Email Dos and Don’ts

At work, a lot of your time is spent communicating with your coworkers. For most office positions, nearly a quarter of your day is just sending and receiving emails. That doesn’t seem so bad, until you realize emails are where a lot of miscommunication happens, and mistakes are made.

 

Writing emails is usually done quickly and that can lead to errors. To make sure you get the most out of your office communication, follow a couple of simple guidelines.

Use Clear and Direct Subject Lines

Number one on Business Insider’s List of Email Etiquette rules is to use clear and direct subject lines. When people get your email, they want to know what it’s about. This lets them prioritize it appropriately. If your subject lines are too vague, your emails might get overlooked.

Follow in the Steps of Coworkers

One of the best ways to find out how to write your office emails is to take note of the emails you’re receiving. Are they all addressed to you formally, or are they quick one line emails without a subject line at all? Once you’ve got an idea of how your coworkers use email, follow along.

Be Patient

If you sent an email, but haven’t heard back in a while, keep waiting. While you might need their reply to carry on with your work, remember that everyone is busy. Depending on the urgency, always try to give enough time for your coworker to reply. Most of the time, they’re just working through their projects and will get to you shortly. If you feel you’ve been waiting too long, you can send a follow up email. Make sure to be polite.

Do You Really Need to Reply All?

Reply All is usually seen as the culprit for many, many unnecessary emails. If your boss emails a number of people to make sure a specific time works for a meeting, you don’t need to reply all. Just reply directly to your boss. Making sure you only Reply All when necessary will cut down on extra emails, and your coworkers will be thankful.

Use To:, Cc:, and Bcc: Appropriately

There are three options for sending an email. To: is the most common and is best used for the people you are directly addressing in your email. Cc: is short for carbon copy, this is for people who you want to keep “in the loop”. Usually your boss or the project lead would be people you’d Cc:. Finally, Bcc: is short for Blind Carbon copy. Bcc: is best used when you are sending an email to a large list of people who might not know one another, and might not want their emails becoming public. It’s rare that you’d use Bcc: within your office. Make sure to use each of these three sending options well.

The Email Signature

Most office workers use an email signature. It’s a small thing that comes at the very end of your email. It’s your name, the company you work for and your contact information. Having an email signature automatically added to your email is a good idea, even when you’re just sending emails within your office. You never know when someone might be hunting for your phone number.

 

Email etiquette often gets overlooked in the fast-paced culture of today’s workplaces, but how you project yourself in office communications can have a huge impact on how your coworkers see you.

 

Creating Confidence

 

There’s no question, success comes down to a lot of hard work. However, you can be a genius with a great idea, but if you don’t have the confidence to present that idea to other people, you’re going to have to work twice as hard just to get people to listen to anything you say. Let’s have a chat about confidence.

Mean what you say

There are two kinds of confidant people.

1. The type who are full of hot air
2. The type who have what it takes to follow through on their claims.

Obviously, you want to be the second type. In order to do that, you need to prove to the people around you that you’re not all talk. To do that, follow through on everything you do, and gain a reputation as someone who finishes what they start.

That way, your confidence will come off as authentic rather than as someone spouting off nonsense. People will listen to you if you give them reasons to believe you mean every word of what you’re saying.

Don’t apologize for speaking  

Never start a pitch with “I’m sorry to bother you.” You’re not sorry! They are LUCKY to hear what you’ve got to say. You have a killer pitch lined up. Remember that. Hold your head up and speak with conviction.

If you open or close with anything that sounds like an apology, then people are less inclined to take you seriously. If you don’t believe in your ideas, why should they?

Convey through your enthusiasm, that what you’re saying will benefit your listeners as much as it will benefit you. Imagine you are speaking to a mirror. Reflect back the enthusiasm you generate within yourself.

Create a sense of urgency

Don’t let what you’re talking about get relegated to the back burner. Make it clear that what you’re saying is current and relevant and warrants action NOW.

You could give an amazing pitch that gets everyone really excited, but if they aren’t spurred into action right away, they may forget about you and all your hard won confidence and no action will ever be taken.

 

How To Help Others Reach Their Potential

As a leader you know the success of your team is going to depend in large part on the people you have working with you. You spend a lot of time and energy finding just the right people. You don’t simply look for experience, you look for people with the right attitude, who you believe have potential, the ones you see growing with you and your team

 

Now the question is, how do help those people reach their potential?

 

Listen to them

When you give someone your complete attention, you are giving them space to express what they think and how they feel. People feel valued and want to do their best when they feel listened to. Really listening to someone isn’t simply a matter of listening to the words they say, it’s about listening with the intention of hearing the meaning of those words.

 

Does this person need help with some aspect of what they’re doing? Are they saying they can do more? Is something making them uncomfortable?

 

If you aren’t completely clear, ask questions. Listen to what they say and respond appropriately.

 

Give clear direction

Make sure people understand exactly what is expected of them. Never make assumptions about what they already know or what they can do. Ask them. Make it your business to know exactly what everyone you work with is capable of.

 

Challenging your people is great, but before you challenge someone to hit a homerun, confirm they know how to play baseball.

 

Once you start seeing results, ensure you praise effort not ability. A person who feels valued and encouraged will work a lot harder to do a great job than someone for whom a task comes easily.

 

The Fast Company article Six Habits of People Who Know How To Bring Out The Best in Others puts it this way, “As a leader, the most important part of your job isn’t your results. Your job is to inspire your employees’ results.”

 

Be honest

You may be really strong in certain things and less proficient in others. People will trust you if you are honest with them and in turn feel comfortable being honest with you. Instead of feeling like you need to appear to you know all the answers, let people know when you don’t. Let them know when you need help and accept it graciously when it’s offered. Trust and honesty are integral to building a strong team. Success in organizations with a strong team backbone is shared success everyone can feel proud of.

 

Acknowledge a job well done

When someone does good work or great work, acknowledge it. When someone feels like their efforts are noticed and appreciated they will keep doing what they’re doing and will be inspired to do even more

 

See the opportunity through the eyes of your team members

People are excited about doing their best when their work when it’s motivating and fulfilling. The article, Bringing Out The Best In Employees from the London Business School, mentions five characteristics employees consider important for feeling fulfilled in their work:

 

• Having responsibility for doing something worthwhile
• Being given a high level of freedom for how results are achieved
• Having an opportunity to extend oneself and to develop expertise
• Being given an opportunity to work with good colleagues
• Achieving recognition for doing a good job.

 

 

Set an example

You want to inspire people to do their best. That means you need to be doing your best, day in and day out. You need to set the example for others to follow. The most long lasting, dedicated people are the ones who are inspired by possibilities. You might think you can get more out of people through intimidation or rewards, but really they will do their best when they’re inspired to do their best. Be the inspiration.

Lead With A Smile

You know how everyone always says life is in the details? Leadership in an area of life where attention to detail makes all the difference. It’s the difference between people feeling like they are part of a cohesive, healthy, thriving team or an unmotivated, uninspired one.  As social creatures people want to feel appreciated, they want to feel seen and heard. They thrive when they feel like they and their work matters.  There are a few details strong leaders remember to bring into their days to bring out the best in their people.

 

Acknowledge good work

As a leader you expect people to do good work, but that doesn’t mean you should just accept a job well done as part of the day’s work. When someone does good work, acknowledge it right away. It could be a simple as just a few words to an individual or a shout out in front of the whole team. Praise creates a positive thriving atmosphere for the whole team. It creates friendly competition. It creates good feelings all around.

 

Give 100% attention

As a leader you probably have a lot on your plate. Deadlines to meet, tasks to juggle, many people to coordinate. With so much going on you may be inclined to multi-task with your attention. Strong leaders don’t. When you are listening to someone, give them 100% of your attention, 100% of the time. Even if you’ve got both eyes planted on someone, if your attention isn’t fully there the person you’re talking to knows. If they feel like you’re not giving them 100% of your attention they won’t be inclined to give their job 100% of theirs.

 

When you’re explaining what needs to get done, put your full attention into that too. Don’t just say what you want done, explain why. Put tasks into context. We need to do X in order to achieve Y. People feel more involved and inclined to give their all when they understand the big picture.

 

Smile

Smiles are contagious. When you smile at someone, they will smile back. Smiles create positive feelings of acceptance. Smiles are bridges, they are connectors. If you want to make yourself feel better, smile. Smiling can lift your mood, and lower your stress levels. By encouraging others to smile you automatically help lift their moods and lower their stress levels.

 

Not only does smiling make everyone feel better it also makes you seem more approachable. When people feel confident about approaching you, you can put your 100% attention and praise giving skills into action!

Do you Approve Of Yourself?

 

You have goals and aspirations, everyone does. The question is are those goals things you believe you can achieve. Do you feel good enough? Smart enough? Worthy enough?

 

Those might seem like crazy questions to be asking of yourself. After all if you’re not going to be your own loudest cheerleader, then who is?

 

Funny thing is, most of us are so far away from being our own greatest cheerleader, it’s almost like we’re cheering for the other team or the other person who’s trying to achieve the goals we are.

 

No matter how loud or persistent the self-depreciating voice in your head gets, it’s imperative for you to counter it with self affirming thoughts. Whenever you tell yourself you are not good enough, stop and remind yourself that you are. Remind yourself of your accomplishments and the fact that you deserve success as much as anyone else.

 

Don’t wait for the approval for others. Create it, by approving of yourself first. Create an approval zone for yourself, from there all your goals are that much closer!

Getting Your Thinking Outside of The Box

You often hear the saying “think outside the box”, but what does that mean? How do you do it? When should you do it? Albert Einstein once said, “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.”

Thinking outside the box is about bringing a new way of doing things to the things you do for new results. But you’ve always thought the way you think, so how do you change it?

To think outside the box you have to find a way of seeing things from outside of your normal perspective. It will probably feel risky, maybe wrong. It will most likely be innovative, at least from your in-box perspective.

Talk to people outside of your industry

Chat with people who have absolutely nothing to do with the industry or line of work you are in. For example, if you’re an engineer, talk to someone in the music business. Those people might not be able to help you directly with engineering, but they have gone through struggles particular to them and came up with ways of overcoming them.  Don’t trap yourself in the engineering bubble. New ideas from new people can set that light bulb off in your head.

Copy successful people

Copying people you look up to or are inspired by can really help you think outside the box. Learn about how people in the past dealt with their struggles and the ways they found to overcome them. Motivational books can also help. They’re full of stories and anecdotes about people who took alternate routes to their destinations.

Take a class

It doesn’t matter whether you graduated twenty years ago or twenty days ago, part time classes or a full break from your regular routine for intensive classes is a guaranteed way to bring new modes of thinking to your thoughts. Plus, you also get to meet new people with all sorts of different perspectives.

Do some yoga

Mind, body and soul, whether you need to get outside a professional box, a personal box or a spiritual box, all three aspects are part of your one person. Sometimes the quiet and inner reflection of yoga or meditation is just thing to clear cut new paths of thinking.

Never say never

Just because something hasn’t been done before, doesn’t mean YOU can’t be the first to do it. It also doesn’t mean that this new way you’re thinking of doing it isn’t about to become the new way for everyone to do it!  The whole point of thinking outside the box is to come up with something new and creative!

Three Things That Can Stall Your Career

In the landscape of your career there are a lot of pot holes and pitfalls you can fall into. It’s

impossible to predict most of these, but some of them are avoidable if you know what to look

for. Here are three career roadblocks to watch out for.

Choosing the less challenging route

Sometimes we get the job we absolutely want. Other times we settle for a job that’s okay and think of it as a meantime job. That’s all well and good unless the meantime job turns into the all-the-time job. It’s easy to get comfortable with a regular paycheck and an easy job and forget it’s not what we had planned for ourselves.

Go on like that too long and breaking the cycle of comfort becomes harder and harder until it doesn’t seem worth the effort at all. Others around you have qualifications and experience you simply never got in your meantime job and you don’t feel comfortable joining the race for the job you want anymore. 

If you are in a meantime job set time limits. Continue renewing your qualifications. Keep getting experience that will help you in get the job you actually want.

Allowing yourself to be controlled by your career

Another thing that can happen to people who find themselves in a less than ideal job is that they’re actually really good at it. They end up getting promoted and given more responsibilities and ultimately become really good at something they have no desire to continue doing.

It’s important to stay vigilant in regards to what you want from your career and your life and do your own steering!

Being too humble

Being modest is lovely, but in a career sense, you can’t sit back and let other people take credit for the things you do, or allow extra effort you put it to go unnoticed.

Be proud of your accomplishments and the person you are. Let people know how great you are at your job, and watch your career pull ahead!

There Can Always Be Time Enough

Time Is Not As Concrete A Thing As We Like To Think It Is

Time is an interesting concept. We know that each hour is made up of sixty minutes and there are twenty-four of them in a day. We also know, not all hours are created equal. Some fly by in five minutes. Others drag on for days.

None are as concrete as they might seem when we glance up at a clock. That’s because time isn’t always where it’s supposed to be. Sometimes we lose it. Very often we waste it. Worst of all, we kill it.

How you treat your allotted time

So often when we have something pressing to do, we spend inordinate amounts of time dreading it. Or putting it off. Sometimes we will do absolutely anything else to avoid getting on with the thing we want to do. All that putting off and dreading and avoiding makes us feel like  we don’t have enough time to finish. And because of it sometimes we don’t.

Time spent thinking about doing a thing

When we think about doing something, rather than simply getting on with doing it, the time allotment required magnifies in our imaginations. Dreading, putting off, doing other make-work projects all waste time we could have spent on the dreaded task.

Make action your new go-to plan

It is said the way you do one thing is the way you do all things. Make a pact with yourself to stop putting off. We’re not talking about the big projects you are dreading. We mean everything.

If you have decided you want to keep a dream journal by your bed then go locate that journal and put it by your bed. If you don’t have a journal handy get a piece of paper.

Put your plan into action when you think of it, not later, not tomorrow, not when you have time. Make action your new habit – for all things (within reason of course). Instead of planning on doing things, do them. You will be amazed at how much more time you have!

Positives and Negatives of Pay Transparency

In some companies everyone knows everyone’s salary. They are transparent. People know what they can aspire to and specifically what each job in worth. It evens out the playing field. A job has a set worth and that’s the end of story.

Other companies aren’t nearly so transparent. Salaries fluctuate as incentive tools, according to seniority or the discretion of the boss.

Some employers are pro-transparency others are not. There are valid reasons for both sides of the argument.

Equality   

On the pro side, if everyone is aware of everyone else’s pay grade, it promotes pay equality. If people know they are being compensated equal to others doing a similar job, it eliminates pay jealousy and people are less likely to be unhappy with their salary.  It also ensures everyone is paid equally for the job they are doing regardless of gender of race.

Satisfied they are being fairly compensated, pay equality encourages people to be more collaborative and productive.

Easier to discuss pay raises

Pay transparency also takes the pressure off when it comes time for employees to approach the question of a pay increase. Pay rates are established at the onset. As a person acquires more responsibility they understand they can request compensation for their efforts.

More to the job than meets the eye

On the surface person A and person B might seem to be doing similar work, but person B actually carries the lion’s share of responsibility. A downside of pay transparency is it can create jealously and hostility in the workplace when people look at dollars only, without understanding what exactly a certain job might or might not entail.

Restrictive to employers

Some employers use pay as a way to increase performance. They use it as an incentive. However when everyone knows what everyone else is making those kinds of discrepancies can cause envy and jealousy. Rather than raising their standards to try and increase their own compensation, lower paid employees will use the pay differences as a reason to seek employment elsewhere.

Set your day with an intention

We’ve talked about to-do lists before and the importance of planning out what you want to do with each day. To-do lists are great and helpful. Another way to go about planning your day/life is to set an intention for it.

An intention is a way of creating space for desires to take hold

You might feel stressed out with all the things you need to get done everyday, so you’re looking for ways to bring peace and stability to your life. So you set an intention to find ways to center yourself. You might do that by waking up half an hour earlier everyday to write in a journal. Or taking half an hour out of your lunch break to get outside and walk without a phone or iPod or any other device on your person. 

Intend To Make The Most of Each Day

An intention for the day might be to stay on task. I will not waste time scrolling through irrelevant social media posts today. You might decide to make positivity your intention for the day. I will counter every negative thought with a positive one today.

A great time to set your intention for the day is first thing in the morning. Before you get out of bed, before you read any headlines in the news, before you check your email or social media. Take a few deep breaths, center yourself and set your intention for the day.

Check back with your intention throughout the day

The day gets going and you make a mistake at work. You respond immediately with negative words for yourself. Your intention is forgotten in the chaos of the day.

As you go through your day, make a point of checking back in with your intention. Put a virtual stickie on your computer, or add it to your calendar for the day so you don’t lose sight of it.

Use intentions of help you grow into the person you’ve always wanted to be.