The skill of listening often gets a bad rap in today’s corporate environment.  After all, it’s usually the person who can shout the loudest and take the most credit for work completed that tends to advance up the ladder as quickly as possible.

However, those who dismiss the power of listening without understanding how important this practice can be do their careers a serious disservice.  I know that it can be difficult to get out of the habit of putting your thoughts and opinions first in your conversations, but trust me.  Learning how to listen effectively will help you take advantage of all of the following benefits and more!

Listening makes you more knowledgeable

While I’m not suggesting that you engage in excessive office gossip, the hard truth is that those who listen more – rather than trying to figure out what they’ll chime in with next – tend to have access to more information in their careers.

Listening is an inherently flattering process.  When you give up trying to make yourself appear intelligent, witty or “in-the-know,” you demonstrate to others that you value what they have to say.  And really, who in the world doesn’t like feeling as if others value their conversational contributions?!

The point is that, when people feel flattered by your attention, they’re more likely to reveal information about themselves, their projects and their priorities that may help you out down the road.  It’s up to you whether you use this information for good or for evil, but the bottom line is that you won’t even have access to it in the first place if you don’t learn how to listen!

Listening builds relationships

Because listening can be so flattering to your conversational partners, it’s also a great tool for building rapport with the important people in your life.  Take a second to visualize all of the following situations:

• You’re in a pitch meeting with a potentially huge client.  Because you take the time to demonstrate active listening, the client feels as if you truly care about the issues facing his company and signs a contract with your company.
• Your boss has to deliver some negative feedback on your performance at work.  Although it’s hard to hear, you take the time to listen actively, which helps your boss to feel that he’s being effective and that progress is being made to resolve similar issues in the future.
• A person you’ve been assigned to work with on a group project has some serious concerns about the future direction of your work.  Since you take the time to listen – instead of steamrolling over him with your own thoughts – you’re able to eliminate potential disruptions before they occur.

In all these situations, you come out ahead – just because you made the small effort to listen actively instead of ignoring the counsel of others.

How to become a better listener

Hopefully, by this point, I’ve convinced you that it’s in your best interest to learn how to listen effectively.  If you’ve never purposefully studied this skill before, you should find the following recommendations helpful:

Tune into conversations fully – Perhaps the most difficult part of learning to listen is discovering how to turn off the voice in your brain that’s constantly thinking about witty retorts or ways to turn the conversation back to you.  To minimize this instinct, try to focus as much of your attention as possible on your conversation partner.  Does his voice sound confident, shaky, upset or joking?  What does his body language tell you about his mood?  The more you pay attention to the people you’re interacting with; the more likely you’ll be to hear, process and understand the words that they’re saying.

Repeat back questions and statements – Of course, anybody who’s ever interacted with a teenager knows that there’s a big difference between passive listening and active listening.  To demonstrate to conversation partners that you’re an active listener (in order to reap the benefits described above), try repeating back parts of the questions and statements you hear.  For example, if your boss tells you, “I’m concerned about you coming in late in the mornings,” responding back with “I understand that you’re frustrated about me coming in late in the mornings,” demonstrates that you’re actively engaged with the conversation.

Ask your own probing questions – Finally, to seal the deal on your active listening experiences, try to ask probing questions based on the information somebody has shared with you.  As an example, if a coworker tells you that he’s concerned about completing his part of a group project on time, asking questions about the factors that are causing delays and how these issues can be handled showcases both your proactive abilities and how closely you were listening to your coworkers concerns.

If you’ve never taken the time to improve your listening skills before, the process can seem strange.  But by consistently making it a priority to tune into the people around you, you’ll reap the benefits of being seen as more knowledgeable throughout your life and of forming the type of relationships that will help you to succeed in your personal and professional goals.  Believe me, it’s well worth the effort!

In work – as in life – we all have a tendency to let bad behavior slide.  “Sure,” we tell ourselves.  “Everybody has faults…”  However, if these bad business habits aren’t corrected, they could do serious damage to your at-work reputation, causing you to miss out on the promotions and awards that you feel should be coming your way.

So if you see yourself in any of the following habit descriptions, take immediate steps to correct your behavior – before any damage can be done that could permanently alter your career trajectory.

Habit #1 – Missing deadlines

When you miss a deadline, you’re rarely just affecting your own performance.  In nearly all cases, others are waiting on your work to be completed in order to begin their own assignments – which means that your tardiness is screwing over their work initiatives as well.  As a result, this type of behavior rarely goes unnoticed by supervisors who may deem you unreliable over your missed deadlines.

For this reason, it’s important to take whatever steps are necessary to get your work done before your agreed-upon deadlines.  If you truly can’t make it on time, say “No” to the project in the first place or fess up to your delays before the deadline has passed and offer your boss a concrete set of actions you’ll take to get the work done as quickly as possible.  Coming up with an alternate plan isn’t that much better than simply being late in the first place, but it does minimize your boss’s perception of you as being irresponsible.

Habit #2 – Failing to follow through on commitments

The bottom line – when it comes to workplace performance – is that if you say you’re going to do something, you’d better damn well do it!  And that goes for everything from major projects to passing on a file that a coworker requested in your last meeting.

Fail to live up to the commitments you’ve made for yourself, and you’ll notice that the people around you trust you less and less with every instance.  If you find yourself falling into this trap more often than you’d care to admit, get in the habit of writing a note to yourself about everything you agree to do – no matter how small.  Add these items to your “to do” list and treat them with all the seriousness you give to regular work assignments.

Habit #3 – Abusing your internet privileges

Now, I’m going to assume that you’re smart enough not to visit… illicit websites on company time.  Really, there’s absolutely no reason to put your career at risk in this way.

But abusing your internet privileges goes beyond the perusal of adult websites while on the clock.  If you’re using your spare time (or worse, your working time) to pay your bills, do your online shopping or catch up with friends on social networking websites, be aware that it’s not just your performance that’s suffering.  If your company monitors internet usage (and many, many companies do), you could face serious disciplinary action for something that’s better left at home.

Habit #4 – Sneaking out early

Don’t kid yourself – you’re not that sneaky.  If you sneak out regularly, it doesn’t matter how many clever disguises you wear, how many convincing excuses you come up with or how many different routes you take out of the building.  Your coworkers have noticed, and they don’t think too kindly of your behavior.

In today’s corporate world, if you want to be considered for promotions, awards and other perks, you’ve got to be taken seriously as a committed worker.  And really, that can’t happen if everyone from the janitor to your senior management staff knows you’re sneaking out before 5:00pm every night.  Do your reputation a favor and stick it out instead.

Habit #5 – Failing to take credit for your work

On last bad business habit to be on guard about is false modesty.  While it’s not a problem for everybody, failing to take credit for your accomplishments devalues the hard work that you put in the job.  Adopting an “aw shucks” attitude about your own work doesn’t make you a team player – it just means that you’ll never truly be given the recognition you deserve for your hard work.

Now, I’m not saying that you should go out and start tooting your own when, in fact, it was a team effort that helped you to succeed.  That’s just an asshole move that’s bound to backfire eventually when your thwarted colleagues gang up to stab you in the back in return.

Instead, if you’re serious about advancing in your chosen career, don’t be afraid to accept credit when credit is due.  If you busted your ass on a major project, there’s nothing wrong with emphasizing the hard work you put into your achievement.  If you don’t, your boss will have no way to recognize you in the future – causing you to miss out on the company recognition and future promotions you deserve.

What other bad business habits can you think of?  If you’ve got a great example that others should be aware of, share your recommendations in the comment area below:

Really, nobody likes receiving criticism.  There’s no doubt about it – whether it’s justified or not, hearing somebody speak critically of your work, your actions or your decisions stings.

But here’s the thing…  We’re all going to be criticized at some point or another.  So what matters isn’t that the criticism occurred in the first place.  What matters is how you handle it.

If you fly off the handle every time a negative word is spoken about your performance, you’re going to be harshly judged as someone who’s unwilling – or unable – to make improvements.  If you take criticisms too personally, you risk wasting time while you wallow in other people’s commentary.  At the same time, though, if you never take any of the criticisms you receive to heart, you risk missing out on tremendous opportunities for self-improvement.

If that all sounds complicated, it’s because it is.  Learning to handle criticism like a boss takes time, though you can speed up your own improvement in this area by following this step-by-step process:

Step #1 – Acknowledge the criticism

As soon as you’ve received a criticism, the best thing you can do for your personal or professional image is to acknowledge it gracefully.  Even if you’re seething on the inside or close to tears, it’s important that you learn how to give a brief “Thank you for your advice,” in the moment.

Here’s the thing…

Very rarely do people offer criticisms because they want to bring you down.  Even when the criticisms you receive come across as negative attacks, they’re often – if misguidedly – intended to help you improve yourself in some way.

So even if you don’t appreciate the effort, take the time to acknowledge the feedback that’s been given. It’ll go a long way towards improving the rapport you hold with the people in your life, as well as demonstrating that you’re a respectful, thoughtful person who’s capable of self-improvement.

Step #2 – Acknowledge your emotions

That said, just because you take a moment to acknowledge the criticism you’ve received doesn’t mean that you need to bend over backwards to accommodate the person giving you feedback!

The key here is to know how you personally respond to criticism.  If you tend to have a strong emotional reaction – as in the case of anger or weepiness – the best thing you can do is to excuse yourself from the situation until you’re able to calm down and reflect on both the criticism and why it triggered such a strong reaction within you.

If you’ve got a better handle on your emotions than this, you may be able to immediately jump into identifying possible behavioral changes that should be brought about as the result of your criticism.  However, if this isn’t the case, there’s nothing wrong with saying something as simple as, “I hear what you’re saying, but I’d like to take some time to think about your feedback before I give you a response.”

Step #3 – Investigate underlying causes

Once you’ve taken all the time you need to calm down, try to understand where the criticism itself is coming from.  For example:

• Have you slacked off at communicating your progress to your manager and colleagues to the point where they feel the need to criticize your work performance?
• Could different elements of your personality (as in the case of a sarcastic sense of humor) have been misinterpreted in a negative light by others?
• Have you been failing to follow through on commitments you’ve made to others (making their criticisms entirely justified)?

In some cases, the reason for the criticism will be made clear by the person giving the feedback, though this won’t occur in all situations.  Some criticisms will come to you “out of the blue,” meaning that you’ll need to be the one to figure out the cause in order to find a possible solution.

Obviously, there will be some cases where you aren’t able to identify an underlying cause for the criticism you’ve faced, but keep in mind that few people truly “have it out for you.”  Nearly all criticism can be attributed to real or perceived shortcomings, and it’s up to you to figure out where these miscommunications have occurred before your personal or professional reputation suffers.

Step #4 – Develop a response plan

After you’ve identified the reason(s) behind the feedback you’ve received, it’s time to develop a response plan that details the actions you’ll take to prevent the same criticisms in the future.

Fair warning – this isn’t always fun.  If you feel a critical remark was unjustified, it can feel incredibly frustrating to force yourself to come up with a plan of action to prevent future criticisms.

But really, handling criticism like a boss means acting like an adult in these situations.  In nearly all cases, it’s possible to learn something from critical feedback and make changes that improve your life in some way.  If you aren’t willing to undertake this type of self-reflection and self-improvement, you’re going to face nothing but challenges as you continue down your personal or professional journey.

Guys, it’s 2013 – it’s not 1993, when the use of email in business communications was first in its infancy.  For that reason, if you’re still making any of the following email etiquette mistakes, it’s time to put a stop to them once and for all, before they have a chance to do serious harm to your professional reputation!

Mistake #1 – Overly-personal content

I don’t care how good of friends you are with your co-worker down the hall – if your message is being written using your company email address, its content needs to stay on a professional level.

The problem with business email communications is that you have no way of controlling what happens to your message once you hit the “Send” button.  Your email could be intercepted and read by your company’s IT department, or it could be accidentally forwarded on by your recipient.  As a result, if you wouldn’t feel comfortable telling your boss what you’ve written in person, leave it out of your message.

Mistake #2 – Abusing emoticons in professional messages

Again, keep things professional when it comes to corporate email messages.  Emailing your colleagues – or worse yet, your clients – messages that are riddled with winky faces and kissing faces just isn’t appropriate.

If you simply must use emoticons, limit yourself to the basic smiley face and use no more than one instance per message.  As a general rule, though, avoid these cartoon characters at all costs in your business communications.

Mistake #3 – Using “text speak”

When you’re chatting or texting with friends, it’s perfectly acceptable to use abbreviations like “LOL” or “OMG.”  Hell, you can even go crazy and throw grammar to the wind with phrases like, “Wut R U up 2 2nite” – as long as you draw the line at communicating in this way with friends only.

But really, this type of language has no place in your business emails.  If you insist upon speaking like a 14-year-old girl when emailing with your boss and colleagues, don’t be surprised when you find yourself passed over consistently for projects and promotions that require the ability to communicate effectively!

Mistake #4 – Failing to follow up in a timely manner

Email messages are meant to be the less invasive cousin to regular phone calls, but the fact that a question hasn’t been personally conveyed to you doesn’t make it alright to sit on a message for weeks upon weeks without a response.  If you struggle with delaying message responses an interminably long time, think about how you’d feel if you were the original sender and get your reply going!

Mistake #5 – No “Out of office” message

If you’ve ever waited in vain for a response to your email messages, only to find out that your recipient is on an extended vacation in Costa Rica, you know exactly how annoying this email etiquette fail can be.

And while I’m not always a big fan of “Out of office” messages that are set up to let senders know that you’re only checking email between the hours of 8:32 and 9:01am, these types of auto-responses do have their place.  If you know you’re going to be away from the office for a while, set up an “Out of office” message and give your recipients an alternate method for receiving answers to their questions.

Mistake #6 – Using “Reply All” instead of “Reply”

Really is there anything as frustrating as having your inbox overtaken by responses to a message you have no interest in reading?

If you want to be taken seriously as a professional, do everybody around you a favor and use extreme caution before hitting the “Reply All” button.  Seriously, take a moment to review the list of potential recipients and decide whether or not all of the people included in the original message really need to access to your response.

Mistake #7 – Forwarding chain emails

As I said before, it isn’t 1993 anymore.  There’s simply no reason to keep passing around those already-disproven-by-Snopes, “pass this on or you’ll have bad luck forever” messages from your Aunt Martha.  Just stop.

Mistake #8 – Not starting a new message chain when appropriate

When sending and responding to email messages, it’s often easiest to simply hit “Reply” and carry on your existing conversation as part of an ongoing email thread.  That said, once you’ve hit 60 or so back-and-forth messages, it’s probably time to start a new email chain.

If you’re sending messages between friends, this might not be much of an issue.  But in a professional capacity, lengthy email chains make it difficult to find specific pieces of information – especially if your most recent messages have deviated significantly from your initial starting topic.  For clarity’s sake, take the time to add your thoughts to a new message once things start to get out of hand.

Mistake #9 – Abusing the ‘High Priority” flag

Finally, keep in mind that what’s important to you might not be important to your recipient.  As such, email messages about Friday lunch plans or the latest NFL game probably don’t need to be marked with that little red “High Priority” flag (sounds silly, but I’ve seen it happen).

To prevent a “Boy who cried “Wolf” scenario from causing your actual high priority messages from being disregarded due to past abuse of this notification tool, only add a “High Priority” flag to messages that require an immediate response from your recipients.

Obviously, these are only a few of the different ways that you can screw up business communications.  If you have any good examples of past email etiquette mistakes made by you or others, share your stories in the comments section below!

With the New Year upon us, it’s time to start thinking about the goals and resolutions you’ll work towards throughout 2013.  Really, the possibilities are endless – you could lose weight, work towards a major career milestone or even make an effort to seek out that special somebody you’ll spend the rest of your life with.

But with all these inspirational goals in mind, why does it seem so hard to get started?

The truth is that most of us experience a significant disconnect between the goals we set for ourselves and the actions we eventually take.  It’s one thing to think about how much better you could make your life with just a little effort – it’s another thing entirely to take definitive action in order to bring about the end results we desire.

As a result, the key to being successful in our endeavors is to determine exactly what’s causing this disconnect and to minimize the impact of these road blocks on our lives.  If we can eliminate the barriers that exist between goals and actions, we stand a much greater chance of eventually bringing about the success we so desire in our lives.

The following are a few scenarios that can create this disconnect between your overall goals and your eventual actions.  Read through them with an open mind and see if any of them might be contributing to your inability to make progress on your stated goals.

Scenario #1 – Your goal is too large

New Year’s resolutions always seem like the perfect time to make broad, sweeping changes to our lives.  After all, what better impetus is there to drop the 50 pounds we’ve been carrying around or to finally ask for that big promotion than the start of a new year?

Unfortunately, resolving to change major pieces of our lives all at once makes the entire process more intimidating than it needs to be.  As a result, we may feel too overwhelmed or burned out to take even the first baby steps towards achieving our goals out of fear for how long the journey will be.

To make big goals seem less challenging and to minimize the chances that this fear will derail us from working towards our future visions, break down your overarching goals into smaller, “bite sized” pieces.  Instead of trying to lose 50 pounds all at once, work towards losing 10 pounds, five times over.  Or, if you’re to work your way to the top of the corporate ladder, isolate a series of smaller career moves you’ll need to make and give yourself a timeline for achieving them.

By breaking things down into smaller chunks, you’ll ultimately make it easier to realize your eventual goals without your fear interrupting your progress.

Scenario #2 – You lack the information needed to make a change

Sometimes, the barrier that prevents you from making progress on a major goal isn’t fear of the process itself – it’s a lack of the information needed to make the change in the first place.

Say your goal is to lose weight.  While you might logically know that you need to eat less and exercise more to bring about this result, this isn’t the same as knowing the specific steps you should be taking.

For example, should you be eating fewer carbs, fewer fat grams or fewer sugary foods?  Should you walk, lift weights or take up kickboxing for your exercise routine?  There are dozens and dozens of different diet and exercise plans out there, which makes navigating through all the different options that are available challenging for even the most educated of dieters.

The solution here is to seek the advice of experts who can help you to come up with the concrete plan of habits that will allow you to meet your goals.  In the case of weight loss, a personal trainer, nutritionist or dietician can help you find a diet and exercise program that will work for you.  If your goals are more career-oriented, a mentor or life coach can help you to identify possible career moves that may not be immediately obvious to you.  Even if your New Year’s resolutions are romantic in nature, trusted friends or information products are available that can help you develop the skills needed to be successful in love.

Really, no matter what your goals are, there are professionals out there who can help you achieve them.  Don’t look at seeking help as a weakness – look at it as a way to eliminate the barriers that may ultimately prevent you from carrying through on your New Year’s resolutions.

Scenario #3 – You’re scared of achieving your goal  

Finally, it sounds strange, but in some cases, the thing that prevents us from achieving our overall goals is a fear of how our lives will be different if we’re eventually successful.

Take our example of significant weight loss.  While dropping the extra pounds might seem like a dream come true, the reality is that your life will change tremendously as a result.  You’ll likely experience increased – and sometimes unwanted – attraction from the opposite sex, and amongst those you know, your weight will become a central topic of conversation.  You’ll almost certainly need to purchase a new wardrobe (which is an expensive proposition in and of itself), and you’ll always live with the fear that you’ll regain the weight as the result of any misstep.

Not to be a Debbie Downer here, but there can be down sides to achieving our goals – and sometimes these down sides can subconsciously prevent us from taking action in the first place.

So what’s the solution here?  This one’s a bit tougher to answer, as the best solution depends on your own personal tolerance for risk.  In some cases, simply identifying fear as the root cause of your inability to move forward on your goals is enough to eliminate these barriers entirely.  In others, you may decide to modify the scope of your eventual goal, in order to make the end result easier to bear.

Whatever scenario best describes your situation, the important thing is that you identify the root cause of the barriers that are preventing you from moving forwards towards your ultimate goal.  Only by identifying them can you take the necessary action to minimize their presence in your life and to ensure that you’re able to successfully complete the vision you hold for your future.