8 Phrases You Should Never Say at Work

Choose Your Words Carefully

Sometimes the little things we say can have a positive lasting impression. Maybe your boss shared bad news about a project, and you thought of the perfect response to soften the blow. Or you won over a difficult client with just the right reply to his email. 

“I Can’t Do It”

Instead of telling your boss you can’t do something because you have too much on your plate (which may lead her to think she can’t depend on you), detail your to-dos and ask for her help in prioritizing them. For example, you might say that you would love to help with the client presentation, but you are currently working on the team status report. Which should you complete first?

This strategy also works for the related no-no phrase, “I don’t have time.” You should also try to avoid saying that you can’t do something because of a lack of knowledge or experience. Instead, approach a trusted co-worker and ask for a short demonstration, showing that you are eager to learn and complete the task on your own with a little bit of guidance.

“That Won’t Work”

Blurting out these words in the context of a brainstorming meeting with your colleagues shuts down all productive conversation and can make you look like the one with a bad attitude. Even if you really believe something is not possible or is a genuinely bad idea, focus on being constructive with your response rather than negative. You could phrase your input like this, for example: “That’s one approach, though here are some of the challenges we might face.”

Remember to be enthusiastic about the mission of your group and your organization, and make alternative suggestions that show you are ready and willing to contribute in a positive and meaningful way. Also, be careful of your body language. Eye rolling, sighing and sneering, for instance, communicate “that won’t work” just as loudly as words do.

 

“But So-and-so Got...”

If you grew up with older siblings, you probably recall going to your parents with something along these lines: “Why can’t I have a car? My sister got a car when she turned 16!” In the workplace, you may find out that a colleague got something special — whether it’s a bonus, a project you wanted, or a more flexible schedule. Whining about it won’t get you very far here either.

It’s impossible to know the details of everyone else’s situations, so always speak in terms of your own experiences and needs. Be specific about what you need and why you should get it, without mentioning other people (and without using phrases like “It’s not fair!”). And try to identify potential solutions to your gripes before you approach your boss, so that it sounds like you’re problem-solving not complaining.

"Guess What I Heard?”

Dishing the dirt at work is fun and nearly irresistible, especially if you’re bored or feeling unchallenged. Listen all you want, but refrain from contributing to conversations that could compromise someone’s reputation. Damaging stories spread like a conflagration and being nailed as the source can be a career killer. And even if the gossip seems harmless, you don’t want to develop a reputation as someone who can’t stop chattering away about other people or fueling rumors that later turn out to be false.

“It’s Not My Fault”

You already know this phrase doesn’t belong in the workplace, but when you’re accused of making a mistake, it’s easy to get defensive. After all, you don’t want to damage your career prospects, especially if you had little or nothing to do with the error in question. I made this mistake early in my career and didn’t do myself any favors. I’ll never forget my boss saying, “Let’s not waste time tattletaling. You need to fix this.” It was then that I recognized that taking responsibility is one of the elements that sets apart successful employees from unsuccessful ones.

Instead of looking to place blame, be solution-oriented. Help your boss figure out what the team can do to remedy the situation so that it doesn’t escalate further. And if you had any culpability whatsoever, show that you’ve learned from the experience and will approach things differently next time.

“At My Last Job”

Nothing turns people off like a newbie who waltzes in and says, “Well, at my old company, we did it like this.” The second this comes out of your mouth, people will think that if things were so swell at your old company, maybe you should go back. This is the last thing you want. For the sake of your reputation, use your first projects as an opportunity to observe how things are done at your new company. You’ll have your time in the sun soon enough.

7 'Soft' Skills You Need for Career Success

Want the secret to career success? Hint: It’s not just the mastery of a specific software program, excellent writing or organizational skills, or anything else that might show up on the list of must-haves on a typical job description. Rather, how well you succeed in your job, and in your career, often comes down to the marriage of those hard skills and so-called soft skills. 

Regardless of your industry, position or whether you’re content at your current job or looking for another, honing the soft skills will positively influence the way you interact with others, get along with your manager, approach conflict — and, ultimately, influence whether your career thrives or withers. 

Despite their importance, companies often struggle to articulate these skills, frequently don't screen job candidates for them and regularly neglect to coach employees on them until their absence has already caused serious problems. What are they? Here are seven soft skills that are essential for career success.

1. Emotional Intelligence

You might be the best in the world at what you do, but if you alienate coworkers and rub your managers the wrong way, no one is going to want to work with you. That’s where your emotional intelligence quotient, or EQ, comes in.

 

Understanding what makes your colleagues tick, how to build rapport and connect emotionally with them and how to manage your own and other people’s emotional makeup will pay off enormously at work: You’ll find yourself easily able to get along with people at all levels of your organization, equipped to choose the right battles (and the times to fight them!) and be prepared to finesse sticky situations.

 

Imagine a manager who delivers tough criticism on the day an employee receives scary health news or who presents a sensitive performance message as a “joke” in front of others. By contrast, a high-EQ manager is likely to be thoughtful about the right time to deliver difficult feedback — and to frame it deftly and sensitively when she does. And it’s not just managers who benefit from EQ; no matter how senior or junior you are, EQ can help you spot the right way to raise difficult issues, approach a prickly colleague and manage tough clients.

2. Ownership

Taking ownership of your work is a simple thing, but some people go through their whole careers without ever quite doing it. So what does it really mean, anyway?

 

I once asked an incredible assistant who ran a complicated office flawlessly what her secret was. Her answer? She thought of herself as the “CEO of logistics,” which led her to anticipate people’s needs and handle details without anyone needing to point them out to her. That’s what ownership is; you might not be the CEO of the company, but you’re the CEO of something — communications, invoicing or whatever you’re responsible for.

Taking ownership of your work means assuming responsibility for helping the organization as a whole succeed: being invested in the outcomes of your work, spotting and implementing ways to do things better and holding yourself accountable when things in your realm go wrong. In other words, you’re not just executing a series of activities assigned by someone else; you’re obsessing over the details and truly bearing the emotional weight of ensuring that your work is successful.

3. Staying Calm

Calmness is one of those traits that doesn’t always get appreciated until it’s absent. But if you make a point of staying calm, rational and objective, even when you're frustrated or angry, you’ll stand out for it. Plus, it only takes one instance of snapping at someone or slamming a door to get a reputation as The Angry One, and that’s a label that’s hard to shake. 

Calmness also tends to go hand-in-hand with low drama; people who are calm tend not to indulge in unconstructive interpersonal conflict and generally operate with cooperation and good will toward their colleagues. As a manager, I’ve always been grateful for the people on my team who I knew would navigate potentially contentious situations maturely.

4. Openness to Feedback

If you’ve ever worked with someone who got defensive at the slightest suggestion that she do something differently, you know how crucial being open to feedback is. And unless you don’t want to develop professionally and are comfortable stagnating exactly where you are today for the rest of your career, you’re going to need to grow and improve. Feedback plays a crucial role in helping you spot opportunities for that. But if you bristle and get defensive at suggestions of what you can do better, over time most people will stop giving you feedback at all.

Openness to feedback becomes even more important when you’re a manager. To manage well, you need to be almost obsessive about learning from experience, incorporating lessons into practice and adapting your approach to make it as effective as possible — which means being eager to identify ways you could perform better and genuinely wanting to hear dissent.

5. Polite Assertiveness

While too much assertiveness can become domineering, polite assertiveness is simply about addressing problems calmly and forthrightly and not shying away from difficult or awkward conversations. It means speaking up when something isn’t going right, not being afraid to bring new ideas to the table and not stewing in silence when you’re bothered by something.

 

Bad things happen when employees lack this quality. For example, I once worked with someone who was furious that his manager changed his schedule without talking to him first. When I asked if he had approached her about it, he said he hadn’t — and yet he was letting his resentment build to the point that it was affecting his work. Once he talked to her, it turned out the schedule change had been a simple mistake, which she easily corrected when he explained the problems it would cause him. But if he hadn’t finally spoken up, she wouldn’t have known and his anger would have festered. That would have been bad for him, and bad for his manager, too. 

6. Decency

It’s no surprise that decency is on the list, since we all want to work with colleagues who handle disagreements civilly, give others the benefit of the doubt, respect opinions that differ from their own and act with genuine care for other people. Organizations with great cultures put a premium on hiring for these characteristics and ensuring that employees model them.

 

And the higher up you go, the more decency stands out as a differentiator of great leaders in additional ways — from understanding that people have lives and families outside of work and that those will sometimes take priority to treating people with compassion and dignity during tough feedback conversations.

7. Integrity

Integrity at work means speaking up if you make a mistake that reflects poorly on you (rather than trying to soften or hide it), doing what you say you’re going to do, acknowledging when new information shows you were wrong and not being afraid to say “I don’t know.”

 

Building a reputation for integrity pays off in spades. When people know that your priority is to be honest and objective, not to protect yourself or try to make yourself look good, you’ll find that your opinion will be taken more seriously, you'll get the benefit of the doubt in he-said/she-said situations and, often, potentially contentious situations will go more smoothly. And if you’re a manager, when your team knows you’re a fair judge, they’re more likely to buy into your decisions, even when it doesn’t go their way.

Ignore the Advice of These 3 People

Everyone has one and wishes they didn’t: the unwanted advice-giver who loves to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong and offer his unsolicited opinion. Whether he’s a successful CEO or your brother-in-law, he seems to pop up just when you’re feeling unsure of yourself.

Unfortunately, in business, the leaders who really need good advice are the most vulnerable to bad advice. Entrepreneurs usually don’t have high-quality boards, rarely have a wealth of industry expertise and may be entering new markets with no precedent to draw on. While a little helpful advice can go a long way, bad advice is worse than no advice at all.

Here are the people to watch out for and avoid taking advice from:

The know-it-alls: Know-it-alls are overconfident because they’ve seen situations play out as expected in their industry and assume their advice can work for any industry. These people may sound smart and have tons of experience, but you should avoid letting their opinion drown out common sense. When their experience comes from scenarios that aren’t applicable to your situation, their advice isn’t relevant.

The overly cautious: In countless industries, advisors have counseled successful firms to take few chances and focus on incremental innovation. In all these industries, those who played it safe suffered from continued erosion of their profit pools until they either wentbankrupt or were acquired. Playing it safe is a fantastic strategy for maintaining the status quo in the short term, but you’ll lose in the long run to those who are willing to take calculated risks.

Those with vested interests: If you have to stop and think about whether someone has a conflict of interest, he does -- and his advice is tainted. Maybe he’s thinking of entering your market or stands to benefit if your competitor does well. He could even want to see your enterprise fail so he can hire you himself. His reason doesn’t really matter. If someone may have a conflict of interest, don’t take his advice.

So how do you get good advice when you need it most? Here are a few tips:

Ask highly specific questions. General advice is not your friend. When asking for advice, follow this format: This is the situation. Here is the decision point. What is your recommendation?

Find the right person. The right expert to ask is knowledgeable about your question, has no conflict of interest and is willing to speak to you in depth.

Give the right person a stake in your success. When you find the best advisor, bring him on as an official advisor. If he makes a concrete commitment to the board, give him an equity interest in making the right decisions.

Ask multiple advisors exploratory questions. Ask as many people as you can find for their view on a true “jump ball” strategic question. When you get differing answers, ask why the other’s answer is wrong. Ask how their own opinions could be wrong. Beware of people who say their answer is absolutely correct when the question truly doesn’t have a good answer. They are either naive or insecure.

Finally, don’t forget about the tools you already have. Launching a business can be daunting, and sometimes, very bright people who could do fine applying common sense will ask the wrong people for advice simply because they believe they need it. Trust your own judgment, and treat every piece of advice with a healthy amount of skepticism.