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People Skills: A Single Word Can Make the Difference!

 

As The People Skills Coach™, I often coach and teach about words that make or break communication in professional and personal relationships.

 

Unfortunate is one such word.

 

The dictionary listing of unfortunate wouldn’t give the impression it could cause people skills trouble.

Unfortunate …

1. suffering from bad luck
2. unfavorable or inauspicious

 

When our words offend or actions harm others, labeling it unfortunate can be a deadly people skills mistake.

 

Using the word unfortunate about serious offense or hurt is insulting to the victims of the offense because the word underplays the impact.

 

It sounds like a mere oops.

 

By trivializing the impact, we put the relationship at risk.

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Replace that one word — unfortunate – with any one of these words:

Deplorable or
Terrible or
Bad

… and we remove the confusion and take ownership of the impact.

Although the dictionary has those meanings listed third:

3. regrettable or deplorable

 … few people think of or hear this meaning when someone says:  “That was unfortunate.”

 

People Skills Lesson – Be Clear & Caring

1. Be clear and accountable. When hurt feelings, negative emotions, or harm and broken trust are at hand, being clear about remorse re-secures and sustains the relationship.
2. Confusion and trivializing put it at risk.

Before speaking, ask yourself which you would want to hear: “Sorry, that was unfortunate” or “What I did was terrible – I’m very sorry.”

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Professional and personal relationships are slowly built and quickly broken.

Even ONE word can make a big difference!

 

Question: What other words/phrases have you found break trust quickly?

 

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Image licensed from Istock.com.

Related posts:
People Skills: Integrity & Authenticity
Words can woo or wound; create bonds not scars.

©2011-2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, workshops, keynotes, and DVDs that turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success for customer service, teamwork, and leading change. Kate fills the gaps of diversity with business wins. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results.

Leadership people skills are critical to success. From inspiring and engaging to communicating and resolving conflicts, leadership people skills are at the heart of it all.

Regarding employee engagement, leaders often ask me for people skills guidance. One of the most common questions is: “How do I know when to show my strengths and when to hold back to engage theirs?

 

Grateful for image by: elycefeliz via Flickr Creative Commons License.

My leadership people skills advice to them is …

 

To engage others, lead quietly with the courage to roar.

 

Leadership People Skills to Engage

Leading quietly with the courage to roar …

• Doesn’t mean silence or speaking. It means conversing to explore vs. giving orders.
• Doesn’t mean denying your leadership talents. It means unearthing their talents dynamically with yours.
• Doesn’t mean huge risk from their inexperience. It means mentoring and coaching them with the courage to jump in and act when necessary.
• Doesn’t mean weak leadership. It means the strength to trust others.

Leadership People Skills Engagement Challenges

Sounds simple? Well if it were that simple, engagement would be consistently high and it isn’t. When engaging with leadership people skills, balance is tough to find.

• Your personality type

  
  If you are a strong driver, your extreme desire for quick results may lead to you to direct vs. engage.
  Solution: For drivers the issue is pace and time. With your teams, identify the vision and also the pace needed to achieve success. When you put this issue on the table you are less likely to drive and more likely to engage their talents.

  If you are a strong amiable, your high need for bonded relationships may lead to you to recoil from the tough conversations.
  Solution: Understand that bonds are not built on avoidance nor broken through honest conversations. Use your ability to empathize to have the tough conversations with care.

  If you are a strong expressive, your high expressive style may cause others to remain silent. They can’t find a moment to speak. Hard to believe yet it’s true.
  Solution: Use a simple leadership people skills rule: the 30 second maximum. If you have been speaking for 30 seconds, pause and wait for input. Better yet pause after 20 seconds. This simple technique turns monologue into dialogue.

  If you are a strong analytic, your high focus on ordered thinking often shuts out those who think creatively or from the big picture. As you stop them mid-sentence for the logic and data, they hear you telling them to be you — not them.
  Solution: Once again timing is both the issue and the solution. Instead of demanding they use only logic and data, allow them to express from their thinking. Then discuss the logic and data. Two steps instead of one. It engages diverse talents and still leads to the success you envision.




• Your leader sees engagement as weakness

  When your leadership people skills are focused on engagement and your boss sees engagement as weakness, it may cause you to engage your teams less. Don’t fall into this trap. Solution: Ask your leader what specifically does s/he see as a weakness? Have you and your team missed a critical objective? Specifics and an open discussion can lead to an effective change. It prevents you from reverting to directing instead of engaging.

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Leading to engage means assessing the teams strengths and needs every time you interact. This is why leadership people skills are at the heart of employee engagement. Leading quietly with the courage to roar doesn’t require that you be silent and withhold your strengths.

It means that as a leader you contribute from an awareness of what will bring out all the talents. Quiet doesn’t mean silent. It means being aware of team members’ strengths rather than always directing with yours.


With great leadership people skills, you use your strengths as needed instead of directing most of the time. Set the vision, teach, guide, mentor, challenge, spur change, build bonds, and model greatness.


It’s all quite achievable when you lead quietly with the courage to roar.


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Related posts:
Employee Engagement: Breed Accountability Not Blame
Leaders, 6 Steps to Be a Buoy & Engage Employees

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Customer experience leaders — customer experience even in large volume is about the ultimate positive moment for each customer. Even in the face of high volume delivery challenges, super customer experience is about individual customer satisfaction and success.

When you believe and act as if customer experience is mostly about the collective picture, the individual customers become nameless and faceless. The customers feel like they’re in a cattle call — to borrow an expression from the theatre world!

Image of cattle call audition by itselea via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Customer Experience Leaders: Are You Leading a Cattle Call?

Here are true customer stories of the cattle call effect and an easy fix for each!

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From Nameless to Human

When Alex received her flood insurance renewal notice, it arrived with a confusing letter about rate increases. She called for clarification, gave her name and how long she had been a customer. The insurance rep replied: “Ma’am there have been rate increases ….and so ma’am there’s nothing we can do.”

Alex replied, “I mentioned my name is Alex. I’ve been your customer for 15 years. Will you please use my name and treat me as your customer? And by the way I am not debating the rate increase I am just asking for clarification.”

Cattle call effect: High.

Customer experience score: Low.

Easy Fix: Address customers by name!

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From Narcissism to Customer Focus

When the mortgage company holding Pat’s mortgage was bought out by a larger one, Pat received notice of the change. A mortgage payment was coming due and he had a question about where to send the payment. When Pat called, the rep repeatedly mentioned paying online or using a credit card over the phone.

Pat mentioned that he prefers to pay by check and just needs the address. The rep again mentioned online payment or credit card. Pat became annoyed and said: “I pay my own way — by check. Do you have an option to receive payment by check? Else I will move my mortgage even if it means refinancing through another company.” Rep then gave Pat the address to pay by check.

In this example, the mortgage company wanted Pat to do what was good for them not him.

Cattle call effect: High.

Customer experience score: Low.

Easy Fix: If you have different payment options, offer them for the customer’s choice and satisfaction. Company narcissism is not a success strategy for customer experience!

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From Input to Output

Every year Sally goes to the same mammography center for her yearly mammogram. She is an educated health care consumer and always keeps copies of her test results for her records. She returned for her yearly mammogram and once again asked for copies of her films. The technician replied: “We’ve gone digital and everything is stored on the system now.”

Sally replied: “I would like copies for my records. Is it possible?” The technician replied, “Yes it’s possible but why would you want that? We store them on the system. Are you going to a breast specialist ….blah blah blah.”

Annoyed, Sally replied again: “I like to keep copies for my records. When can I have the films?” The technician finally told her that they would prepare them and call her w/i one week for pickup.

Cattle call effect: High.

Customer experience score: Low.

Easy Fix: Listen to the customer’s request and respond from there. In this case the technician was thinking not from the customer input but from their standard process. Better to go from customer input to output than from standard process to a cattle call response.

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Large organizations do not have to deliver impersonal cattle call customer experience. Brands have proven for years that they can win the hearts and loyalty of their customers when they focus on the customers.

Go from cattle call to WOW
with individual care and people skills in every aspect of the customer experience.




Image of cattle call by Arse_Shoots via Flickr Creative Commons License.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Other helpful customer experience posts:
Super Customer Experience: Like a Shiny New Car!
Customer Experience: Loyalty Through Narcissism?
Customer Experience: People Skills for Profitable Connection

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Humility: Overcome Self-Pity and Prevent Swelled Head

On Mother’s Day, I think about how mothers have the difficult job of encouraging us to succeed while teaching us to stay humble. They face the challenge head on as they model this important balance.

Humility can conquer both self-pity and a swelled head. This sails us forward to success in work-life and deeper happiness in personal connections.

Image by: Tonymz via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Humility: 10 Ways to Stay Humble in Success

1. Observe the wonder of babies as they courageously learn EVERYTHING. They are humble not humiliated.
   Humility reveals what there is to learn.




2. View the Grand Canyon, Victoria Falls, and other natural wonders or at least the pictures if you can’t go. It helps keep human efforts in perspective. Celebrate the larger view and live humbly to balance ego.




3. Once a week, have someone teach you something they do well that you don’t.
   Being a willing student helps you stay humble.




4. Learn one of the 6500 known languages. It’s a great reminder of who else exists in the world!
   Humility fuels learning beyond visible boundaries.




5. See those who live with a severe chronic illness and still give generously of themselves.
   Humility redefines struggle and strength.




6. Go without comforts and convenience for one day or better yet one week. Those who make life easier come into full view.
   Humility magnifies appreciation of others.




7. Help someone with a physical challenge. Their tenacity is inspirational as it places struggle in a new light.
   Seeing the challenges of others inspires humility.




8. Write down all your pet peeves about other people. Then ask yourself how many of those things you can humbly overlook.
   Humility nurtures patience and inhibits selfishness.




9. Become and stay curious with others. Ask one question each day to expand the mind and humbly learn from different views. Humility can be intensely interesting and enjoyable.
   Curiosity sparks humility.




10. Ask for help from others who live humility in success. They will help you to overcome the myths and fears and live the truth about humility.
    Humility is a shared journey.

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Curiosity and learning keep our sights set on things outside of ourselves. This keeps us humble in success.


Question: What has life taught you about staying humble? Will you share it here?


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Related Posts:
What’s So Hot About Humility Anyway
Leaders, Never Confuse Humility With Humiliation

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

People Skills: Influence Through Giving?

As we live, we influence others. Our words and actions impact others in ways that influence their response to us. It’s not always the response we desire.

In leadership, teamwork, sales, and customer service, what we do influences others and can breed various results. It’s not always the result we desire.

How can we use great people skills to get closer to our desired response and result? First we must get much closer to the people. Classic wisdom is that the precursor to influence is seeing others’ views and building trust. But what are the precursors to those!?

People Skills: Precursors to Seeing Others’ Views & Trust

Assuming we want to influence not manipulate, the magic happens when our selflessness and purity of heart are clearly visible.


The hard work of selfless giving builds trust.

People Skills: Precursors to #Peopleskills Influence Image by: owly9

• Escape the trap of our own comfort.

  The comfort of trends, data, and standard approaches. The comfort of how we prefer to interact. When we give up our own comfort to focus on others, the trust flows.

  When we focus on our own comfort or tell others we will do whatever they are comfortable with and don’t, the relationship grows cold. Trust drops or even disappears. Our influence with them hangs by a thread and eventually breaks.





• Suspend our own goal.

  Our goal affects what we say and what we do because it affects what we can see and hear. When our actions are not producing the results we want with others, it’s because others can see that our goal is not to see theirs!

  Blindness doesn’t influence; suspending our own goal to see others does.




• Welcome influence before we influence.

  When we are open to ideas — to being influenced — we then earn the trust to influence. Influence is not a monologue; it’s a dialogue. It’s not defining great listening as silence; it’s listening to the other person the way the other person defines great listening. Influence is both care and authenticity, not just authenticity.

Despite the trend today on social media to define influence as reach, lasting influence comes from the hard work of selfless giving. There is no greater influence than that.

Something to consider whenever the outcomes are not the ones desired.


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Related Post:
What’s So Hot About Humility Anyway
12 Most Beneficial People Skills to Influence Others

Grateful for image of tree branches by Marius Waldal and Image of ice crystal by owly9 via Flickr Creative Commons Licenses.

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Leadership People Skills Spark Team Agility!

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Leaders engage me to help them develop team agility.  After all, agile organizations soar by easily adapting to changing business conditions. So how do you spark and kindle team agility?

Image licensed from Istock.com


Resistance to change can be high. It is often one of the greatest challenges leaders face. The good news is leaders’ daily interaction with the team — leadership people skills — can spark agility.

Leadership People Skills: 5 Essentials to Spark Team Agility!

What does agility include? Foresight, willingness to change, ability to adapt, and actually moving forward. Leadership people skills can spark and kindle it!

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1. Interact through creativity.

   Creativity develops a culture of change and sparks agility. A culture that focuses primarily on facts and data suppresses agility by grounding everyone in today.

   When team members use foresight to create new ideas, some leaders immediately respond with “where’s the data showing we need to do that?” This stifles agility. First show interest and appreciation for the foresight. Then ask them how to test out the ideas. That sparks and kindles agility!

   Tapping creativity every day gives team members frequent practice in envisioning and creating something new and different. Thinking of change becomes the norm not the dreaded surprise! Do your leadership people skills get the team exploring tomorrow — today?




2. Applaud initiative instead of rebuking it.

   Initiative is agility in action! Leaders in large organizations with many silos unknowingly stifle this. If spirited team initiative breaches organizational lines, leaders often say “don’t do that again”.

   Instead, applaud initiative. Then discuss how to work better with other teams and their leaders. It engages employees in cross teamwork for success. It keeps agility alive!

   Do your leadership people skills applaud initiative and kindle team agility?




3. Empower decision making.

   Decision making is also agility in action. When the team weighs different factors and takes a step forward, they move the team into tomorrow. Leaders often talk about agility yet hold the reins too tight to allow it.

   Do your leadership people skills empower others to practice agility through decision making?




4. Untie the “nots”.

   Fewer rules spark agility. Beyond mandated rules (i.e. legal, safety, and so forth), untie the team from needless don’ts, can’ts, and not’s. They keep agility tied up in knots.

   The easiest way to find the needless “nots”, is to consider all the don’ts that exist because of organizational politics. When leaders work together to eliminate the needless “nots”, they spark and kindle agility.

   Do your leadership people skills untie the “nots” and release the team from knots that bind?




5. Focus on greatness not the best!

   Agility means accepting some risk to keep moving forward. When leaders focus and talk about growing to greatness, they spark and kindle agility. When they talk mostly about proven “best” practices, they stifle agility.

   What message are you sending your teams? “Be careful. Do only what’s safe and proven.” Or “let’s learn, make informed decisions, and keep growing to greatness!”

   Do your leadership people skills kindle fear of mistakes, fear of failure, and fear of change? Or do they spark agility?

From safe & slow to agile and successful.


Use leadership people skills to spark agility in teams and soar to the heights of greatness!


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Grateful for image of caterpillar by bijoubaby and for image of monarch butterfly by aneye4wonder via Flickr Creative Commons Licenses.

Related Posts:
Leadership People Skills: Adaptability is Genius & Generosity
Change Leaders, Is the Beloved Bully of Habit Stopping You?

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Super customer service has little room for regret. What we say to customers and how we say it leave lasting impressions. We can wound them with scars that last forever or we can use caring people skills to avoid laying an egg.

Image licensed from Istock.com

In tough moments with customers, how can we speak with great people skills instead of later regretting and hoping for that elusive second chance?

We can take a lesson from everyday life!

Author Jackie Hooper has written a wonderful book, The Things You Would Have Said, compiling letters from people who regret having said bad things or regret not having said caring words.


As I watched the feature on the book on CBS Sunday Morning and heard people reading the words of regret for what they said or hadn’t said, I immediately thought how we could use this lesson for super customer service.


Responding with care instead of defensively reacting is much easier IF we are thinking about the after effects. Ask yourself what you wish you’d said to a customer before you lost them — just as Jackie asked people to do for those they treated poorly.


Instead of regretting, envision what you would write in an “I wish I’d said” letter of regret and say that instead of the defensive snips. Super customer service requires people skills that deliver care even in the toughest moments!

Super Customer Service People Skills – No Regret!

• Find empathy by imagining regret.

  The stress relief you feel by snapping at a customer is short lived. It is quickly followed by regret and feeling for the customer as they receive your outburst. Reverse the regret process and feel the empathy from the beginning. If you feel stuck, adapt don’t attack.




• Imagine the caring you not the ego-controlled you.

  Many regrets are born of the need to be right, the need to be better than, the need to be selfish. In other words, regrets are born of the ego.

  Imagine yourself being great in service not needing to be right. Imagine yourself sharing control not having control.

  Those who deliver super customer service, revel in helping others to succeed and thus they succeed. Their desire to care overrides their ego. They are humble enough to learn from the customer and don’t feel humiliated by the customer. They don’t say things to customers that they will regret for they envision receiving that very same care.




• Prevent regret.

  Treat customers well the first time else there may not be a second time. Defensive thoughts and communication lead to regret. Stay open. Show empathy. Explore the customer’s view. Empathy doesn’t mean you agree. It means you matter, we matter, this matters! Through empathy you find how to wow each customer with care.

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The old saying, the customer’s always right, has led some to rebel and claim it isn’t true. From there, they justify confronting the customer and saying things to prove the customer wrong.


The debate about that adage is out-of-date and quite worthless. What we all need to remember is that we may not get a second chance from customers we’ve treated badly. Think about it: Why would anyone pay money to be treated with impatience, rudeness and disrespect?


Empathize, explore, and stay open to customers’ views. Live no regret about customers for there may be no chance to write that letter and get them back.


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Other Super Customer Service Posts:
Super Customer Service: Use Great People Skills to Deliver vs Defend
Customer Service Defined to Be Unforgettable
Super Customer Service: Be a Buoy
Customer Service People Skills Create Profitable Connection!

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Super Customer Experience: Honor the Customer

Image by: J-Rod85 via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Businesses that deliver a super customer experience, do so with actions that honor the customer as a person.  As a business owner or leader, if you think of what you consider to be a super customer experience — you will find that it honors you.

Here’s a true super customer experience story from Twitter connection Jeff Allen, @bjaj1:

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The year was 1999 and I was rewarding myself for two good years of sales performance with a new car — a Chrysler 300M – their newest model. I purchased from a well respected local dealership – Hayes Chrysler in Larenceville, GA.  After the purchase I started having new car model issues with several annoying trips to service.  The dealership was responsive and persistent in resolving the issues.  Ultimately a computer upgrade in that model eliminated all the issues!

I took it in for a routine maintenance 3 months later, I mentioned to them that something didn’t seem right with the paint job. It looked cloudy not crisp and clean like the showroom model.  He connected me directly with the factory rep who looked at the car and said yes indeed there was a problem.

He offered 3 options: A free bumper to bumper 100K warranty or a new paint job. I told the rep I wasn’t interested in the warranty and was impressed with the offer of a paint job yet wanted to hear the 3rd option.  The rep said … or a trade in. 

I told him I didn’t want to take a hit on 3 month old car with 13K miles.  The rep quickly said … you won’t take a hit.  There’s no  cost.  A new car for the one with the defective paint job! I said it’s a deal, shook his hand, and thanked him for taking such good are of a me.

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Super Customer Experience: Honor the Customer …

• With trust.

  The rep acted with trust that the customer was reporting the truth. He didn’t suggest that the customer had done something to make the paint job cloudy.

• With integrity by owning the problem.

  When customers buy a shiny new car like the one in the showroom, deliver that — not a repainted one. It honors the trust the customers gave when they bought a shiny new car from you. It also says to the customer: You deserve the reward you were giving yourself — a shiny new car. Now for 14 years he has felt that Chrysler also honored and rewarded him. He has told this story to everyone and now I tell it to you.

• With ease.

  When a customer is disappointed for any reason, make it easy for them to voice their views and easy for them to get and be happy with a remedy.

When business leaders of non-luxury products and services hear these true stories, they often think it applies only to high end markets. Not true.

All customers expect to receive the same quality as they were shown and sold. Chrysler didn’t upgrade Jeff to a more expensive model. They simply lived up to what he was shown and sold. No excuses, no mistrust, no tap dance of conditions.

Super customer experience is not complicated when core beliefs of trusting and honoring the customer emerge consistently with authenticity and ease. Ask your teams, how do we honor the customer and how can we do it better? And watch the super customer experiences happen before the customers’ eyes!


What super customer experience story will you share with us to continue the learning?


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Related Posts:
Customer Service Defined to Be Unforgettable
Customer Experience: People Skills Create Profitable Experience

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

People Skills: Can you show dignity even to those you don’t respect?

Work and life bring people together.  Often they form positive connections through great people skills and build trust with great results.

Sometimes the interactions don’t work out well.  For some reason, the people don’t respect or trust each other.  But what if they must still interact? How can they show dignity to those they don’t respect or trust?

Grateful for image by: edmittance via Flickr Creative Commons License.

People Skills: Responding With Dignity When There’s No Respect

1. Focus on human dignity vs. the need to be right.

   Even when there’s disrespect for others’ views, resolution comes through communication. Treating others with dignity keeps the communication flowing. The need to be right can generate a degrading response. Once said, it echoes forever making a dignified end result very difficult.




2. Clearly set limits on verbal abuse without abusing.

   Often when verbal abuse is coming at you, the instinct is to fight back in a similar undignified manner. Yet there is nothing as strong as firmly and clearly setting limits — with dignity. If verbal abuse continues, you can always take a temporary leave. A wonderful how-to resource on this is The Power of a Positive No by negotiation expert William Ury.




3. Consider how you would feel. Don’t patronize.

   In the heat of emotion and the desire to win an argument, it’s tempting to patronize. Yet, this degradation makes matters worse and makes interaction difficult. As adults we all like to be treated as adults. Instead of patronizing, bravely ask for a new approach. “Let’s all treat each other as valued adults. It brings cooperation.”




4. Know yourself & your hot buttons.

   Undignified responses come from fears, past scars, and insecurities. When someone you don’t respect touches on any of your hot buttons, your non-dignified response is close at hand. Yet if you are aware of your triggers, you can own them, repress their power over you, and choose dignity for yourself and others.




5. Clarify goals instead of assuming the worst.

   Knowledge highlights alternatives; assumptions feed emotions and fears. Better to ask “What is your goal?” than to assume a person’s goal is to degrade you. If they admit their goal is to attack your dignity, you can clearly set limits or walk away.




6. Trust that dignity doesn’t cause defeat.

   Responding with dignity doesn’t mean weakness. It doesn’t lead to failure and defeat. Quite the opposite! There is enormous strength and power in maintaining your dignity and treating others that way too.




7. Let time provides insight and answers.

   Time out to defuse and consider what’s truly important also sends the message that a new approach is needed. It’s a strong yet dignified way to interact, when necessary, with those you don’t respect.

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Why is it tough to show dignity to those we don’t respect? Because the desire to treat others with dignity usually comes from a sense of mutual respect. When that is missing, we must look within ourselves to lead with dignity.

Responding with dignity preserves our own dignity and that is the inspiration to continue — even with those we don’t respect!

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What else would you add to this list? What has life taught you about responding with dignity?


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Other People Skills Posts:
People Skills Secret to Success: Uninvited Bluntness Loses
People Skills: Integrity & Authenticity
People Skills: Empathize Before You Analyze

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Customer Service Recovery: People Skills Deliver Care Not a Defense!

There is one persistent human temptation that threatens customer service recovery — the urge to defend in difficult moments.

Grateful for image by: Craig1Black via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Through 25 years of working with customer service and technical support teams, I have seen it happen over and over. Instead of delivering care, the defensive phrases come out and enrage customers further.


What concerned me recently was the advice of a customer service consultant in a blog post about diplomacy in customer service recovery. 

I was alarmed when I read her #1 tip — to tell the customer this (defensive) statement:

“I’m trying to help you.”

Customer Service Recovery – Deliver Don’t Defend!

People skills allow you to deliver great customer recovery with definitive caring statements like “I will help you” not defensive reactions like “I’m trying to help you.”


When customers here the phrase “I’m trying to help you”, they hear the defensive suggestions:

• I’m doing my best …
• Things take time …
• You’re being unreasonable …
• You’re not treating me well …

Even a positive tone of voice cannot turn the phrase trying to help you into a great customer service recovery statement. It casts doubt over whether you care and whether you can help. Doubt sinks recovery.


How can you overcome the urge to defend?

1. Be aware of your own frustration level. The more frustrated you become, the greater the chance you will reply defensively!
2. Pause your conversation every time the customer frizzles. The pause produces an empathetic response instead of a defensive reaction.
3. Picture yourself at the finish with a satisfied customer — because you cared and helped.

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Even if the customer continues to frizzle, stay in the moment of care. Don’t lapse into defensiveness. It makes it tougher on them, tougher on you, and leaves a terrible lasting impression — even if you resolve the issue.

You and your entire technical support and customer service teams can handle the most difficult moments with care and skill. I am here to help with customized workshops.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Related Posts:
The Emotionally Intelligent Mindset for Super Customer Experience
5 Things to Think w/Rude Customers for Customer Service Recovery

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Leadership People Skills: Words of Inclusion Engage!


When employees feel that the leaders value everyone, they engage and create magical results together. The words and actions of leadership people skills create inclusion — and inclusion engages.

The popular belief is that actions speak louder than words. Yet words speak volumes to those they exclude.

Image by MatthewRad via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Not sure about this? Try this simple exercise. Read through published quotes that use the word “man” to mean “human”. Now re-read them using the word “human or humankind”. For example,

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” ~Voltaire

“Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.” ~Goethe

What’s the message? Now, how does the message change with the word human instead of man? When the words change, the message changes. When the message changes so does the impact and subsequent results.

A leader’s words of inclusion matter. Leaders and teams communicate to produce successful results together. So let’s look at some words of inclusion in leadership people skills.

Leadership People Skills

Leaders, do your words include and engage or exclude and disengage?

• The Best.

  In the quest for success, leaders often use the phrase “the best”. Can you hear yourself saying, “Who will produce with the best idea today?” You have good intentions; you want to inspire excellence. You want to lift the team from average performance to winning results! Then why exclude everyone except the one person whose idea meets the challenge that day?

  “Who will produce the best idea today?” excludes and disengages.
  “How many great ideas can we produce today?” includes and engages.




• The Rankings.

  In the customer service and call center industry, I’ve heard leaders announce: “Here are the top 10 performers in our organization.” Their thinking is that through ranking, they make others work harder.

  This only works if the others are motivated by competition. If they are motivated by collaboration, your ranking words disengage them. Since customer service requires teamwork, it is better to highlight specifics of great performance than to rank some and disengage others.

  “Here’s the top 10 performers” excludes and disengages all but ten people.
  “Lee, Pat, Chris, this week you improved our results a great deal this week. Please share how you did it!” This includes and engages everyone with valuable information. Without the emotion of being labeled a success or failure, all can focus and engage on what actually created that success.




• The Boxes.

  Artificial categories exclude and disengage. When your words label employees, that label puts them in a box and excludes them from acceptance in the larger picture.

  Think about it. What is the persistent wish of all employees? Personal and professional growth — especially the millennial generation. Why? Because it includes them in success.

  “You’re an agent not a supervisor. Escalate all policy exceptions to me.” This limits, excludes, and disengages commitment.
  “Here’s how I assess policy exceptions. If you’re not sure, just ask me.” This statement from a leader includes, engages, and develops employee talent.

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Inclusion validates people for who they are and says “You all matter.” Inclusion taps the spirit of collaboration. It intensifies the desire to contribute their talents and mentor each other with those talents.

Exclusionary words communicate there is only one road and they all have to out race each other on it. Words of inclusion inspire employees to explore the multiple pathways to success.


GEN Y already thinks this way. They’ve grown up with technology that has communicated this very philosophy: collaborate through many networks and find answers through diverse resources. This is inclusion in action!

They have been living in and had access to a global world from the day they were born. Exclusion simply doesn’t make sense to them. When you try to lead them the traditional way, they disengage.

If you need everyone’s commitment and effort to reach success, then it makes sense to use words of inclusion to engage everybody. Instead of ranking people, highlight what behaviors increase the team’s success. Instead of boxing them into categories with labels, develop them to contribute more each day.


Your words as a leader communicate whether you believe success comes through collaborative inclusion or competitive exclusion. Which do your words say?


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Related Post:
Leaders, Are You Engaging Employees Foresight?

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

People skills Twitter Chat: April 14, 2013. TOPIC: #PeopleSkills & FUN!

WHEN: Sunday, 10AM EDT/2pm GMT/3pm Daylight Savings Time UK.


In our people skills chats thus far, we have discussed many serious topics. This week we change it up and explore people skills and fun!

Image designed by: Kimb Manson Graphics Design for Kate Nasser.

Fun is a universal connector as are people skills. It draws people together. Everyone loves to have fun. (Ever hear someone say, “I hope I struggle today and feel down?”)

Fun is a also tremendous motivator. People succeed when they’re having fun. There is even research on the effects of fun at work!

Join #PeopleSkills Twitter Chat Sun. April 14: People Skills & Fun!

My mind has so many questions I have yet to finalize them! So bring your in-the-moment creativity, ingenuity, and originality to share fun with others in Sunday’s people skills chat.

What questions would you want to discuss? Please leave your idea in the comment section below!

Shout Out of Gratitude

A special thank you and shout to Kumud Ajmani founder of #Spiritchat. It was last week’s chat about spontaneity that inspired me to pick “People Skills and Fun” for this week’s #peopleskills chat.

Hope you will join all of us in the #PeopleSkills Twitter chat to explore People Skills & Fun!. Sunday 10am EDT/2pm GMT/3pm Daylight Savings Time UK.

Everyone is welcome! We have only one rule in People Skills Twitter Chat: Respect for all even when we disagree. This week we will add “have fun”!

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TIP: If you have never been in a Twitter chat, you may find it helpful to log on to Tweetchat.com, enter hashtag #peopleskills, and sign in to your Twitter account. Tweetchat will insert the hashtag automatically for you and you will see all the tweets on one screen. Other tools available are Hootsuite.com and TweetDeck.com.

I am the founder and host of the chat and will be happy to answer any questions you have in advance: Email me.


Chat with you this Sunday April 14, 2013 10am EDT in #PeopleSkills Twitter Chat – People Skills & Fun!


Until then, as always, I wish you bonds of happiness and success!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Customer experience: What comes to mind when you hear that phrase? What about your customers? When they hear the phrase, customer experience, what do they picture?

What do they imagine you doing when delivering super customer experience to them? Is their image the same as yours?

Have you asked them? Do you truly value the customer perspective or just value their money? Tough words, I know. It’s not a criticism.

It is an experienced-based heartfelt reminder that

company narcissism doesn’t breed customer loyalty.

Customer Experience: Win Loyalty Through Narcissism

Would you believe this if it were a news headline?

Or would you sooner give your trust and loyalty to a company who asks you what is important in customer
experience rather than designing it from their perspective?





In a recent customer experience CX 404 podcast with Andrew Maher, he described this situation:

One of his customers, a large financial institution, has a big customer experience center to which they never bring customers. They use it for designing and testing the customer experience. They also have a double digit negative Net Promoter Score (NPS) and are pleased that theirs is higher than all their competitors.

It sounds as if they believe it’s impossible to wow the customer. This is a very limiting belief. It drives companies to give up reaching out and simply live in the comfort of their own views. They then make this limiting belief come true.


Don’t get trapped. You can wow the customers when you involve them and think from their perspective.

• Think we not us vs. them.

  Search every aspect of your business to see where us vs. them has created narcissism. For example, are you living the popular yet misguided mantra “employees first, customers second”? There is no need for ordinal thinking here. Replace it with: “We the entire company serve the customer! Inspire with it. Lead with it. Live it.




• Realize that digital is a people connector.

  Search every aspect of your online interaction with customers from your website portal, to online account statements, and social media. Does your digital design and interaction reflect the customer perspective or mostly your company perspective?




• Customers’ views are not that random.

  The views are different from yours because they aren’t you yet they are solid not fickle.




• Seek and destroy the silo effect.

  Internal silos foster narcissism. Large organizations have many departments. When those departments live as silos and work within themselves, it creates narcissism. Many companies are breaking these silos through the chief customer officer (CCO) function. It’s a great start. Yet it can fail if the culture doesn’t support it. Seek and destroy the silo effect!

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Grateful for above featured image by Peter-Ashley via Flickr Creative Commons License.


The trap of narcissism isn’t a new customer experience problem. Computer applications’ design often skipped user input. It caused major trouble, plenty of expensive redesigns, and lots of mutinies. It undermined respect and loyalty to the IT departments and left an unfortunate legacy that affects many IT organizations to this day.


Conquer the narcissistic urge with the belief that you can and will succeed with the customer — not just with their money.

Regardless of the size of your organization, you can wow ‘em and win their loyalty. Think of them. Involve them. Deliver from their perspective and they will come — and come back.


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Related Posts:
15 Essential Beliefs to Deliver a Super Customer Experience
Leaders, Are Your Customer Service Limits Actually Roadblocks?
Leaders, THE Threat to Super Customer Experience

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Leadership People Skills: Why do tough and gruff leaders easily show people empathy in the face of natural disasters?

Image licensed from Istock.

 

Picture Tough and Gruff Leaders. Their people skills are far from great. They tend to work on people instead of with people. Many people tolerate their non-empathetic style amid the hope of larger success. If their organizations succeed, people applaud these leaders despite their poor leadership people skills.

There is a down side to it however. These leaders also create resistance and divisive camps. They disengage others. Collaboration and teamwork suffer. Resentments percolate and impact the future. Their poor leadership people skills negatively effect the organization’s potential.

 

Now Picture a Natural Disaster & Human Catastrophe. These same leaders with poor people skills and generally little empathy surprise us with their show of compassion.

 

Why? And what can we learn about leadership people skills from it?

 

Tough & Gruff Leaders Show Empathy When …

• The enormity of human suffering is clearly present.
• Empathy and compassion is the only truly acceptable response.
• They think others will clearly see their empathy as strength for others.

Leadership People Skills: The Lessons Learned From This

• Empathy creates powerful bonds to success even when there isn’t severe suffering.
• Empathy is always an acceptable response. It doesn’t mean agreement. It means: “You matter, we matter, this matters! Let’s work it out!”
• Empathy builds deeper trust and connection through the confidence and strength it shows. It achieves far more than any hammer or proclamation.

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Interestingly enough, once tough and gruff leaders show their empathetic side they are often seen as even stronger. We see depth and dimension we never saw before. It becomes clear they have more than a hammer in their tool kit. It builds trust and belief that they can lead in different ways in different situations.


So leaders, why not show your empathetic side sooner and more frequently? You become a buoy of inspiration, strength, and balance.


Your leadership people skills will connect, engage, inspire, and strengthen the will to collaborate and solve any problem. You will engage employees to greater commitment, less resistance to change, and maximum contribution. Want help? I’m here.


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™


Related Posts:
Leadership Employee Engagement: Appreciate & Recognize
Never Confuse Humility & Humiliation
People Skills: Empathize Before You Analyze

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

People skills Twitter Chat: April 7, 2013. TOPIC: The Sounds of Silence WHEN: Sunday, 10AM EDT/2pm GMT/3pm Daylight Savings Time UK.

Image designed by: Kimb Manson Graphics Design for Kate Nasser.


People skills include far more than conversation. There is so much that goes into building personal and professional relationships.

In this Sunday’s (April 7th) people skills chat, we will explore the reach and effects of silence. I do hope you will join in and add your perspective to this discussion.

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People Skills Twitter Chat – The Effects of the Sounds of Silence!

• What does silence mean to you?
• In silence, I feel or see _______________?
• What does silence do or give to you?
• Silence: leads you to the light or keeps you in the dark? Why?
• Where do you use silence in your relationships?
• How does silence affect others?
• What is the difference between silence and no contact?
• How can we tell if others want silence?
• Silence has the power to _______________.
• What can a verbal connection do that silence can’t?
• How does silence impact trust?
• In what moments can silence truly help others?
• Can silence can cause pain or trouble? Y/N? Why?
• What advice about silence would you give to leaders?
• How can people skills help you use silence well?
• … and much more.

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Please join all of us in the People Skills Twitter chat to explore The Effects of Silence. Hashtag #PeopleSkills Sunday 10am EDT/2pm GMT/3pm Daylight Savings Time UK.


We have only one rule in People Skills Twitter Chat: Respect for all even when we disagree. Everyone is welcome!


TIP: If you have never been in a Twitter chat, you may find it helpful to log on to Tweetchat.com, enter hashtag #peopleskills, and sign in to your Twitter account. Tweetchat will insert the hashtag automatically for you and you will see all the tweets on one screen. Other tools available are Hootsuite.com and TweetDeck.com.

I am the moderator of the chat and will be happy to answer any questions you have in advance: Email me.


Chat with you this Sunday April 7, 2013 10am EDT in People Skills Twitter Chat – The Effects of the Sounds of Silence!


Until then, as always, I wish you bonds of happiness and success!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.