As a career and life coach I see clients from all parts of the world. The interesting aspect of my work is observing how consistent most human behavior is and its impact on others. Regardless of culture, geography, religion, gender, or age I see certain consistent people behaviors that irk me. I am writing this blog to codify some of the more common ones that I see to highlight how easy it is to make your own life better, once you know them. I find that most of the grief we face in our lives is caused by our own unwitting behaviors:
- If you need urgent help in a situation do not confuse the urgency of your need with the priority the other person is willing to put on that need without properly communicating it. I cannot tell you how many urgent calls and emails I get without much information for me to do any thing about them. Example, a phone message to me might say: Dilip, this is very URGENT that you call me NOW. This is Jim. You have my # from before. Of course, I do not know which Jim this is, so I do not return this call, simply because I cannot.
- When you leave an important—or, for that matter, any—message do not assume that the phone number you just rattled off in the message will be clearly heard in the message. Cell phones notoriously drop bits of information, so start your message with your # and again end it with that #, so that there is a good chance that at least one transmission would be clear. This practice also helps the called party to not have to play the ENTIRE message for your #, which is typically at the end.
- It is a good idea to follow-up a phone message with an email. This makes it easy to respond by whichever way the person can find it more convenient.
- If you want to communicate something in writing, do not assume that the receiver will have your context while reading it. So, always provide the necessary context to make it easier for the reader to get what you intend to communicate.
- Many of my clients often complain about how hiring managers and recruiters (or for that matter, anyone important to them!), do not return their calls or emails. They simply cannot or do not because of sheer volume of such responses. But, you can make yours more prone to be answered by doing the following: First send an email that you need to follow-up and that you’d be calling at a certain time. Then call and leave a short voice mail at that time. In that voice mail say that you’d be sending an email immediately to make it easier for them to respond. My anecdotal experience is that when you use this “sandwich” technique the probability of returned messages goes up from zero to a much higher percentage.
There are hundreds of such tips in my free A Guide to Personal Effectiveness, available as a PDF download on my website. Really, there is no magic to getting people to respond to giving you what you are seeking. You just have to learn how to make it easier for them to give it to you!
Good luck!