How to avoid being rude unknowingly

The simple art of being polite no matter what.

In the context of corporate culture, being polite can take various shapes and forms. It is not as simple as being polite to your next-door neighbour or your mailman, security guard, grocery store uncle or your friends/family.

Having corporate politeness might still require you to be harsh, blunt and show aggression but carried out in a way that allows for "on-paper" politeness.

This post is not about that, though.

In this post, I aim to write some of my thoughts around how it is possible, in the corporate setting, to come across as impolite without intending to do so. This tends to be a very common mistake carried out unknowingly by the vast majority and I have seen it become a deal breaker (or maker when done correctly) in many situations.

The following are my thoughts on how to always ensure that your communication is always polite:

• Age-old cliche, but always use "please" and "thank you". I was amazed at how uncommon this has been. I have an internal documentation for my team that specifies this. I figure that the reason for forgetting this is because spoken English in India may not always include such terms. Perhaps because of Hindi being such a majority language in this sub-continent, where there are other ways to show respect and courtesy that are baked into the grammar (respectful terms like "aap" and "tum" and "hain" and "ho") while in English, there is an absolute need for words like Please and Thanks. For example, there is a stark difference between "Send me the PPT you presented today" and "Please send me the PPT you presented today" (Im sure your own mind voice read the former in a more aggressive tone).

  
  

• Get onboard the emoji bandwagon. They are an integral part of language today. It is not childish or frowned upon, it is useful when used correctly. I personally prefer just going with a simple addition of " :) " to some of my emails right at the end, when I close with something like "Please let my team know if you need anything further from us :) ". An emoji such as ☺️ might be overkill sometimes but a " :) " rarely fails you. If ever in doubt about how your email reads, whether the tone seems blunt or rude, try adding one of those somewhere in your text and you will see a different tone emerging.

  
  

• The objective of the email is to display a certain degree of annoyance or displeasure: You can still have an overall polite tone to the email by opening and closing with weapons of politeness while sandwiching your displeasure between this. For example:

Hey Shushant,

Hope you are well! Happy Friday, we made it :)

I just wanted to point out that most of the reporting work that you did this week was in poor form, with a lot of the insights having been copied from past reports with very little effort being made to show variations of thought or depth of analysis.

This is the kind of reporting that loses us accounts and course correction is required mate. Note that we are monitoring your work closely now, and next week's reports would need to need to show stark improvement, without which we will be forced to take performance related actions. I have attached my feedback on your latest report. Have a look and make corrections.

I know you have it in you, so I'm looking forward to seeing improvements mate.

Have a great weekend :)

Cheers,

Bhaskar

• In the context of short-form conversations such as whatsapps or DMs, refrain from short sentences. The human mind tends to read short sentences as blunt sentences. Try reading these out in your mind:

  1. "okay. send later"

  2. "Can you do quick?"

  3. "No, I won't"

  4. "not today, tomorrow maybe"

If blatant irritation is the objective of your tone, then go for it. But several times, the person Im speaking to is not trying to be rude, but because of what I have heard several people term as "not being good at whatsapp-ing", they come across as either rude or disinterested, neither of which reflects on the reality of the situation.

So if you are trying to show genuine interest in your DMs, the least you can do is write out complete sentences.