Interpersonal Skills

Introverted Leaders: Revelations on Communication

Posted in Employee Engagement, Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills

Today leadership communication has moved well beyond telling people what to do. Great leaders process diverse opinions and engage all to understand the vision and hit the target.

Regardless of the leader, each must address three components and remember:

Vision sets the target.

Strategy maps the route.

Communication gets everyone there.

Introverted leaders, who struggle with the need for so much communication, succeed when they understand the underlying need and the benefits.

Leadership Communication: Revelations for Introvert Leaders Image by:kenfagerdotcom

Revelations for Introverted Leaders

Think of those you lead as the feet that bear the full weight of the body during the journey. Without communication, they get lost, take unnecessary detours, walk further than necessary, and possibly miss the destination altogether.

It’s not a matter of introversion or extroversion. It’s not a competition of personality types and definitely not an exercise in being accepted for who you are.

For all leaders, it’s about stepping outside of your own view to engage your teams and lighten their load.

Communication is an essential nutrient needed for daily performance especially for those who are not making the decisions. How else will they understand the strategy, implement it through all the obstacles, and hit the target?

Communication delivers energy that fuels their journey. Your silence fuels your thinking yet it leaves those you lead stranded in neutral. Neutral isn’t painless. When the struggle mounts, neutral can inject more pain to the struggle.

Communication clarifies details, corrects the course, and prevents problems. Your silence gives you clarity of thought yet it allows confusion to swirl for all others. Relieve the stress of confusion — communicate.

Communication settles and calms the struggle. Your silence is calming to you; it is unsettling to those who need the leader’s insight. Being in the dark is demotivating. A tomb is a very calm settled place but hardly productive or happy.

Communication engages and inspires maximum contribution. Your silence inspires you; it doesn’t inspire your teams. It leaves them wondering. It disconnects them from you and disengages their spirit of contribution. Why should they give their all if they see you staying in your comfort zone?

Communication shows them you care about them. Your silence can unintentionally come across as detached and uncaring. Even driver leaders who aren’t introverts run this risk as they focus purely on end results.
Take time to tell the teams how much you respect them, value their commitment and contributions, and care about their well being. Acknowledgement and recognition repeatedly show up in the top results of employee satisfaction surveys.

The one word mantra I recommend to introverted leaders is “sooner”. (For extroverted leaders, it’s “later”.) If you need time to think things through before making a decision, at least tell your teams that right away before retreating to think and decide. It keeps them engaged while you ponder strategy.

Your competence in setting vision and developing strategy builds their confidence in you; your rapport and care build their trust.

As introvert Ron Edmondson professes in this post, 5 Ways to Step Up & Communicate, you build their trust when they see that you care more about them and their success than you do your own comfort zone.

So I ask all leaders regardless of personality type and preferences, how much do you care about your teams? Enough to communicate outside of your comfort zone in ways that inspire, engage, and light the way?

The choice is yours. The rewards are many.

I am here to help. Please offer your questions and perspectives in the comments field below.

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

Update: I found Dan Oestreich’s comment so pertinent to this post, I feature it here for all to read. Thank you Dan. It’s a great addition.
["Instead of making this an issue of "not changing" ... the other way is to see how we all (introvert or extrovert) are naturally moving over the course of a career and a lifetime toward greater and greater versatility and personal fulfillment. In that, all styles and temperaments are incomplete; our job engages their transcendence."]

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.

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Leaders, See & Communicate Clearly on Confidence

Posted in Employee Engagement, Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership

When it comes to confidence, many leaders now realize that it is displayed in different ways between genders and in diverse cultures. Diversity requires seeing beyond our own perspective to know the truth about others.

Yet there is one commonly overlooked element of confidence that confounds leaders into misjudging their employees. How clear is your understanding and vision on this angle of confidence?

Leaders, See More Deeply to Communicate Clearly on Confidence Image by: mkrigsman

The overlooked element of confidence is performance goal.

The gap between the level of performance people expect of themselves and our non-communicated expectations of them affect our view of their self-confidence.

A True Short Story of Blurred Vision

On the first night of class, the professor (Dr. Thick) said, “The adjunct professor for this class backed out and they have just dumped this on me to teach. I already have a full load. So I’ve decided that each of you will take one chapter, learn it, and teach it to the rest of the class.”

After the first student presentation, Pat realized that he was not going to learn statistics from the other students at the level he expected and needed in order to do his research thesis the following year. Pat spoke with Dr. Thick privately and highlighted that he would like the value of his high level of knowledge. Dr. Thick’s response was: “Evidently, you don’t have very much self-confidence.”

Pat dropped the class and took a graduate statistics course during the summer from another professor to be adequately tooled for his research work the following year.

Confidence was not Pat’s issue. The element that confounded Dr. Thick was performance level.

If he had explored more deeply he would have seen that Pat’s goal went beyond just passing the course. He wanted to learn graduate statistics at a level that would empower him to do a great research thesis the following year. Learning it from other students who knew no more than he did and were struggling with presentation skills did not meet Pat’s expectations.

Leaders, See & Communicate Clearly on Confidence

Leaders, See Confidence More Clearly Image by:JennuineCaptures

What level of performance do employees expect of themselves? The more we get to know employees the more clearly we can see their expectations of themselves. If the level of expectation is very high, we might incorrectly judge a confident person to be weak. Communicate with them to reset expectations and see the truth more clearly.

What personality type are they? If an employee is an analytic and thinks through everything before speaking, leaders often mistake this behavior as lack of confidence. It isn’t. It’s personality type.
Related post by MaryJo Asmus: Don’t Underestimate The Quiet Ones

What did their previous boss expect of them? If their previous boss was a perfectionist with ridiculous expectations, it’s possible that the employees’ expectations reset to that unrealistic level. We then see them as non-confident. When we look more deeply, we discover true confidence has simply been masked by previous experience.

Do We Confuse Questions as Lack of Confidence? Driver type leaders who crave end results have a tendency to mislabel curious or thorough people as weak. Curiosity and/or thoroughness appear as questions. How we as leaders interpret this behavior comes from our own skew. If too many questions are annoying, it’s much better to clearly communicate the behavior we prefer rather than incorrectly branding employees with the label of no confidence.

How is fear blurring our vision? The more concerned we are about an outcome, the more likely our fear will blur our vision. The positive side to fear is that we may select a highly experienced employee for a critical project. The negative side is that our fears may lead us to overlook talent that could handle the project. The result is we don’t develop employees’ experience for the future and the organization’s performance suffers in the long run.

We engage employees when we explore, see, and communicate clearly. We demoralize the entire team when we misjudge, label, and brand their efforts through a skewed lens.

What else can skew our vision of confidence and lead the teams astray? I welcome your views and discussion in the comments section below.

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

Leaders, For Employee Engagement Learning is Better Than Proving

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Super Customer Experience: Leaders, Are You Attitude Ready?

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits

Business leaders, your customers have read your marketing message on commitment to superior customer service. Yet it takes only one moment, one bad experience with a negative attitude for that message to become null and void.

Leaders, are you and your teams — attitude ready? Can you say that team members display a highly positive attitude on each interaction with every customer?

Super Customer Experience: Leaders, Are We Atttitude Ready? Image by: afagen

Most leaders reply, “I think so” or “I hope so” and then quote satisfaction metrics to support their claim. The attitude metric for super customer experience must be 100%.

The challenge of excellence is consistency — not repetition.

Customers will always interpret a bad attitude as a sign of personal disrespect. It scrapes emotion and breaks the bonds of loyalty. It creates that horribly inevitable question: Shall I accept this insult? Thus it drives customers away from you and toward your competitors.

Leaders, Are You All Attitude Ready?

Here is a readiness checklist to develop and maintain consistently positive attitudes for super customer experience. Consistent attitude is not scripted and robotic. It is sincere, in the moment, and authentic.

Are front line leaders selected and/or trained to inspire or just to manage? What do they believe is their primary focus? Ask them. For super customer experience, the answer must include “modelling and inspiring” great service. If their answers are mostly a list of tasks including handling escalations, monitoring performance, managing volume, etc…, the team members will not be living a culture of attitude excellence.

What is the team’s picture of displaying excellent attitudes? The definition of a great attitude including words like helpful, caring, respectful, warm, friendly, assuring, appreciative, going the extra mile … doesn’t completely drive behavior. Many reps display neutral attitudes and believe they are doing a great job because they are not insulting customers. The customers take this neutrality as lack of caring. It doesn’t produce bonds and loyalty.
Spot displays of positive attitudes during interview role plays and hire them. Else train with role plays and behavioral displays of positive attitudes to create excellence.
Zero Tolerance of Bad Attitude. After hiring, training, and inspiring excellence, the zero tolerance of reps’ bad attitudes is critical.
Many leaders today have mistaken the new leadership style of understanding and engagement to be tolerance of bad attitudes and behavior. This is a red herring. Bad employee attitudes and behavior are unacceptable in customer service.

As a leader when you make excuses and create exceptions, you are creating the culture that will sink super customer experience. You also demotivate those with great attitudes for they want to work in a culture of excellence.

Listen to reps to understand the tools and other resources they need. Bring those solutions to the table. They must bring their positive attitudes to the customer interaction — regardless of the situation. When my clients ask me: “How long should I coach a negative attitude?” My response is: never. Model and inspire it? Yes. Coach it? No. Reps who choose to display a bad attitude would do better in a non-customer facing position.

What if great reps, who are consistently positive with customers, slip up in one instance? Anyone can have one bad moment right? Yes but their greatness is evident as they apologize to customers at that moment. They take ownership and make amends immediately. Their professional beliefs shine through. That’s the proof of greatness. They don’t make excuses or run and hide.

No shame in leaving policy. Many customer service leaders strive for low employee turnover. It’s understandable from a cost and image perspective. Yet taken too far, this goal can infect morale, performance and results.
Managers have come to believe that high turnover on their team is an automatic black mark against them. They work to keep everyone there — including poor performers and those ill suited for the positions. Yikes!

Zappos got it right. They even pay people to leave if it is not a match.

There is no shame in reps leaving jobs they truly don’t want to do with a positive attitude.

If turnover is high on your teams, surely check all aspects of the job including pay, training, teamwork, leadership style etc… Fix those issues to attract and retain top talent; don’t keep bad attitudes around just to prove you are a good manager.

The consistently positive attitude for super customer experience has its roots in these beliefs:

It is professional and rewarding to serve and give to others.
Being highly responsible is better than highly entitled.
People-skills matter as much as occupational skill and problem solving.
Diversity is fun. It is an exciting way to learn and grow.

Succeeding on the Finer Points of Attitude
When customer service job applicants say that they like the feeling of helping others, dig deeper before hiring them. Will they only like it when the customer is being nice? If they are keying off how they themselves feel, they may struggle when the customer is not happy. Conversely if they see it as a professional goal to serve others, they can give empathy without getting it back.

Responsible vs. Entitled: One rep emailed his front line manager with the following request — “I would like to work from home three days a week. How can you make this happen for me?” This rep will not give superior customer service. There is no sign of responsibility, people-skills, or professional giving.

People who love to solve problems and do it well don’t always do well in customer service. If their focus is tunnel visioned on the end result, they may overlook the customers’ human needs for positive interaction along the road to the solution.

If you are a rep and or manager who loves and lives diversity, learning, responsibility, and professional giving, you are creating a culture of positive attitudes and super customer experience. You are strengthening the profession for the good of all those it touches. Bravo to you all!

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

The Challenge of Excellence is Consistency Short video.

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

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Super Customer Experience: Rapport is the Artery to the Heart

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits

From big brands to smaller local enterprises, the first truth is:

To make money you must attract customers, get them to buy, and hopefully get them to come back and buy again. This is why so many businesses today are focusing on delivering a super customer experience.

Getting them to buy again requires one unequaled treasure — their trust. It preserves the connection. Unlike confidence, which takes shape in the mind, trust flows to and from the heart. Trust is a risky choice; anything close to the heart is. It is a decision that has consequences and customers fear the worst.

To overcome that fear, the second truth is:

Rapport is the artery to the heart of trust

on the road to super customer experience.

Rapport is the artery to heart of trust. Image licensed from istock.com

Rapport is the interaction at every level and every moment.
It flows from your agents and reps.
It pings from your website.
It emanates from your packaging.
It springs from your marketing.
It shouts from your procedures.
Every move you make opens or closes the artery of trust.

Keep Rapport Positive & Open for Trust to Flow

Review everything you ask customers to do. Keep doing what builds trust and change what blocks it.
When your actions while selling show customers you trust them you open the artery to the heart of trust. Later if your customer service procedures cast doubt on their honesty, you cut the artery to the heart of that customer relationship.

Keep trust flowing the entire time. Lands End is a great example of this. When a Lands End down coat I purchased 2 years ago (and didn’t wear during that time) spewed feathers all over my black business suit when I finally wore it, they told me to send it back for a full refund. It didn’t matter how long I had the coat! Can you just hear the trust coursing through my artery? Yes, Lands End, I will buy again.
Hire and train for emotional intelligence. Much is spent on training sales reps in customer rapport and people-skills. This is good. Do you do the same for your customer service reps? CSRs with poor people-skills can cut the artery of trust. Moreover, customers will mistrust your brand. “You’re nice to me to get my money and then treat me badly during after sales service.” Inconsistency & unreliability are the early signs of a hypocritical brand – unworthy of customers’ trust.

If you outsource your brand’s customer service to a BPO, measure and pay that company’s customer service reps (CSRs) for great rapport with your customers not just average handling time (AHT). You get what you pay for and rapport fades when you and thus the CSRs focus on cost. Else your customers believe that you value profit and saving money more than you trust in their value. Trust = buy again. Mistrust = stop and consider your competitors.

Design & deliver a friendly trust-building website. Is it easy to find contact information on your site? Does it build rapport with the customers before it asks them to trust you with their personal information?
Websites that immediately show a squeeze page pop-up do not build rapport. They say “we’re greedy” and don’t want to build your trust. Related Post: We Are Selfish Websites & the Customer Experience

Does your website truly welcome the customer? This is the beginning of rapport and trust. Does it talk about them or just about you? Related Post: The Welcomer Edge: Unlocking the Secrets to Repeat Business

Include rapport in the “r” of customer relationship management (CRM). Relationships are based on rapport and trust. Yet much of CRM can become overrun with metrics, predictions, and strategies. Ask yourselves, are we truly focusing on the relationship or are we skewing too much to the big picture predictors. Customers care about how you treat them at every moment. Do your actions tell them that? Even large success is the sum of each individual moment with customers.

Retain the personal touch even as you grow large. Do your known customers become unknown as your enterprise expands?
Long time customers may frizzle at new procedures yet good rapport can ease them along if the new process is customer friendly. Bad rapport can send them running to your competitor for a tourniquet to stop the emotional bleeding from the loss of trust. Snippy answers like “times change” or “one bad apple spoils the bunch” will send them to social media for the empathy and validation of thousands.

Becoming unknown is a deeper gash to the artery of trust than not being known at the start.

Competence touches the mind and builds confidence.
Rapport touches the heart and builds trust.
Does your brand focus on confidence and overlook trust?

What Does Rapport & Trust Do For Your Brand?

Pings a message to your customers – “friend” not “foe”.
Gives you a second chance when your brand messes up – and remember no brand is perfect.
Eases and speeds interactions.
Makes negotiations more win/win vs. win/lose.
Reduces or removes the customers’ desire to look around.
Lowers costs by retaining customers instead of always farming for new leads and customers.
Overcomes customer resistance to your innovation and changes or
Surprises you with valuable customer reactions on your brand you couldn’t even pay to learn.
Gives you the golden nuggets: Auto-renewals, auto-pay withdrawals, personal referrals.

Customer trust is an invitation for a bond and long term relationship. Your actions RSVP the truth about you and your brand.

Based on that, would your customers invite you back? Do they think you are worthy of their long term trust?

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

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Peaceful Ways to Work with a Noisy Boss

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, People-Skills

Help, my boss is a very extroverted, noisy, high communicator who speaks in emphatic tones with demonstrative body language. I think the boss is yelling at me. I feel overwhelmed. Sound familiar?

Overwhelmed by Highly Extroverted Noisy Boss? Image by:Miss Millificent

Personality types and diverse social communication styles breed mis-connects that impact workplace interaction and productivity.

Quiet types are just as unnerving to high extroverts as high extroverts are to quiet types. Ethnic and cultural differences also play a role in mis-connects.

Your Challenge

You often feel trapped into quietly accepting the boss’s behavior yet it unnerves you and decreases your performance.

Of course you can always look for a new job. Alternatively, you could learn how to interact with the boss’s style and feel at peace at the same time.

The Bonus: Being able to work with various personality types is a skill that will propel your career into wonderful unforeseen areas. There will always be diverse people and styles at work. Finding peace among the noise is a worthwhile goal.

First, replace the overwhelmed image you have with one that models the peaceful focused feeling you want. Your behavior will match that.

Peaceful Ways to Work With a Noisy Boss Image by:DanielPeckham

A Story to Illustrate the Differences
The actor Danny Thomas was highly expressive and extroverted. His ethnic background added to that trait. Andy Griffith was on the set as they piloted the character Andy Taylor for the new The Andy Griffith Show. Andy was taken aback with Danny’s yelling. He wondered how he (Andy) would ever run his own show since he wasn’t the yelling type. The producer took Andy aside and said, Danny likes to yell on his set. That’s who he is. If you don’t want a yelling culture when you film your show, just don’t yell.

5 Most Peaceful Ways to Work with a Noisy Boss
Many quiet types misunderstand high extroverts and people from highly expressive ethnic cultures. They often think the noise signifies anger. Many times it doesn’t.

If you’re not running the show and your boss is a yelling type, find peace among the noise with these 5 tips.

When listening to the boss, focus on the words, not the tone. TIP: Picture yourself on the phone in a very noisy place. Conditions are such that you cannot walk away to a quieter place. Instinctively, you put one finger on the other ear to block out the surrounding noise. In essence, do the same thing here without putting your finger in your ear. Block the noise and get the core message.

While listening, give yourself a short vacation from action and decision. Some of the overwhelming feeling comes from thinking you must act and/or react immediately. You don’t unless it’s truly a matter of life and death and in those cases your natural adrenalin will help you. This short vacation from action and decision while listening, will give your brain time and space to see that the noise isn’t anger.

If the noisy boss craves interaction while speaking, use body language to show interest and a few short “OKs”, “hms” etc…. This listening technique still gives you time to breathe and think before responding with substantive answers. Consider asking a question or two along the way to meet the boss’s need for information exchange during the interaction.

Observe when the boss is speaking to others. Does this high expressive speak this way to everyone on almost every subject? From a distance you can more easily learn what the behavior really means and how others handle it. Since the boss is not focusing on you at that moment, you can learn without feeling overwhelmed.

When the opportunity arises, let the boss know what your quiet demeanor means. If the boss were to say: “Do you hear me? Are you listening to me?”, resist the temptation to say something snide like “the whole world can hear you”.
Not only is it risky to say this to the boss, it also shows you as a non-collaborator who is unable to interact with different styles.

A great response would be: “To every word. I know I’m the quiet type but I cover your back and deliver.”
This response is respectful, shows your positive people-skills, and helps the boss learn about your value.

Before you quit your job because a noisy boss overwhelms you, try the tips above. Physically removing yourself from a stressor gives you temporary comfort; understanding it and managing it can give you permanent relief and simultaneous success.

Who knows, you might even come to like the boss! Wouldn’t that be something.

What other tips will help the quiet types find peace among the noise? I welcome your additions in the comments section below.

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

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Modern People-Skills Reminders for Social Media Greatness

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, People-Skills, Soft Skills

Social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, give us many opportunities to express our opinions to strangers. This often creates first and lasting impressions on people who have never met us.

Many would like to believe that authenticity — at any length — wins the day. This wishful thinking overlooks that people react differently to those they know versus those they don’t.

Relationships and the trust they build give interpersonal context to what is said.

Without those preexisting relationships, raw authenticity can come across as rude, self-absorbed, boorish, rigid, disagreeable, and even bullying.

Modern People-Skills Reminders to Interact w/Strangers on Social Media. Image by:ell brown

Traditional civility added to modern day social networking delivers greatness to social media presence.

Modern People-Skills Reminders for Social Media Greatness

These tweaks create and preserve a positive impression with authenticity.

If it sounds like an order, it can turn people off. When we add the word please, it becomes a request.

If a connection’s general behavior is a bother, we have the choice to unfollow/unfriend them. This may be a better choice than issuing them an order that everyone sees. One Twitter connection tweeted me, Stop tweeting quotes about … Everyone can see his tweet. What impression of him do you think it leaves?

Many people see sarcasm as a form of anger. The less they know us, the greater the chance when it’s directed at them. Perhaps this old rule applies well: If we can’t say something in a positive way, don’t say anything at all.

Questioning people’s motives — even with formality — can sound accusatory. “May I inquire as to why you are doing this?” sets a condescending tone requesting justification. Although analytic personalities find special comfort in knowing why, non-analytics see it differently.
If we like what someone is doing on social media and want to understand the value of it, then best for us to say exactly that. State the positive and it will be seen as positive.

Stating opinion as fact can leave a negative impression; stating opinion as opinion can invite a healthy positive exchange of opinions!

We leave a positive impression by owning our own feelings instead of assigning them to others. Statements like, “You are trying to discredit my opinion” can come across as insecure and childish. I like what Eleanor Roosevelt said: “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

People see listening and discussing as a positive sign of openness and strength. Arguing, bashing, and condemning can leave scars on our image and those bashed.

Civility provides a cushion of respect that eases hearing and acceptance of an authentic honest message. Bluntness lacks that civility and creates emotion that blunts listening and comprehension.

I vote for civility. It doesn’t undo authenticity. It allows others to see it.

What’s your vote?

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

“Words can woo or wound; create bonds, not scars.”

7 Steps From Brutally Blunt to Helpfully Honest

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

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Leaders, 12 Worthy Kudos to Spark Employee Engagement

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills

Leaders, recognize employees for their individual strengths and talents and spark employee engagement. Plenty of studies support this claim. Plenty of leaders think this means company recognition programs, awards, and celebratory events.

That’s nice yet nothing sparks other human souls like sincere appreciation of their worthy unique strengths.

Let your people-skills shine and applaud the employees’ natural talents with worthy kudos. No matter the age, the gender, the occupation, or the title, the employees connect with the future when you spotlight their present strengths.

Leaders, 12 Incredibly Evident Kudos to Spark Employee Engagement Image by:LexnGer

As you read through this list, think of the potential joy, energy, and engagement these kudos can spark.

12 Worthy Kudos to Spark Employee Engagement

Organized without being rigid. In this day of do more with less, information overload, and enterprise integration of everything, organized people who can flex and adapt are a treasure to any business. Tell them. Applaud it!

Thirsty for knowledge and application. Business is moving fast and furious to fulfill the present and create the future. Employees who are constantly learning and applying it are both the fuel and the ballast for success. There’s a worthy kudo!

Sensing potential and spotting futility. Employees who can accurately sense when to advance an initiative and when to recommend scrubbing it propel the organization forward and prevent it from falling. Laud this worthy talent.

Tough, thorough, and reliable. How often do you overlook those that you can totally depend on? Change it. Tell them how much you truly appreciate their constancy and commitment.

Intuitively strong. Today’s focus on data sometimes minimizes those who use their intuition for everyone’s benefit. They move highly data driven people from stagnation to appropriate risk taking. Applaud their worthy insight.

Analytic and creative. These two talents are often thought of as mutually exclusive. They aren’t. There are employees who can create ideas and analyze to implement it. These dual talents also serve well to bring teams together for project success. How about another round of applause here!

Passionate and restrained. Passion is inspiration that renews itself and energizes others. It takes passion to ignite success and restraint to stay on course. Employees who contribute both make your job as leader easier. Worthy of applause and gratitude!

Positive and realistic. A positive attitude sustains everyone and realism sharpens the vision and prevents being blind sided. Successful entrepreneurs have and value it. If your employees have this, it’s worthy of a compliment!

Grateful. Employees who live their lives with gratitude often minimize workplace drama. Their inner sense of happiness and control filters noise instead of reacting to it. They aren’t doormats yet they easily see what truly matters and let the rest of the baloney fall away. They bring balance to new teams. Offer gratitude for their gratefulness!

Remarkable in people-skills. Great people-skills are the daily life blood of an organization. Interacting skillfully with each other, with customers, suppliers, regulators, auditors, and the media in a multitude of settings delivers success to the business. Don’t drain the lifeblood by ignoring it. Replenish it with an occasional remark of worthy appreciation.

Resourceful. Employees that shine in creative problem solving convert obstacles into pathways of success. Who in your organization is highly resourceful? Tell them how it makes a difference!

Confident. Distinctly different from arrogance, confidence delivers great presentations, strength in new challenges, accountability for results, and willing ownership of mistakes. Show your appreciation for this maturity. It’s worthy of it.

Noticing and applauding employees’ talents and strengths sparks joy and engagement. Who wouldn’t want to commit when they see and hear their value?

Sales teams get to see it in money. Show it to non-sales teams in your reflection, remarks of appreciation and worthy kudos. It’s a no cost and high return investment!

I welcome your additions to this list. What other employee talents and strengths have you applauded?

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

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please first email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service & experience, teamwork, and leading change. Kate turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

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New Leaders, 10 Gritty Questions to Define Teamwork

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Teamwork

Leaders, what behavior do you expect among team members? This is not a trivial question especially if you are new to leadership.

How you define teamwork shapes how you will inspire, lead, and facilitate or solve team difficulties.

Beyond the expectation that all work together to produce success is often the unstated hidden set of expectations that can silently unsettle or even destroy teamwork.

If you are a new leader, it’s valuable to sit back and admit to yourself your definition of teamwork. With clarity of your basic beliefs, you and the teams can have a better discussion to define teamwork.

New Leaders: 10 Gritty Questions to Define Teamwork

10 Gritty Questions to Better Define Teamwork

Does teamwork mean blunt frankness, diplomatic honesty, or ultimate polite respect? Team members have diverse styles. One blunt team member can offend others. One ultra polite team member can confuse others and fall short. What do you value and expect of them?

Does teamwork require caring for each other personally? If yes, to what extent? What if a team member has a serious illness in their family and amasses debt? Does teamwork mean that all show empathy and donate money to help out? Can a person be a good team member and not do that?
What if people don’t like each other personally but pull together to achieve success? Does that meet your definition of teamwork?

If one team member has a critical specialized skill or achieves more, does that entitle them to extra respect, special treatment, or more recognition from you? It happens and your view of it impacts teamwork.
Do you expect the team to work out their own interpersonal difficulties? There is much debate about this today. Some say yes and others see the leader as a valuable team facilitator.

What do you expect of existing team members when new members join? Would you expect them to actively welcome team members for quick integration? What if they are a bit skeptical and hold back to see what team members have to offer? Is that teamwork to you?

How will your teams work with other teams? Great teamwork within a team can sometimes stifle cross teamwork. What is your view and how would you address this issue?

Tight team member relationships produce one of the toughest teamwork issues – whistle blowing. What would you want a team member to do if aware of unethical behavior, bullying, or major mistakes by another team member? Is whistle blowing a duty or disloyalty to the team?

Disagreements occur. What place and purpose do they have in teamwork? Do you expect high levels of harmony or do you see value in discord?

How will you assess teamwork? By the interaction and end results or just end results? If you view only the end results, the team may think your expectations of their interaction as inconsistent and illogical.

When a leader asks me to improve team function, I ask the leader to paint their view for me and I speak separately with the team members. The comparison unearths the gaps and sketches a road map to high performance and success.

What is teamwork to you? I look forward to understanding your definition and working with you and your teams!

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

Insights on Handling a Self-Serving High Performing Team Member

Team Whistle Blowing: Duty or Disloyalty?

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Leaders, Leave Meetings. Get to a Meeting of the Minds!

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Humorous Insights, Leadership

Musings on Effective Meetings from The People-Skills Coach™

In the workplace, leaders and teams still search for ways to hold tremendously effective meetings. Despite years of pundits’ advice, side trips into tangent land, chatty corner conversations, habitually late arrivals, vibrating smart phones and tablets, tunnel vision, resistance, and lack of focus keep everyone from the bulls-eye.

They also leave most people dreading the next meeting.

So I wonder, will we find the Holy Grail if we leave meetings in the dust and instead hold a meeting of the minds?

Leave Meetings! Got a Meeting of the Minds?

Words do matter and the word meeting has always been too vague for me. It has confused workplace teams for decades. A meeting and its 21st century cousin, a meet-up, suggest a free form event to which people can arrive fashionably late.

Whereas the phrase, a meeting of the minds, is packed with clear requirements.

A meeting of the minds,

Sounds the knell of knowledge exchange that calls everyone to be there on time — else there’s no exchange.

Suggests there is a specific topic and purpose. You wonder a meeting of the minds “on what”? It breeds interest and focus.

Prepares the mind to be ready to meet. Most would feel embarrassed to attend a meeting of the minds and say only I don’t know or I’m not prepared!

Inherently requires listening, discussing, and participation of all minds. Unless everyone is telepathic, all must engage else the views stay hidden in the minds.

Engenders all to speak in terms that others understand else the minds don’t meet.

Brings the endless talker up for air to hear what other minds think.

Bends the obstinate else why are they at a meeting of the minds?

Coaxes all to agreement and decision. After all, isn’t that the meaning of we came to a meeting of the minds?

In the workplace today we have multicultural teams, virtual technology, global reach, and still that pesky problem of ineffective meetings.

I say we’ve got nothing to lose by giving meetings a new moniker and seeing if it gets us to the Holy Grail.

Maybe we should even hold a contest to see what the new moniker should be if a meeting of the minds doesn’t hold everyone’s attention!

What say you?

From my professional experience (with a wry twist) to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

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

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People-Skills: Be & Perform Like a Ferrari

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, inspiration, People-Skills

In this day of fast paced connections, it’s smart to fine tune our people-skills to perform like a Ferrari.

We must be quickly aware of and adapt to conditions, select the right speed of interaction, and pick the right words to communicate — all with style. Quite a challenge!

So let’s fast track it with quality components (knowledge) and then road test (practice) and maintain it with continued learning.

People-Skills: Be & Perform Like a Ferrari

Image by:Crystal666 via Creative Commons License

Fast Track Knowledge for People-skills Performance

Make brevity effective not rude. Skip the emotionally inflaming phrases and speak with simple honesty.

Be confident in your knowledge and deliver it humbly. It’s easier to appreciate the knowledge and respect the person when arrogance is not fogging the view.

Influence don’t manipulate. Abandon questions like don’t you think and replace them with open-ended questions that produce true understanding.

Listen don’t label. Labels build barriers; listening builds collaborative success.

Deliver results without running over people. What you ponder, you create. If you think of positive ways to succeed, your communication and people-skills will follow suit.

Express opinions as opinion, not as decrees. There is a time and place for certainty and a time and place to consider other possibilities. You earn great respect for being able to do both.

Opposing views can lead to new discoveries. Opposing each other leads nowhere. Where do you want to go?

Optimism and skepticism are healthy; pessimism is poison. An optimistic outlook and some protective skepticism lift all to tangible success. Pessimism drains the life out of everyone you touch. How do you want to touch others? Choose wisely.

See you on the highway to success as we handle the curves with ease and style!

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

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines, action footage, and customer results.

19 Comments »

Leaders’ Dilemma: Self-Serving High Performing Team Member

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, Teamwork

Six months ago, a leader described this dilemma to me:

A team member who produced results with the other team members had fallen very ill. Let’s call this team member “Reach”.

When the leader approached the team members for a show of empathy, cards, flowers, and other help for “Reach”, many team members quietly avoided the subject and some clearly declined the outreach. The leader was shocked to learn that the team members saw Reach as a self-serving opportunist.

Leaders Dilemma: Self-Serving High Performing Team Member Image by: ErickGonzalez50

The concerned leader asked me to speak with the team members to learn more about the situation, what he had missed, and how to lead better in the future.

I agreed and asked the leader to think about his definition of teamwork in the interim.

Inside the Team Members’ Perspective

Reach was well-known for saying things like: “Always associate with people better than you to achieve success.” The team members wondered who Reach was referring to? Meanwhile, they perceived Reach overlooking them while always (metaphorically) looking up.

Reach helped himself grow — he didn’t help others to grow. He was also well-known for saying, “people give and help because they want to. They shouldn’t expect anything in return.”

Did they ever speak to the leader about Reach’s attitude? Two team members reported they had separately spoken to the leader who refocused the discussion on Reach’s work contribution and results. As they compared notes of the leader’s outlook — which they shared with the rest of the team — they felt is was futile to mention it again.

How had they been able to produce results with Reach while having these negative feelings? Interestingly, they had completely shut out personal feelings for Reach and focused purely on work results.

When the leader approached them for empathy, cards, flowers and other help for Reach, they were shocked. They had accepted the leader’s results only focus and said they felt both confused and betrayed by his call for personal help for Reach — when neither Reach nor the leader had cared about them. They asked me: What is the leader’s definition of teamwork? Getting the job done or caring for and helping each other to get the job done?

I reported my findings to the leader (without identifying who said what). He was stunned. I asked him for his definition of teamwork?

He told me he always believed that teamwork included caring and helping each other to grow.

When I asked him about his results focus with Reach, he confessed he didn’t know what else to do when the team members came to him about Reach’s attitude.

He didn’t see himself as a psychologist and quickly fell back on a traditional results only focus.

People-Skills & Leadership Lessons Learned?

The risk is blindness to plummeting morale that can affect future work results.

Fear can mesmerize and stop a leader from growing.

Awareness and listening are critical leadership skills.

well-known

It isn’t enough for a leader to let the team define teamwork.

The leader’s expectations of teamwork are critical in difficult times.

If you truly believe in a results only focus, be clear and consistent about it.

What Do You Think?

-What other lessons do you glean from this dilemma filled story?

-What does it leave you wondering? What other leadership questions does it raise?

-Are you concerned that you will lose high performing team members if you include more than just results in the definition of teamwork?

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

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Leaders: 10 Essential Thoughts to Proficient People Skills

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills

Leaders, people-skills are critical to success. Yet in a demanding business pace, people-skills are often last on the learning list.

Luckily leaders and teams can build proficient people-skills while attending to critical business. The proficiency starts with attitude and flows into people-skills’ behavior!

Leaders, 12 New Thoughts to Proficient People-Skills Image by:Sean MacEntee

Hold and Use These 10 Thoughts

An open mind creates phenomenal results.

Most people feel respected, honored, and uplifted by an open mind. Both in output and in morale, it produces positive results. There are some exceptions yet overall it is a winning thought. Build proficient people-skills from an open mind.

Teams strengthen a leader’s reality.

When we remember that our vision, understanding, and experience gains momentum with a team’s perspective, we are more likely to respect their input and collaboration. Build proficient people-skills from this awareness.

Understanding people leads to influence.

Most leadership is actually influence in action. To effectively influence others — team members, customers, and even your boss — understand what they care about. Knowledge of others builds proficient people-skills.

Know when your people-skills naturally shine.

Complete this sentence: I am best at people-skills when ____________________________. Identify when you usually interact well with others. Is it when you are happy? Confident? Relieved? Celebrating? Respected? In need? In difficulty? When is it? Capture what you do during these times and apply it across the board. Your natural pattern can build proficient people-skills.

People-skills deliver in tough times.

Contrary to popular belief, people-skills are not a sign of weakness. In tough times you can draw on the good will you have built through people-skills to deliver otherwise unachievable results. “Because of our long standing relationship, I’ll do it for you.” That’s an homage to your great people-skills!

People-skills are not just for extroverts.

If you are more introverted than extroverted, repaint the image you have about people-skills. It is not about gregarious, outspoken, high energy behavior. People-skills is stepping outside of your own perspective to understand and interact effectively with others. High extroverts have just as much adaptation to make as introverts. Both can succeed if they seek to understand.

Bonds are not bondage.

Many leaders having a driver personality crave end results not relationships. In fact, many believe that bonds with others are a detour to success and a trap that stops them just short of the finish line. Yet unless these leaders truly do everything themselves to reach success, bonds with others are the road to the finish line. Knowing the difference between bonds and bondage builds proficient people-skills.

Finding fault stops progress; finding solutions ignites success.

One of the riskiest people-skills moments for leaders is during a crisis or failure. That trigger voice that says: “Who’s at fault?” can bury future collaboration forever. Great people-skills can guide the organization back to success and to a culture of accountability. A focus on success, not blame, can build proficient people-skills.

If you overlook team problems, success overlooks your teams.

Morale matters. It impacts results. Team member people-skills affect morale of the team and the results of the organization. “They are not children. Let them work it out themselves.” These beliefs cost the organization money and sacrifice success. Accept the truth about morale and you build proficient people-skills.

Get over being comfortable; get versatile.

Global business success requires constant growth which means the discomfort of change. Focus on the versatility that people-skills bring to your success and you will build proficient people-skills!

Thoughts drive behavior and create a chain of reactions. Hold these thoughts about people-skills and build valuable bonds that strengthen results.

Which of these thoughts rings loudest to you? Or would you add to or delete something from this list?

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

Related Post: Leaders, 10 Ways to Ignite Greatness Without Leaving Scars

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Are You Too Nice to Lead?

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills, Thriving in Change

The word leader used to mean strong, directive, and sometimes unfeeling. That picture has shifted to less directive and more in touch with employees’ needs.

Yet where is the balance between results-focused and people-focused? In tough moments …

Are you too nice to lead?

Are You Too Nice to Lead, Effectively?

Image by: SeanbJack via Creative Commons License

There are team members who want, welcome, and will only work for a nice leader — until they see that the nice leader won’t address poor performance and cannot negotiate tough issues with other teams and management.

They feel unprotected and at the mercy of slacking team members and other teams. So much for being nice!

Too Nice to Lead

Leaders, could this be you? How or when is this most likely to happen?

With Fear of Conflict. If you tend to avoid conflict and want people to just work things out for themselves, you may be seen as too nice to lead.
Alternative: Get a coach to help you develop your conflict resolution skills. Great leaders move past their fear. They know when to step in and even teach others how to work together.

In Times of Great Change. In everyday work, your teams think of you as a very effective leader. Then the organization announces a major change and you must lead your teams through it. The tension rises and your teams resist. In this moment of truth, do you lead them forward? If you cave in to their objections and resistance, your boss may see you as too nice to lead.
Alternative: Have the courage to draw on the good will you have with your team. Show them you believe in them and in the change. If you don’t believe it, why should they?

When You Require Emotional Support. Being humble and less directive can be good for your team because the void taps their talent and commitment. Being less confident and needing constant emotional support can scare the bejeebers out of them and earn you the label of too nice or weak to lead.
Alternative: Learn and understand the interplay between being confident and being humble. Confidence is strength for your team. Humbleness opens the door to growth. Both are valuable leadership traits. Lack of confidence isn’t.

If You Must Be Liked. Needing to be liked can steer you to many poor leadership behaviors. It can drive you to sacrifice results for the virtual hug. This can earn you the label of too nice to lead.
Alternative: Develop relationships outside of work that can fulfill this deep need. At work, focus on the balance of interpersonal connection and end results.

When You Get Promoted. Picture yourself leading your former peers and maybe even being a peer of your former boss. Guilt or feelings of unworthiness can make you seem timid or too solicitous. This can earn you the label of too nice to lead.
Alternative: Your boss or another leader put their faith in you. You were promoted for a reason. The team you lead needs your courage and talent. Even if some team members grouse in jealousy, the team’s success depends on your willingness to do the job. Embrace the responsibility you were given; don’t trigger the decision maker’s doubt and regret. Believe in yourself, the purpose, and the team. Lead.

If You Own Their Behavior. When you mistakenly believe that you are responsible for a team member’s behavior, you are at risk of giving an errant employee too many chances. You may take their behavior as your failure. If you are coaching one of your team members and they are not making progress, would you be able to tell them they are no longer on the team? If not, you may earn the label of too nice to lead.
Alternative: Afford your team members the adult responsibility of owning their own behavior. Coach, teach, guide — yes. Own their behavior? No.

When Your Career is Paramount. When you care about your career growth more than the current position, you may automatically say yes to other teams or management requests instead of using appropriate assessment and thought. You are busy pleasing everyone else and your current team’s success may suffer. If you are lucky, this may earn you the label of too nice to lead. If you are not lucky, it may earn you a different label that isn’t fit for print. Either way, it’s not what a great leader does.
Alternative: Let current successes, appropriate interactions, and great negotiation pave your career path.

As the definition of leadership has shifted from rough directive behavior to engaging employees, some leaders have veered off course and focused only on happiness.

Rediscover the balance and you foster success for all!

Leadership is not about telling or asking; it’s knowing when to do each.

Leadership is not about people or results; it’s about people achieving results.

Leadership is not one consistent approach; it’s using the best approach for the situation.

You can be liked and fail as a leader; you can be disliked and fail as a leader.

You succeed when you balance purpose and people, encouraging and deciding, listening and speaking up.

I wish you courage and strength and the insight to know how to use it.

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

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

19 Comments »

Do Brilliant Minds Breed Bad Teamwork?

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, People-Skills, Soft Skills, Teamwork

Brilliant Minds & Teamwork Image by:Chechi Pe

A call came in from the Human Resources Director of a large prestigious law firm. The challenge?

Build more respect and teamwork between the most brilliant legal minds in the law practice and the support staff.

And not just any brilliant minds. These were the elite attorneys in cutting edge and high powered niches, all with double (some triple) degrees.

Support staff felt demoralized. Some had left. Turnover was on the rise. The HR director quipped in exasperation:

Do brilliant minds breed bad teamwork?!

Certainly everyone deserves to be treated with respect. HR and the attorney relations department addressed the few cases of actual verbal abuse. Yet the HR director wanted better daily interactions, teamwork, and morale throughout the organization.

She gave me examples of the interaction between the super educated brilliant attorneys and the support staff. I also spoke with support staff.

There was good news. The hurdles were from different levels of drive for achievement — not from a deeply rooted disrespect for support staff.

Now for the solution. The HR director noted that access to the attorneys’ time was very limited. So we first held workshops with the support staff to rebuild morale and build skill in supporting high achievers.

It was remarkable to see the support staff zealously embrace these basic beliefs of brilliant minds:

Commitment turns intelligence into brilliance. “I am always learning — please do the same.”
Facilitate and sustain my achievement or get out of the way.
The organization expects me to hit the high bar. Please jump higher with me!
Shine at what you do so I can continue to shine at what I do.
Come at me with solutions to problems — not just the problem! Otherwise, get out of the way.

Support staff remarked that this picture was one of continuous striving and learning not a desire to demean. They had never perceived it that way.

From this awareness, we re-mapped how to speak and behave in support of these high achievers.

Some say it is unfair to ask the support staff to learn new support skills instead of asking high achieving attorneys to change their ways.

Yet, high achieving revenue producing professionals respond, “If you ask me to put the feelings of teamwork ahead of results, the organization will achieve less. Why can’t we all step it up and achieve more?”

Success lies in both. Put limits on the demeaning behaviors, like verbal abuse, and train support staff, as we did, to work from the high achiever’s view. It transformed attitudes, performance, respect, and teamwork!

So to answer the initial question — Do brilliant minds breed bad teamwork? No. A difference in expectations, drive, and goals, does.

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

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

6 Comments »

People-Skills: The E of Email Does Not Mean Emotion

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, People-Skills, Soft Skills

Email is still alive and well. How about the people who received your last email? Was the email clear, concise, and respectful? Or did emotion creep in and rile the issue and people’s sensibilities?

As I teach people skills to corporate teams, they continue to raise one persistent issue – how best to respond to negative emails. Without a doubt, we can diffuse a negative email more effectively through true conversation than through another email.

Beyond that, take steps to ensure that the email we write is not negative — lest we start or feed an e-war!

People-Skills: The E in Email Doesn't Stand for Emotion!

Let us never forget that …

The E of Email Does Not Mean Emotion

Wouldn’t we feel silly saying to a teammate or customer, I will send you an “emotion mail” later today. Yet workplace colleagues write them!

A recent emotion mail sent to me by an online colleague (not a customer) serves up some great lessons. Here’s the original emotion mail and an alternate approach.

Hi Kate,
I find your blog posts to be consistently well-written and valuable. They nicely reflect my own sentiments towards customers too. It’s my hope that by sharing links to them on Twitter and other SM platforms, readers benefit from the insightful material and you benefit from the exposure you clearly deserve.

After reading your most recent post – which I was about to post on Twitter – I noticed this in the footer: “If you want to re-post or republish this post …”. If it were anyone else I would have immediately decided that I don’t have time to address the ambiguity and never post anything from them again.

However, in this case, I’m assuming that I may be misreading your intent. Please clarify: is your statement intended to dissuade people from posting links to your material on Social Media platforms?

The emotion about addressing the amibguity and never posting anything from them again minimizes the compliments of the opening paragraph.

If we were to send this type of email to a teammate or a customer, it could put the relationship at risk.

What if the email were written like this:

Hi Kate,
I noticed the footer on your blog post “If you want to re-post or republish …”. Wasn’t sure what it meant. Is it OK to put the links to your blog posts on Twitter without permission each time? I find your blog posts valuable and love to share them. Let me know! Many thanks…”

Which version of the email would you rather receive — the original or the alternate approach?

4 Tips to Turn Emotion Mails into Positive Emails

Know our purpose for sending the email. In the original emotion mail above, what is the purpose? To clarify the meaning of the footer? or to vent frustration about being confused? If we admit the true purpose to ourselves, we can choose not to send the negative email and send a positive one instead.

Simple and clear beats wordy and emotional. People get scads of emails. We increase the chances that people will read email by keeping it simple and politely getting to the point. The best part of emotion to use in an email is emotional intelligence (EI).

The more emotion we use at someone, the harder it is to effect a change. If we want a teammate to change some behavior, using emotion at them can make it tougher for them to do just that — even if they agree with our requested change! Let them change while saving face. Less is more in this case.

Formal sometimes seems rude. Surprised to read this? When we have something negative to say, couching it in formal language doesn’t make it positive. It sounds like formal negativity and can seem rude to others.
If we have something negative to say to a teammate, best to communicate what we want instead of what we don’t want. State how we want to be treated instead of how we don’t want to be treated. Use I statements instead of you statements. This avoids accusations and still communicates honestly, clearly, and respectfully — in a positive manner.

My advice to corporate teams: “We shine in people-skills when we communicate positively not negatively and forward not back.”

It’s critical in delivering customer service and truly appreciated in teamwork.

What other tips will you offer here to turn emotion mails into positive emails?

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

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this blog post in part or in whole, please email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on the ultimate customer service experience, teamwork, and leading change. Kate turns interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

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