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Business Insider
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
It's hard to say 'no' at work. Etiquette experts told us how to get better at it.
"That's above my pay grade." It's often said as a joke, sure, but it could also be a real response to one of the biggest challenges many workers face on the job: How to say no. Many people have experienced "job creep," where they're gradually given more and more responsibilities, or are otherwise asked to do work they simply don't have time for. Tactfully declining seems like the obvious solution, but it's easier said than done. "People don't know how to say no," etiquette expert Lizzie Post of the Emily Post Institute told Business Insider. "If you talk about the high-level business advice, the people that excel, the super achievers, the A-list CEOs and entrepreneurs, they will all tell you that their day is a thousand nos and one yes," fellow etiquette expert Daniel Post Senning added. "Your capacity to say no is a professional skill as well as a social and personal skill." The experts' book, " Emily Post's Business Etiquette," went on sale May 20 and covers how to politely decline in various business-related situations. They shared with BI some additional tips for doing so. These aren't one-and-done solutions. But they can help you get more comfortable with saying no and setting boundaries at work. It's easier when it's an immediate or shorter-term ask and you can deflect with a fast-approaching deadline for another project. "It's a lot harder when you start to get asked to do much more than the job you were hired for, and the expectation is just that you're going to do it and take it on because the company needs you to," said Post. "I have seen numerous friends go through this where they say, 'I'm all of a sudden doing the job of three people and I still only have the salary I started with.'" In those cases, the best advice is to "really spell it out," Post said. "The only thing you can do is encourage that person to speak up to their employer about it and to talk about it in a real sense of 'I am experiencing burnout' or 'The work quality would really start to diminish,'" she said. "Come prepared to talk about why it's overwhelming and why you don't have enough time to make this happen." Beforehand, consider "doing an honest assessment" of your track record when saying no, Post Senning said. What specifically do you struggle with, and what do you tend to fall back on? What could you do better? When preparing for and actually having the conversation, pay attention to your emotions to keep them in check. "Separating the emotional fight-or-flight response — that's your reaction to the stress of what's happening — from the way that you respond to the person is a really important part of good etiquette," Post Senning said. "The difference between 'No, I can't believe you asked me to do that' and 'I'd like to sit down and talk with you about my workload' is huge." It can help to remind a colleague what's on your plate and explain that you'd only be able to take on a new task if you deprioritized other assignments. Some people might benefit from mentally reframing these conversations. Instead of viewing it as rejecting a colleague's request, you can think of it as setting boundaries to build sustainable work habits. "It's an important professional skill," said Post Senning. "It's an important part of communication, particularly for the benefit of the people around you."
Business Insider
25-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
8 simple things you can do at the office every day to build good relationships with your boss and coworkers
Navigating your professional relationships with your coworkers can be complicated. Did you accidentally say the wrong thing? Overstep a boundary? The good news is that some of the easiest things you can do to build and sustain solid relationships at work are pretty intuitive, according to Daniel Post Senning and Lizzie Post, etiquette experts with the Emily Post Institute. "It's remarkable how durable the advice is when you get down to what our expectations are of each other on a very human level," Post Senning told Business Insider. Their book, " Emily Post's Business Etiquette," went on sale May 20. It includes a list of eight daily office courtesies you can do to build and maintain goodwill with your boss and peers. Here's the list from the book: Show up ready for the day or your shift. Acknowledge others and greet them with a smile. If you can, make eye contact when speaking with others (for video calls, turn on your camera and face the lens). Use the magic words in all your interactions, both verbal and digital. (The book lists as magic words: Please, thank you, you're welcome, excuse me, I'm sorry) Use shared spaces appropriately, never leaving a mess or taking more than your share. Decline to participate in office gossip. Offer help to others or check in to see how their work is coming along. Say goodbye to colleagues on your way out the door for the day. These are simple "'gimme' social interactions," as Post Senning calls them. "They cost you nothing, and done well, and repeatedly, they really forge important social bonds," he previously told BI. "They build a sense of connection and trust that is going to carry you through tense meetings, critical feedback, miscommunications, things like that later on." At the end of the day, these small-but-mighty actions are about acknowledging each other, Post said. "Acknowledgement is probably one of the most impactful daily practices that we can engage with in so many ways," she told BI. "Whether it's looking up and acknowledging your colleagues with a greeting or a goodbye, or it's acknowledging the work that they do and the participation that you see happening around you that facilitates your own work getting done."
Business Insider
25-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Forget the 'compliment sandwich.' Try this 3-step approach to sharing constructive criticism instead.
How do you effectively deliver constructive criticism to a colleague at work? Everyone who's ever done it (and anyone who's struggled to) knows it's not an easy conversation to have. You probably also know, all too well, the makings of the "compliment sandwich," a long-relied-on fallback in cases like these. It goes something like this: You open with a compliment to ease into the conversation, then segue into the critique you're really there to give, and finally close with another piece of praise to end on a good note. While a compliment sandwich can be a solid starting framework (though it's not without its critics), a variation on it might offer a more effective way to share constructive feedback. Daniel Post Senning and Lizzie Post, etiquette experts with the Emily Post Institute, told us about that method. Their book, "Emily Post's Business Etiquette," went on sale May 20. "Compliment sandwiches work, I understand that idea too: You want to give someone enough positive reinforcement that they can take the negative," said Post Senning. "But let's take one of those positive reinforcements and try to make it as constructive as possible." One 3-step alternative riffs on elements of the compliment sandwich while advancing it a step further. It's the praise-concern-suggest method. Before you get into the conversation, give your colleague a heads-up about what kind of talk it's going to be — think of priming them for a difficult conversation. "This lets someone know, 'Am I about to say yes to a conversation about something I need to take very seriously, something I need to be open-minded about, something really great to share?'" said Post. "Because 'Do you have a minute to talk?' could be about anything." During the actual conversation, mention why you're bringing up the issue and what your coworker, not just you, stands to gain from the discussion and any resulting solution. "Don't assume that someone else understands your good intentions, but be willing to state them, be explicit, and say the obvious thing," said Post Senning. "Directly talk about it being for their benefit as well. Make it clear that you care about them, particularly if it's going to be more difficult." You might say you're raising the concern because you care about the success of a project you're working on together, or about their success at work, or your professional relationship with each other. Then, you'd start the same way you would with a compliment sandwich: Offer a piece of praise, as some workplace research has indicated that this can be important. "Don't just start off with the bad; wading into the shallow end first, not diving too deep too quick, gives you a chance to feel someone else out and get a sense of their response or reaction," said Post. For many people, the hardest step is bringing up the issue at hand. You want to be direct and clear, and remember why you're having the conversation in the first place. It can be challenging, however, "you have to be willing to raise problems if you want change," said Post Senning. Where this method differs from the compliment sandwich is its ending. Rather than closing on a compliment, you offer a possible solution or action step to address the issue you just raised. "The cost of admission to raising an issue where you want change in someone else's behavior is a willingness to participate in the solution in some way," said Post Senning. "They may or may not take it, but just having done enough work to offer some future direction, some willingness to participate, to not just dump a problem on someone's lap, is important." Lastly, it can help to depersonalize the criticism so it's about the issue, not the person. One way to do this is to say something like, "If the shoe were on the other foot, I would hope that you would feel comfortable talking to me about this." It's a way of saying, "This isn't about you, this is about what's going on here, the work that we're doing, and I would really hope the same standards would apply to me" if the roles were reversed, said Post Senning. And, of course, the conversation doesn't necessarily end with your closing suggestion. "Be ready to listen, be ready to negotiate," said Post Senning. "You might have an idea. It's one thing to listen, but then there's a follow-up step. You also have to be willing to stay flexible and actually hear what you've just been listening to and reformulate your thinking in relation to it in terms of priming yourself mentally on the other side of that equation."
