Following on from last week, we’re re-visiting tact. This week we’ll look at some of the common examples of when you may be required to use your skills in tact to, hopefully, turn what could become a negative situation into a positive one.
1. Declining Invitations – this is probably going to be the most common situation you’ll come across where you need to use tact. Just saying ‘No!’ to an invite might come across as rude or insensitive, so you should try to soften the blow. A good way to do this is to make a positive comment first. So if we use an invite to a works dinner as the example, you could say ‘Thank you for thinking of me and I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time, but I won’t be able to attend.’ You can then end on another positive note, by saying, ‘I hope that I have a chance to come next time you go out.’ This is called a sandwich approach.
2. Gossiping – this can be a real issue in lots of work places. And, there’s nothing worse than being dragged into a situation where you feel like you’re being pushed into saying things you don’t really agree with. Think about this example:
You are at your desk when a couple of colleagues come over to chat. The conversation moves onto another colleague and starts to turn critical about the telephone manner she uses when she’s making sales. At the end of each statement the criticiser adds ‘Don’t you think so?’, whilst looking directly at you. How do you respond? You could say something positive, like ‘I know she may not be the best on the phone, but her sales figures are great, maybe we could learn something from her.’ Or you could try to deflect the conversation away from the target and onto something more positive by saying ‘I don’t really want to discuss her like this, why don’t we talk about something else?’ This makes it clear to the other people that you do not want to be pulled into gossip without offending anyone.
3. Giving Feedback – this can be one of the most difficult things to do when the feedback is not so good. There’s nothing worse than having to tell people that they really need to improve if they want to avoid further repercussions. So, you’ll need to be really tactful if you want that member of staff to remain positive and enthusiastic. One of the key things you can do is make sure you give feedback regularly, this way there’s not a huge list of negative things you have to address all in one go. Use the sandwich approach mentioned above – so start with something positive move on to something negative and end with something positive again. This way the person leaves with a good feeling rather than feeling that they’ve failed.
Hopefully, these examples will give you some idea of how you can use tact to make awkward situations into more pleasant ones. Use them and let us know what you think.
