Three Tips for Improving Your Career by Building Goodwill

 
Issue #32: December 15, 2003

To our readers:

Many businesses tap into the glow of the holiday season to build goodwill with their customers -- they mail greeting cards, bestow gifts, and throw parties. It's a good time for you, as well, to consider how you can build goodwill with your customers, both internal and external. Past Brief Tips issues have looked at ways to improve Internal Customer Service, which is an excellent tool for building goodwill. To revisit those issues, click here, here, and here. There are other ways to build goodwill, less tangible than greeting cards, gifts, and parties but as profound in their effects as customer service itself.

The goodwill we refer to here is that which leads your colleagues, your employees, your boss, your board of directors, and all who know you to believe the best of you and to refuse to believe the worst. The kind of goodwill that leads them to say, "I don't believe it," upon hearing of a misdeed you are said to have committed. The kind of goodwill that forces those who would malign you to face a hard wall of incredulity when trying to spread the bad word about you. This kind of support can go a long way in boosting your position in an organization.

You don't obtain this kind of goodwill by trying to please everyone. You can't get it by caving in to others inappropriately, by always going along with what others want, or by trying to give others what you think they're looking for. What you get by doing those things is a reputation as a pushover, and a pushover gets no respect. What we are talking about here is earning goodwill through integrity and trustworthiness. And with that kind of goodwill comes a great deal of respect.






Three Tips for Building Goodwill and Boosting Your Career:


1. Never criticize someone who is absent in terms you wouldn't use in his or her presence.

Constructive criticism can be necessary for best performance, for growth, for staying on track in a project. No one has all the answers and therefore everyone can gain from someone's critique at some time. If you see how a person or team can improve their performance it may be incumbent upon you to share that with them. The "them" you need to share it with is whoever you are critiquing. Not their colleagues or employees and certainly not their bosses--unless you are all in a room together and sharing ideas for improving the project together.

Build your colleagues', employees', and managers' trust in you by making it clear you will not share negative information or opinions behind their backs. You build this trust not by telling people about your principles but by showing them -- you simply do not share negative information about someone who isn't present. If you must for some reason discuss someone in her/his absence, you do it in terms you would use if the person were present, and you make it clear you have or will share the same information with that person. Or you insist on calling the person into the room so he or she will be present. This illustrates for everyone that if you have something to critique in their performance you will insist they are present as well. Do this and you've accomplished two objectives: 1) people trust you and respect your integrity, and 2) people have the confidence to work with you in openness and without guile.

2. Assume positive intent on the part of your co-workers, employees, managers, customers.

When someone says or does something that is negative, critical, or unkind, behave as though the person meant it in a positive way. Often this is the case, as few of us can always frame our thoughts in the most useful and positive terms, and we are bound to open our mouths and let something negative come out now and then. Build trust by not blasting people for those mistakes. Even if they intend to hurt you, use their comments to your advantage. Assume they mean to help, and respond accordingly. If Sally says, "Joe thought you were really a jerk for what you said in the managers' meeting," respond with thanks for the heads-up that you might have said something off-base to Joe.





Talk to Joe to find out if he was in fact irritated by something you said, and clarify and correct anything you need to. This could be your opportunity to head off a problem with Joe that you might not have known about if Sally hadn't told you, albeit in a clumsy way. If the person is being negative about someone else, suggest she or he talk to that person directly, and leave it at that.

To recap Tip #2: honestly assess what someone has accused you of, and if any portion of it is true, work to improve that area of your behavior or performance. Thank the person for his or her assistance. You gain in three ways: 1) you improve yourself, 2) you deprive those who malign you of the satisfaction of seeing their arrows strike home , and 3) you drive them nuts.

3. Corollary to #2 above: Never believe the first report.

Everyone has received reports of one kind or another that turn out to be premature, exaggerated, misinterpreted. This often happens with e-mail--some egregious plan is described in detail and you're encouraged to e-mail everyone in your address book about it so they can protect themselves. Within a few hours--sometimes a few minutes--the person sends an e-mail saying he or she just learned the previous e-mail was a hoax, and to please disregard it. Oops. Now you have to tell everyone in your address book that you jumped the gun and "never mind" your previous e-mail. Unless you didn't believe the first report. Or you took the time to verify the details and found them unverifiable and didn't e-mail your address book in the first place. The same kind of comedy of errors takes place in companies every day: someone hears something, doesn't get the whole story, spreads his or her off-kilter version to colleagues who spread it as gospel, until everyone "knows" something that turns out to be false, or at the very least exaggerated. At times the comedy is not so funny to someone who is misrepresented in the faulty story. You build goodwill and a reputation for trustworthiness when you are calm in the face of exciting rumors and say, "Let's see if this is true before we act on it," or "I don't believe Joe would do that. Let's see if he did before we discuss it further."

Be worthy of trust, assume positive intent in others, and refuse to believe wild rumors about others, and you will build for yourself a reservoir of goodwill that will serve you well.