Great question!  In this situation, the tallest person takes the lead:

- If you are sharing an umbrella, the tallest holds it.

- If you are approaching someone, the taller person should lift his or her umbrella as they pass others to avoid a collision.

And as you approach your destination, don’t forget to give your umbrella a good “shake” outside to get as much of the water off as possible before entering the building.

Unfortunately, many high school graduates think a hand written thank-you note is outdated and old fashioned and that a ‘thank you text’ should work just fine.  If you need a little help to motivate your graduate in understanding the power of a well-written and timely thank-you note, local realtor, Wyatt Poindexter, has a remarkable example about the power of the pen:

While working at a Country Club in West Palm Beach, Poindexter’s college roommate, Bryan, met Donald Trump during a rained-out golf event.  The two gentlemen engaged in polite conversation and shared a firm handshake.  The following day, Bryan wrote a simple note to Mr. Trump.  The note expressed gratitude and appreciation to Trump for his “politeness” during their time together.  Not long after, Bryan received a call from the Trump organization, offering him a job as House Manager at the Trump’s West Palm Beach mansion.

Of course not all thank you notes are met with a job offer such as this; but they are met with a smile, sincere appreciation, and a reminder of how a simple gesture of “thanks” can brighten a day.

On a side note: If you know of a graduate who may need help keeping tabs on their gifts and thank-you notes, please share the “Thank you note and Event Manager App” with them.  Click on the iPhone image below for details.

First of all, we need to determine if the criticism being offered is “constructive” and is in our best interest, helping us to grow; or if it’s just “criticism” that someone is hurling our way because they’re having a bad day.  If you can easily identify it as the latter, let it roll and move on, knowing that it really wasn’t directed at you.  We’ve all heard of the finger pointing, where one finger is pointing at someone else, but the other four fingers are pointing back to the owner of the hand?

If it is truly “constructive”, then we might need to take a deep breath and step back.

I think for most of us (me included) our immediate response is one of defense.  If we start by stepping back, it helps to lower our defense and open ourselves to the possibility of growth, doing better, and overall improvement.  If the constructive criticism is offered via email, it’s easy to step back and come back to the email after we’ve had time to think through the comments instead of shooting back a response that we will forever be regretting.  If the constructive criticism is offered verbally, we can still “step back”, by offering a “thank you” first; knowing that for the most part, it takes someone who thinks highly enough of us to muster up the courage to offer the advice, and we can remind ourselves this is as an opportunity to grow.

If we also remind ourselves, that Constructive Criticism has an opportunity to open our eyes to something new; the next time someone “challenges” us with this process, we can dig deep and think through the topic, which will inevitably add value by making us (or the situation) better, and helping us to again be “thankful” for the comments.

What are your tricks for accepting Constructive Criticism?  We would love to know! Please share your comments below…

Yes, level of voice and tone are very important parts of effective communication. Research studies at UCLA by Albert Mehrabian show that 38% of our first impression is made by how we use our voice.  Your friend may not realize they are speaking too loudly, which in turn may be sending the wrong message to the people with whom they are communicating.  And of course, how you approach the subject of sharing this information, or constructive criticism, can be a bit tricky.

The goal with constructive criticism is to bring something to someone’s attention to assist him or her in doing better, improving themselves or the situation.  Unfortunately, constructive criticism is usually met with defense.

You can start with the Compliment Sandwich; offering a compliment, then the constructive criticism, followed by a compliment.  This helps to keep the situation positive.  Yes, it may be “sugar coating”, but if it helps the “medicine” to go down, then it does the job.

Make sure to focus on the point, not the person.  It’s the action that you are applying the constructive criticism towards, not the individual.

If the situation allows, add a bit of humor.  By approaching the topic in a light-hearted manner, it usually helps the recipient to be more open to the subject.

And of course how the person responds to the offer of constructive criticism is completely outside of our control.  Keeping in mind, we can’t control what other people do or say, the only thing we can control is how we react.  So know that you are doing the right thing by offering the advice, and hope your friend receives it in the same spirit.

For more on dealing with how others react, here is a previous post on “Hurt Feelings”.

In many cases, during a student’s road to graduation the “it takes a village” quote is all too familiar.  Many parents want to stand on the rooftop and shout it out… Wahoo!!!  He’s graduating!!!  Thank you for helping!!!

So let’s break down the options for sharing the good news:

Graduation Invitation:  This is an invitation to the actual graduation festivities.  Many schools have a strict limit on how many people may attend in support of each student.  This may determine your list for the “invitation” group.  If you want to have a party so more people can share in the celebration, you could host a graduation party and extend invitations to the other close friends and family who may have been left out of the ceremony itself.  As the recipient of an “invitation; if you are able to attend, a gift should be given to the graduate.  If you are not able to attend, you may still send a gift, but it is not required.

Graduation Announcements:  An announcement does not extend an invitation to an event; its sole purpose is to “announce” the news to whomever you think might be excited to know of the accomplishment.  Many people may have lost track of time and did not realize that Johnny is “already” a senior.  They would be excited to hear about this great stage in his life.  Those who receive announcements are not obligated to send a gift.  A hand-written note would be a great way to respond to the announcement, sharing your excitement for the achievement.  Of course, if the recipient of an announcement would like to send a small gift, they are welcome to do so.

With all of that being said.  Some parents will want to send announcements to everyone they know, others will choose to send them only to close friends.  I think the extent of the list will fluctuate for different families and situations.

And unfortunately, some people do send invitations and announcements as a ploy to receive gifts.  We can only hope that the invitation or announcement we receive was sent in the spirit of the occasion and respond accordingly.

A friend recently asked this question via Twitter:  Is it proper for a mother to host a baby shower for her daughter?

What an exciting time in your life, congratulations on the new grand baby!

Historically, close friends or coworkers of the expectant mother have been the ones to offer to throw the shower.  Sometimes extended family members such as an Aunt or Cousin may act as host.  As gifts are usually the main reason for the shower, immediate family members typically do not act as host as it appears a bit “self-serving”.

Of course, with every ‘rule’ there are exceptions.  Today, with families spread out across the country and literally around the world, you see parents or siblings hosting showers for a child, or sister, who does not live in the same town.  The family member plays host as an opportunity for close friends to share in the celebration while the mother-to-be is in town for a visit.

If you don’t have someone offer to host a shower: a fun alternative for you would be to throw a “sip and see” after the baby is born, where the guests are invited to see the new bundle of joy.

Enjoy this amazing time with your daughter.

Readers, if you know of someone expecting a baby, please tell her about the “Thank you note app”.  It’s a helpful tool to track of all the baby gifts and helps to keep the thank-you note process organized and efficient.

Click on the picture below to access the app via iTunes:

We’ve all received them… “fwd” emails.  Some are great and helpful.  Many are – well… not; they’re jokes, or junk.

If you plan on sending a message by using the “fwd” function, take a few minutes to clean it up and make it worthwhile to the recipient.  Start by taking all but one “fwd” out of the subject line.  Many email programs automatically do this for you, but it’s a good habit to check your subject line anyway.  Not too many people actually open and read the message that begins “Fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: This one is REALLY funny!”  Next, clean up the content of the email.  Remove all of the previous email addresses and user information from the body of the text so that the message contains only the information you wish to forward.

Once you’ve cleaned it up a bit, add a personal note at the beginning:

Something along the lines of, “Suzanne, I thought this one would be of interest to you.  Enjoy!”

If you’re sending it to more than one person, address it to yourself and use the BCC function to help alleviate the possibility of your friends email addresses being sent along with the next forward.

If you are forwarding something that is “too good to be true”, then it probably is.  There is a great resource to check the authenticity of emails floating around.  It is www.snopes.com.  Check out the email first to verify it’s content before sending it on.

And last but not least, the fwd-ing of chain letters such as “send this to 10 people within the next 5 minutes and something REALLY great will happen”, don’t work.  Save yourself the 5 minutes of anxiety (waiting for that said “great” thing to happen) and hit delete.

If you like to get into the spirit of the day and you’re busy scheming and planning the perfect prank, always ask yourself  “how would I feel if this joke were played on me?”  Also, keep in mind the timing of your prank.  It may be April Fool’s Day on the calendar, but if you’re timing is wrong and if your prank is unprofessional – you may end up being the Fool.

If you would like us to work with your staff or team to create a unique version of “Charm School” for your company, shoot us an email or give us a call.  It’s actually quite a bit of fun!

For more information about MIT’s “Charm School”, you can watch a recently aired special which appeared on the CBS News Sunday Morning Show:  http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7400882n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

The waltz was first introduced in Vienna in the late 1700’s as one of the first dances where couples faced, and held, each other in a “closed” position.  Until this point, most of the dances were orchestrated group affairs; the “closed position” had been reserved for married couples.

The waltz started to gain momentum and popularity in the 1810-20’s.  Many where shocked by the “closed position” of the couples and often referred to it as being “riotous and indecent” well into 1825.  At that point, it started to become widely accepted, blazing the trail for the creation of many other ballroom dances.

Many times when we’re faced with change; our first thoughts may not be ‘riotous’, ‘indecent’, or ‘scandalous’, but instead might be, ‘it’s not broken’, ‘the process works just fine’, ‘we don’t need change’.  But so often we find, that when we take it all in and open ourselves to the benefits of the change … we realize, it was much needed and makes for a nice new ‘dance’ step in our day.