In Honor of Mother’s Day – Showing Appreciation and Gratitude

In my last post I spoke about Harvey Mackay’s classic networking book DIG YOUR WELL BEFORE YOU’RE THIRSTY. One recommendation of his I always try to do – if I see an article that might interest someone or an article about that person I send it off to the person.

When my May-June 2008 issue of the University of Pennsylvania magazine The Pennsylvania Gazette arrived in my mailbox, I read some of the articles, including the one on actor Kal Penn teaching a course at the University of Pennsylvania. Near the end of the article Penn praises a specific professor of his when he was a student at UCLA. It was a lovely tribute and I thought it unlikely the professor, who I know, would see the article.

I went online to the Gazette’s website and emailed the article to the professor. A couple of days later this is the email response I got:

Phyllis, thanks. That was very nice of you to send this to me. I thoroughly appreciated it, and our kids were exceptionally pleased. Without you, I would never have seen it. Steve

This is a wonderful example of showing appreciation and gratitude when someone does something nice for you. Obviously, if I ever see something else about him, I’ll be happy to send that to him also. On the other hand, if I hadn’t heard back from him, I’d be much less likely to ever send him anything again.

The moral of this story? Besides taking Mackay’s advice on sending people articles they might find of interest (and now with email it’s so much easier than when Mackay wrote the book), be sure to always thank people for thinking of you and doing nice little things for you. A good saying to live by: A little bit of thank you means a lot (especially to your mother).

college applications, jobs,
internships, manners

Good Manners in the Workplace Needed by New College Graduates

Yesterday I began reading the book “How to Succeed in Your First Job: Tips for New College Graduates” by Elwood F. Holton III and Sharon S. Naquin.

The premise of the book is that, because new college graduates have spent the last 17 years in school, their mindset is not the mindset necessary for success in the work world. Therefore, according to the book’s authors, these new college graduates risk stumbling badly because they react to the work world as they would a school environment.

Although I’d only read the preface and first four chapters, I found myself disagreeing with the book’s premise. The specifics of college that the authors list as radically different in the work world didn’t resonate with me.

For example, the authors listed “frequent, quick and concrete feedback” in the school world compared with “infrequent and less precise feedback” in the work world. I find this the exact opposite.

In most colleges today, students get very little feedback. In a large lecture course there may be one midterm and one final. The midterm can be six to 10 weeks into a course, at which point you could be failing without knowing it. In the work world, if you mess up your first day of work in an obvious way, you hear about it immediately from colleagues if not your boss.

The more I thought about the premise of the book the more I disagreed. Even the amount of flexible time a college student has in comparison to the structured time at work (another of the book’s comparisons) can be advantageous. If a student has learned how to manage his/her own time to complete deadline projects when there’s little structure, how much more so can this same student manage his/her time in a structured environment?

So, you’re thinking, why do young people often have a hard time at first jobs after college?

Number one, I suspect these people haven’t ever had an unpaid internship – a chance to get inside a professional work environment without the accompanying expectations of already knowing what they’re doing. This is just one reason I feel so strongly about internships for teens starting in high school, continuing in college, and whenever someone wants to make a career change. Unpaid internships can be an important learning experience for young people.

Number two, in my opinion the basic problem (other than total unfamiliarity with a professional work environment) is lack of MANNERS. That’s right, I said manners. The things that parents used to teach their children in those bygone days when children weren’t so distracted by 24-hour television and music channels, the everything-always internet, and so many after-school activities that there’s not even time for a sit-down family dinner every evening.

Basic manners training could go a long ways towards helping college graduates do well in the work world. Just the simple acts of saying “please” and “thank you” to colleagues, of showing appreciation for help (rather than taking help for granted), and offering to help others could all earn good marks for a new hire. Unfortunately, basic manners have not been taught to many young people.

What’s the moral of this post? Young people graduating college this spring shouldn’t panic that their years in college haven’t prepared them for success in the work world. These young people should, instead, buy a basic manners book and try very hard to practice good manners from the moment they step inside a workplace.

If these new young hires practice good manners in the workplace, they will be much appreciated by their colleagues – and perhaps these new hires will even be an inspiration for spreading good manners throughout the entire workplace. Now imagine that!