to an external hard drive using software such as Acronis (Acronis.com) and to the Internet using a service like CrashPlan (Crashplan.com). You should also make a habit of backing up important content to the cloud via an app like Dropbox.com
Several twenty-somethings have told me that they have difficulty coordinating projects with multiple tasks and individuals involved. Learning to do this well is a prerequisite for getting ahead in the professional world. I have a few years of project management experience under my belt, and this has been my strategy:
As soon as I leave my boss’s office with a new mission, I consider the scope of the project and the general approach I want to take. I then create a rough outline that breaks the project down into smaller components.
Conducting an initial project meeting allows me to turn the assignment of tasks into a team activity. By brainstorming with my teammates about the best way to accomplish various phases of a project, I encourage them to approach the work with enthusiasm and commitment. Note that team meetings should not be called indiscriminately. As much as I love the people I work with, if I want to hang out and chitchat, we’ll go to happy hour. Remember that the real project work gets done outside the conference room and that, most of the time, you do not accomplish things simply by talking about them. In general, I don’t usurp an hour of my colleagues’ time unless the meeting will serve a combination of the following purposes:
Generates ideas that will result in an appropriate project strategy.
Delegates each required task so that every member of the team is personally accountable for something.
Provides status updates so that one hand always knows what the other is doing, and so that problems and delays can be flagged before they get out of hand.
After an initial project meeting, I use Basecamp (Basecamp.com) to develop a chart that displays timelines, the interrelationships of the various tasks, and the people responsible for each project component. I check the chart once a day to monitor our progress and keep track of pending deadlines.
In order to organize a project successfully, you must make it easy for your team members to communicate with each other. My chart, which lives in the cloud, is a living document. Everyone on the team, including my supervisor, has access to view and modify the chart as we move forward on various tasks. The chart, along with ongoing status reviews, ensures that every team member understands not just his or her own responsibilities, but everyone else’s as well.
Here are some traits I advise you to hone in order to become a project management superstar.
Possess unofficial authority. Often, the best project managers (PMs) do not have formal authority over those working on their teams. Instead, their natural charisma and infectious enthusiasm motivates people to follow and listen to them, and helps them develop an organization-wide reputation as a popular leader.
Be a networking star. The best PMs understand who they need to go to to get things done, and they develop strong relationships with those individuals so that cross-functional projects run more smoothly. Also, should the project run into a snag, great PMs can rely on their network to find and implement a workaround.
Ask questions. A project cannot succeed without a PM who seeks and listens to the advice of experienced partners, and then puts processes in place for soliciting feedback on a regular basis. They are clear about what needs to be done, by whom, and by what deadline, and they intuitively understand the questions to ask to ensure a project is moving in the right direction.
Pay obsessive attention to detail. When you’re leading a large project with thousands of components, it’s easy for small but critical pieces to get lost in the shuffle. The best PMs keep track of these details so that red flags are dealt with immediately—before they become deal-breaking issues.
Understand the big picture. At the same time, though, talented PMs can pick the areas to focus on by always keeping the end result in mind. They align the goals of the project with the overall goals of the organization, and if a project element doesn’t further the big picture or impact the project in a significant way, it can be tossed out or at least back-burnered in favor of more pressing concerns.
Have thick skin. In order to be able to sustain a complicated effort that places stress on all parties, PMs must be able to let harsh criticism roll off them. They are able to take the brunt of the fallout when a client or higher-up is upset about a delay, and put themselves in the line of fire if the project does not deliver in some way. They keep their cool and view failures as intriguing challenges rather than soul-crushing setbacks. They can make decisions quickly, without worrying about what every individual on the team is going to think.
Be an amateur psychologist. Great PMs are able to read between the lines when team members aren’t getting along, or when someone is underperforming. They are able to effectively manage the expectations of internal and external stakeholders by intuitively understanding what’s important to each person. They speak to others empathetically—as fellow human beings—and diplomatically resolve conflicts when they occur.
Whether you’re an experienced project manager leading a huge team or an entry-level assistant in charge of a single intern, look for ways to implement and showcase your own style. By inspiring trust, confidence, and cooperation, you’ll emerge as an effective leader poised for even greater things.
Many people assume that communication is common sense and that there’s nothing to learn about it. A manager, for example, wouldn’t dream of sending a new employee on a client visit without providing in-depth training on what the employee should talk about, but that same manager will most likely ignore the specifics of how the rep should speak to the client. Sounds pretty dumb, huh? After all, if the employee doesn’t communicate effectively with the client in the first few minutes of interaction, he might have the door slammed in his face before he has a chance to recite his product’s compelling features. Your everyday work life is the same way. You could be the smartest, most qualified employee in the company, but no one will care what you have to offer if you’re unable to make yourself understood. So how do you ensure that your communication style is a competitive advantage rather than a liability? I’ll get to that soon. But first, let’s dissect a few types of communication found in the business world.
Aggressive: Communication that infers blame, places responsibility for a bad outcome on the other person, and takes credit for any and all successes. The aggressive communicator discourages collaboration and cooperation.
Passive: Communication that does not convey the whole picture. The passive communicator shares information with reluctance, fails to offer feedback, and responds with blanket agreement—particularly at the first sign of confrontation.
Assertive: Communication that is not accusatory, nonjudgmental, and conversational in tone. Assertive communicators are in control of themselves. They think before responding, avoid personalizing problems, and consider the big picture.
I’m sure you’ve had the pleasure of interacting with plenty of aggressive and passive communicators. Maybe some of them were lucky enough to advance to a high level. Usually, though, these extreme styles will handicap a career, because people don’t respond well to them. If you have your eye on a VP position and want to be seen as a powerful communicator and a key influencer, assertiveness—or the ability to stand up for your rights, opinions, ideas, and desires, while respecting those of others—is the way to go.
Let me confess that I am not naturally the most assertive person in the world—I definitely lean more toward the passive style. Though I hate to admit it, I think it has something to do with growing up as a female in our society. Women are encouraged to be passive from early childhood up until we’re thrust into the business world, when we’re expected to promptly grow a backbone. Fortunately, communicating assertively on an everyday basis is pretty easy provided you willingly express yourself clearly, confidently, and in a tone that sounds friendly rather than fake.
It’s harder to be assertive when you move beyond small talk into the realms of persuasion and confrontation. In situations in which you must communicate your point to someone who doesn’t agree, assertiveness marks the difference between being perceived as a leader or as one of those “ineffective” or “difficult” people who populate the lower ranks of the professional world. Hendrie Weisinger, author of Emotional Intelligence at Work, makes the following suggestions for incorporating assertive communication into your problem-solving technique.
Use facts to justify your position.
Acknowledge that you understand the other person’s point of view.
Repeat your position (be consistent and don’t raise your voice).
Communicate emotion by using feeling statements (“I feel disappointed that you are not comfortable assigning me this project”) rather than accusatory statements (“You don’t trust me to work with your clients”) that express an opinion as a matter of fact.
Strive for a compromise.
Plan for important conversations ahead of time. Assertiveness does not mean opening your mouth each and every time you have an opinion. One of the most common complaints I hear about twenty-something employees is that they think they know everything and don’t hesitate to convince others of this at every opportunity. Have deference for the years of expertise in the room, and the fact that your organization is still in business for a reason. Before you speak, make sure you fully understand your own point of view, and think about the most appropriate way to communicate it. It never hurts to take an extra minute to decide whether something should be shared, and/or if it’s an appropriate time to interject your thoughts. When in doubt, err on the side of caution.
Watch people around you who are using assertiveness to their advantage. Toronto Star career columnist Mark Swartz recommends choosing a few role models in the office, and noting the behaviors they use to communicate effectively. Why does your coworker always seem to get the ear of your boss? How does your supervisor come out of every staff meeting with an increased budget for new projects? Try some of the successful techniques you see, keeping in mind that your communication style should match who you are personality-wise. If you stray too far from what comes naturally, you might be perceived as phony.
Now that I’ve talked about the role of assertiveness, let’s cover specific strategies for leveraging three communication vehicles—writing, speaking, and listening—to help you connect with people in ways that will enhance your career potential.
I learned the hard way never to write anything in an email that I wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the Washington Post after I overheard my workmate talking to one of our colleagues about her recent divorce. She sounded really upset, so I wrote her an email expressing my sympathy and telling her I could totally relate to her predicament. Unfortunately, I put in all the details of my own divorce, including my ex-husband’s infidelity. I really wish I had just talked to her in person, because I accidentally sent that email to the entire company. I have never been so mortified in my life.
Hilary, 29, Virginia
Word on the street is that if you’re not a communications professional, you don’t need to pay too much attention to your writing skills. This is not so. In fact, good writing is one of the most underrated skills in the business world. Maybe this attitude is a defense mechanism. After all, many business people are bad writers, and how can you judge your employees on something you don’t even have a clue about? If you’re not the most polished writer in the world, with technology and all you might get away with it. But you’re not reading this book so you can just slide by. Presumably, you want to impress the socks off your managers and come out looking better than everyone else. There’s no better way to do this than to showcase the rare talent of a superior command of the written language.
I could happily devote an entire book to the craft of writing. However, because that’s not what I’m here to do, I’ll limit my advice to two simple rules:
Rule #1: C&C (Clear & Concise). Most people in today’s professional world have an extremely short attention span, so get right to it by prefacing your document with a brief, objective-oriented introduction, and by setting off your key points with bullets for painless consumption. Whether you’re writing a routine email or a quarterly business plan, offer only the necessary information and be prepared to provide supplemental material. Your word choice should accurately convey your meaning, and your vocabulary and tone should reflect your audience. Use the active verb tense (“I wrote this plan”) rather than passive (“This plan was written by me”) whenever you can. Don’t load Microsoft Powerpoint presentations down with too much text; instead, employ plenty of colorful graphics, charts, and photographs to keep your audience’s attention.
Rule #2: Quality Control. There is no such thing as a perfect first draft, so get into the habit of proofreading your writing and having a colleague read it over as well. Sloppiness is the enemy. Every document that leaves your desk should be carefully checked for clean formatting, proper grammar, and correct spelling. Think of your work product as little pieces of yourself sent out into the world. Even if you’re the 15th person to review a document, be the one who takes responsibility for sending it forward error-free.
What if you need some help bringing your writing up to par? I suggest contacting local colleges or continuing education programs about a variety of business writing courses. These classes are typically inexpensive, and they can often be tailored to your specific needs. Don’t let an inflexible schedule discourage you; many courses are now offered online.
The majority of written communication now takes place through email, which can be rather complicated. You still want to follow the C&C and Quality Control rules of regular written communication, but you also have to balance a multitude of considerations that are unique to the medium of email.
Allow me to share a true story. A student at a prestigious U.S. university was studying abroad, and emailed the dean of Undergraduate Affairs to determine the status of his Resident Advisor application. Because this particular student had been away all semester, the dean had forgotten to include his application in the pool. The student, having lost his opportunity to be a Resident Advisor, was quite upset. He shared his displeasure with the dean via email.
The dean became defensive. He intended to forward the student’s email to a colleague in the office, adding the comment, “What a little snot. These spoiled brats think they’re entitled to everything. Why doesn’t he just transfer?” Unfortunately, the dean accidentally hit Reply, and the student received his nasty retort instead. No matter how much the dean apologized, the damage could not be undone. The already irate student had a field day distributing the dean’s inappropriate and unprofessional response to everyone he knew, and, within a few months, the infamous email exchange had made its way across the country. Ask yourself this question: How many email offenses like this does it take to ruin a prominent university’s reputation?
Email can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Here are a few tips to make it work for you.
1. Realize that email is not private. Not only can your company’s IT department access it, but you also never know to whom your messages might be forwarded—accidentally or intentionally. Avoid discussing sensitive information or writing anything negative unless it’s specifically requested by your boss and/or supported by fact.
2. Maintain a consistent professional persona. You can achieve this by crafting friendly, polite, and grammatically correct messages. Because you can’t rely on voice or nonverbal cues, always reread your emails to make sure the message you are sending is idiot-proof. Don’t get too cutesy with your emoticons or acronyms (LOL, BRB).
3. Keep emails short and to the point. Make sure to include an informative and specific subject line (for example, don’t just call the message “Update”). Begin with a call to action that encourages the person to read the message (starting with the word you usually does the trick). Put your key message up front, and if the information you must communicate is longer than two to three paragraphs, attach a document with the relevant details.
4. Use email to reinforce in-person conversations. Summarize meetings, impart helpful information (for example, FYI—“For Your Information”—messages), or respond appropriately to an important issue (for example, CYA—“Cover Your Ass”—messages) via email to reinforce face-to-face discussions you have with colleagues.
5. Don’t use email as a forum to express displeasure or criticize. Do these things in person rather than taking the easy way out. If you must highlight a problem in email, be positive and solution-oriented.
6. Use email sparingly. Carbon copy (CC) your boss only on messages that clearly demonstrate that you are doing your job. Avoid sending him thousands of emails unless you want him to stop reading them.
7. Use flags and read receipts. When sending an important message, call it out in some way so that the recipient is not tempted to ignore it.
8. Be courteous. In general, older workers consider it rude to email a question to anyone sitting within 10 feet of you. Make an effort to speak to these people face to face.
9. Know what you are sending before you send it. Before hitting Reply, carefully read an email in its entirety. If it’s preceded by a series of messages, make sure to read and understand the whole string first.
10. Keep personal emails personal. If you want to send personal emails at work, set up a separate account. Don’t send those annoying forwards to your work friends unless they also qualify as real friends (see Chapter 3).
What if you are a business email pro, but you still can’t get a response from a colleague who is holding up your progress on a project? Having been in this situation myself many times, I turned to one of my favorite workplace pundits, Alison Green of the Ask a Manager blog (AskAManager.com). This was her advice:
You have to be straightforward with the person and tell her, “Hey, I’m having trouble getting responses from you and it’s keeping me from being able to move forward on this project. Is there something I could do differently that would help?” This way, you put her on notice that there’s a problem. You could potentially find that there’s something going on that you didn’t know about—she’s swamped with something she has been told is a higher priority, or she just didn’t realize it was a high priority, etc. After that, if the problem continues, I think I’d alert her one more time: “Hey, I know we talked about this before but I’m still not getting what I need. What can we do differently so that we can move forward on this?”
At that point, you’ve alerted her twice that it’s a problem. If the unresponsiveness continues, you don’t have much choice but to go to your manager. I realize this feels like tattling to a lot of people, but I tend to believe that the entire concept of tattling doesn’t really fit in the workplace. You could even just say something like, “Could you nudge Julie for me? I’m sure she has other things on her plate, but I haven’t been able to get a response from her.”
Before we move on from written communication, I’d like to say a word about texting. I hear that you can’t live without it, but you must proceed carefully when using it in a business setting. For one thing, don’t expect to communicate this way with your colleagues or clients unless texting has already been established as an acceptable means of interaction. When sending work-related texts, make sure your name shows up as something professional, and greet the recipient before jumping in with a request. Also, don’t shorten words so much that your point gets lost, watch the level of informality, and be conscious of wasting too much time shooting messages back and forth. As with email, keep a saved log of important conversations, and always pause for a moment before you hit Send. You’d be surprised how many IT departments work their magic to monitor texts sent from company networks.
I always keep my notepad handy when I go downstairs, in case I run into someone I need to talk to in the elevator. People in my company are so buried that it’s nearly impossible to get them to respond to me via email or voice mail. And forget about scheduling meetings. Cornering them in the elevator is the perfect opportunity to get quick answers so that I can do my job.
Steven, 26, North Carolina
Author and motivational guru Dale Carnegie once said that the person who can speak acceptably is usually considered to possess greater ability than he actually has. In my experience, this is true. If you look and act as though you know what you’re talking about, people will think that you do, regardless of the reality. You may not have a vast store of knowledge and years of experience to draw from, but you can get promoted just by creating the perception of being competent and informed.
I translate Carnegie’s “speaking acceptably” as “effective in-person communication,” because there is much more to speaking than the content that comes out of your mouth. Did you know that only 7 percent of meaning is conveyed with the words you say? People get the rest of your message from how you say it. In-person communication includes nonverbal cues, vocal style, articulateness, and sincerity, and it plays a huge role in conveying the powerful corporate persona I talked about in the beginning chapters of this book. Let’s spend a moment addressing each of these components.
1. Nonverbal cues: Positive body language supports your message and encourages cooperation. To employ this, position yourself next to the person you’re speaking to and lean toward him, but don’t get so close that you invade his personal space. Sustain eye contact for several seconds throughout the course of the conversation, and always smile (unless you’re delivering bad news). Take the time to focus on the other person, and don’t fidget or give in to background distractions. If you want to emphasize an important point, use your hands.
2. Vocal style: Need something to do in the shower besides sing? Practice adjusting your tone, pace, and volume according to the situation and/or person with whom you are going to communicate. Enunciate your words so that people can understand you. Whether you are passionate about your subject or not, always convey a little enthusiasm, people will be more likely to listen.
3. Articulateness: Just as with written communication, practice your command of verbal communication so that you can accurately express what you mean. Improve your vocabulary in order to appear intelligent and well-educated, but don’t overdo it. If you throw around too many industry terms or five-syllable GRE words, you’ll look like you are trying to impress someone. A huge part of articulateness is being succinct, so learn to communicate your main points using as few words as possible. This is particularly important if you regularly participate in meetings. There is nothing worse than being the one person who goes on and on while everyone else just wants to get out of there.
4. Sincerity: Note that there is a fine line between portraying a strong professional persona and coming across as being fake. Although your tone should generally be confident, friendly, and conversational, you should avoid saying things you don’t mean or adapting a style that is completely contrary to your personality.
Voice mail is the perfect medium to work on your in-person communication technique. Your greeting serves as an introduction to the professional you. It is the starting point from which many people will communicate with you, and if you work in nearly any kind of organization, you have to use it. Sorry.
Record your greeting before or after work hours to avoid office background noise. Politely and confidently state your name, department, and company, and invite the caller to leave a message, which you will promptly return. I would avoid saying what day it is in your message. I guarantee you will get behind in recording a new greeting each day, and, next thing you know, it will be October and your voice mail will still say it’s June 5!
Public speaking is another good way to hone your in-person communication skills. Many of us fear getting up in front of a group, yet I’ve never known a person who was physically incapable of doing it after practicing a few times. Public speaking increases your confidence level, your poise, and your ability to flexibly convey information about your subject matter. It also pays huge dividends in terms of being taken seriously as a twenty-something in the business world. Look for opportunities to deliver formal or informal presentations whenever you can, and, as you prepare, consider using a few notes instead of a script. Extemporaneous remarks are more effective for connecting with your audience on a personal level and provide much better training for those critical one-on-one interactions.
Even if you’re a master of in-person communication, people won’t always welcome you in for a chat with open arms. As you well know, the professional world is a hectic environment where no one has enough hours in the day to do what they need to do. The higher the executive’s title, the less time she has to speak with you. Here are a few hints for getting face time with those hard-to-pin-down senior folks.
Stop by her office instead of calling or sending an email.
Persuade her admin to give you a 10-minute slot on her calendar. (Make sure not to stay a minute longer.)
Catch her for a quick conversation in the hallway or elevator.
Invite her to have lunch in the cafeteria. (Everyone has to eat!)
Once you manage to get in front of the person, say what you have to say and get out of there. If necessary, prepare a list ahead of time of the things you want to cover so that you can whiz right through them. If the person learns that a meeting with you doesn’t mean she will be held up all day, she will be more likely to respond to your meeting request next time.
One last point about speaking: if you have the opportunity to enhance your knowledge of another language, or even to start learning one from scratch, I highly recommend pursuing it. As English decreases in prominence and the economy becomes even more global, knowing additional languages will prove invaluable. Most community colleges, embassies, and consulates offer evening and weekend classes, or you could learn from the comfort of your couch with a self-directed program such as Rosetta Stone (RosettaStone.co.uk) or Pimsleur (Pimsleur.com).
You may have taken one look at this subhead and said, “What am I, 5 years old? I thought I learned to listen in kindergarten!” If you think about it, though, this isn’t exactly the case. You learned to hear people when they talk, but you didn’t necessarily get into the habit of actively listening to them. In our jobs, our relationships suffer, we miss out on a lot of information, and, ultimately, we make our jobs harder because we don’t pay attention to what people are saying.
It’s in your best interests to avoid unnecessary communication breakdowns caused by a failure to listen. Author Hendrie Weisinger recommends that you begin by making yourself aware of ways you might unconsciously filter out what others are saying. Filters are generated by thoughts, ideas, and feelings. They influence the type of and how much information we hear. There are four kinds of filters:
1. The predilection filter: Hearing what you want to hear instead of what is meant.
2. The who filter: Placing importance based on the person doing the talking.
3. The facts filter: Being oblivious to the emotional subtext of the conversation.
4. The distracting thoughts filter: Allowing your mind to wander.
Once you’ve identified what types of filters you use and under what circumstances you use them, employ these suggestions for practicing “filter prevention,” and also for becoming an active and involved listener:
Don’t interrupt.
Don’t tune out because you think you know what’s coming.
Read between the lines, and assess what is meant vs. what is said.
Acknowledge that you are paying attention by sustaining eye contact, nodding, or saying “uh huh.”
Verbally summarize what the speaker has said, paraphrasing rather than repeating it verbatim.
Empathize with how the speaker is feeling.
Ask specific, clarifying questions.
Take notes to keep yourself focused and to help you remember what’s being communicated.
Don’t type on your smartphone while someone is talking to you.
Don’t change the subject until you’re certain the speaker has concluded his or her point.
You can encourage others to listen to you by emphasizing key points, and by asking for a restatement of your message in the person’s own words. Make your position relevant to the listener, and, as a general rule, listen more than you talk. You will stand out as one of the few people your colleagues consider it a pleasure to talk to!
Remember Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus? Romantic relationships are one thing, but no one talks much about how Mars and Venus fare at work. In fact, there are significant verbal and nonverbal differences in the way the two genders get their messages across in a professional setting.
In the area of verbal communication, men tend to speak more concisely, whereas women tend to elaborate or explain their points of view. Men tend to assert their ideas as if they are fact, whereas women tend to phrase their ideas as questions and add disclaimers (“I might be wrong…”) or hedges (“Maybe”).
Men engage in verbal bantering and derogatory comments to establish rapport, whereas women think a certain level of formality is more appropriate. Men make demands of the team, whereas women try to gain consensus first. Men want to talk about plan specifics, whereas women want to talk about needs and feelings.
Men don’t give positive feedback as frequently, whereas women think it’s important for reports to feel valued. Men more often make decisions based on careful analysis of the facts, whereas women are more likely to spot the right decision quickly, often as a result of intuition.
On the non-verbal side of the equation, women tend to smile a lot, whereas men remain poker-faced. Women nod to indicate understanding, whereas men nod to indicate agreement. Women stand face-to-face to reflect engagement and shoulder-to-shoulder to reflect disengagement. Men stand face-to-face to reflect aggression and shoulder-to-shoulder to reflect collaboration. In a work setting, women often contract to make themselves seem smaller, whereas men do the opposite and often expand their presence to fill the room.
Fortunately, there are things both women and men can do to improve their effectiveness in communicating with the opposite gender. Let’s start with the women. Women can:
Speak in a strong voice even when they don’t feel confident.
Concisely explain the factual reasons behind their ideas and decisions.
Excuse themselves promptly if they feel their emotions getting the best of them.
Ask a man whose approach they are questioning to help them understand the rationale behind it.
Steer clear of interpersonal criticism unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Suggestions for the men include:
Hear a woman out without interrupting.
Listen to and acknowledge a woman’s feelings.
Ask for feedback as opposed to dictating.
Minimize the amount of teasing in group situations.
Avoid aggressive behavior such as raising one’s voice in a disagreement.
I remember getting really insulted by an executive who seemed to keep stonewalling my ideas. I was 22, and I thought that of course he should want to listen to what I had to say. I was so upset about being ignored that I talked to my boss, and she thought I was overreacting. Eventually I gave up trying to get noticed, but I got a bad taste in my mouth every time I’d see the executive. I would tell my younger self to recognize that the exec was probably just really busy and that his lack of communication was nothing personal. It would have been great to get advice from my boss or my other mentor at the time about a more effective way to get the exec’s attention instead of just complaining that my way wasn’t working.
Allen, 33, New York
Manage your time strategically. Arrange your schedule around your priorities, and learn to say no to nonstrategic tasks in a way that maintains your persona as a can-do employee.
Implement effective organizational tools. There are only so many things in the professional world you can control, and your own organizational style is one of them. Find a simple routine that works for you, and stick to it.
Be assertive. Become a powerful communicator and key influencer by standing up for your ideas, while also respecting those of others.
Fine-tune your writing, speaking, and listening skills. Express your ideas confidently and succinctly. If you look and act as though you know what you’re talking about, people will believe that you do. Practice “filter prevention” in order to become an active and involved listener.