A common courtesy is accepting or not accepting an invitation. However, this little nicety appears to have gone by the wayside. Is not responding a response? It is not. When is the appropriate time frame to respond? As soon you know if you are able to attend or not, respond so you don’t forget it.
If there is a respond-by date, use that as a guideline to answer the invitation. Responding to an invitation is being respectful to the party throwers. If you don’t know whether you can attend, at least let them know you received the invitation.

Good people get worn away when working for a bad company as in the story below.

As a business owner, I know that having good credit is very important for many reasons. For example, using automatic payment ensures I am never late for a payment. A company I did business with changed credit card companies making it necessary to call all the vendors to replace the card. This firm experiences many problems with their systems. They are trying to mitigate that by hiring good customer service people. However, no matter how good or how new, a customer service staff can only stay positive when dealing with legitimate complaints. Not ones stemming from receiving a call from a company saying a payment was rejected because they did not have the credit card.

I spoke four times to different representatives about this very situation. They apologize because they have the new card in the system but are uncertain of the problem. You can hear their frustration (forget about mine!).  How can a company keep good people when the system works against them? How can the reps  keep a cheery voice and attitude when the problem keeps recurring? That’s what wears them out, I suspect.

Some folks possess a blind spot. They feel that no one else can do their job so they walk around entitled. Everyone is replaceable. They key is to ensure that your replacement helps you move to the next level of your career. At a recent networking event, the person next to me lamented that she was not advancing in her career. She claimed the reason was that only she could do her job. In continuing the conversation, it came up that she had not thought about getting others involved in learning her responsibilities to groom a possible successor.

This caused me to remember a conversation with a YMCA board member. I chaired a fundraiser that was the most successful in raising money. The first thing I did was bring in a successor to chair it the next year. I pass this advice along to all my executives: Real success is finding your replacement because it frees you up for consideration for the next leadership role.

In the US, the presidential elections have thrown conversations and accusations down the rabbit hole where actual issues get more personal than policy driven. It seems that in our politics today, honesty is clouded. Name calling then becomes the narrative.

In the workplace, sometimes actual issues are skirted around to avoid offending others. The worst thing that can occur is when real issues never get resolved. The elephant in the room gets larger and looms over not what is said, but what is inferred. It is important to dialog honestly without resorting to gutter-speak.

This lesson can be applied to my role. When coaching clients who have not been told or have not truly heard the critical issues holding them back, it is important to get to the heart of the subject. My job is to ask questions that help the client realize what it takes to be successful. For that to occur, they must be honest with themselves. That allows for graceful conversations.

As a firm believer in taking deep breaths to calm myself, I know it can sound trite when you’re told to breathe in difficult situations. A recent article in the New York Times business section by Phyllis Korkki showcased an interview on Belisa Vranich, a clinical psychologist who re-teaches people to breathe. The correct way is to breathe horizontally and from the middle of the body. Expanding your belly while inhaling through your nose and squeeze your belly inward while exhaling. This will help you move through difficult situations and also open more space for creativity.

I am still amazed when customer service calls me back. Recently, I had two very different customer service experiences. One was a rep who directed me to the website to make changes to a service plan. Two days later, after no success with customer service and not being able to get into the website, I went to the retail store to speak to a representative. This person could not get into the site either but promised to call me back the next day.

No call.

I then called the store number where another customer service person helped change the plan. Four days of phone calls, no luck with website or even with the retail store.

My second example was a “wow”! I called first to get a customer service person. This person told me he would handle it and would call back with the correction needed. He called me back within ten minutes with the change and a confirmation number.

When running a business, customer service is critical to the survival of almost any business. It will set you apart from competitors but the key is to “wow” the customer!

Recently the world has been hit with major tragedies. Situations arose where we have been indirectly in contact with those directly affected. It’s important to actively listen and offer sympathy with a simple “I am sorry”. Offering commentary on the event is best kept to yourself unless you have faced a similar situation. Active listening offers much more than event analysis to the person in pain.

The 2016 presidential election campaign is like none we have seen before, and the challenges associated with avoiding conversations which can alienate colleagues, bosses, and customers are greater than ever. Innocent ice-breakers under the most informal of circumstances can turn passionate. Given the state of polarized feelings on political topics, it might be best to plan in advance just how far you are willing to go in stating your preferences, and how, exactly, you should express them. Restraint might be your best default. Conveying an attitude of open-mindedness can temper the decibel level.

In a recent primary election, the winner did not push her competitor to concede because she had lost badly eight years ago and understood the pain. This reminded me of a loss I experienced some years ago that I did not handle well. It took the care of a few close colleagues to help me realize the bigger picture and apologize to the winner. Years later, I went on to be the president of the group. The point is that we will experience many wins and losses in our lives. Remember to be graceful for both occasions. It’s especially wise if you want to maintain many working relationships as you move forward.

Improv is about making the person next to you look good. I took a year of Improv at Second City in Chicago to help me be a better speaker. It also helped me design some experiential programs for speaking to audiences about personal branding and interpersonal skills. Improv helps in networking where thinking on your feet is useful because it encourages you to begin a conversation that is inclusive and not intrusive. Improv recently was featured in the New York Times business section on how team Improv can build creativity in thinking.