Friday, November 30, 2012

2 Questions

These two simple questions will save you a lot of headache.

Ask them before you speak. Before you click send. Before you act.

1. Is it kind?
2. Is it necessary?

I find myself rethinking things quite a bit when I take the couple seconds to pose these two questions. In business and in personal relationships.

(This is my secret parenting tip too - I use it on my kids constantly).

Here's an example when I saved myself from myself by asking these questions. I was about to send an email out of exasperation to a fairly high up in my company complaining about one of our vendors. My first sentence was the complaint I felt I had the right to voice. My second sentence was the solution, me offering to do the work within my department rather than at this vendor.

I had my finger on the mouse, luckily I stopped. Was what I typed kind? Umm, not if you were the vendor it wasn't. Was what I typed necessary? Offering to help, yes; throwing mud at the vendor, no.

This fairly high up co-worker knows this vendor has problems. He didn't need me to point it out. I had nothing to gain by adding to the mud pile. What this fairly high upper needed was my offer to help. Only that.

That was kind. That was necessary.

I deleted sentence one, clicked send on sentence two.

2 comments:

Chris Martin said...

Hi Cecilia. You don't have to approve this comment. I'm really only sending it because it was the least creepy way I could think of to get in touch to say thank you.

In five months I'll graduate as a copywriter from the Brandcenter, and I would like to thank you for your blog and for making good advice so easy to find.

When I applied to Brandcenter I had no experience with advertising at all. Just Hey Whipple and your blog. But I've read just about every post now and it's been a great education on the ins and outs of the industry.

So thanks for putting in the time and effort. It has made a big difference to me.

Unknown said...

Chris, thanks for the note. I appreciate your kind words. Good luck with everything at Brandcenter. Would love to keep in touch and hear how it goes with graduation, etc.