I don’t know about anyone else but, at the very onset (or should I say onslaught?) of Covid-19 I had this feeling that it was not going to go gently into the night and just pass us by. No, as optimistically natured as I normally am, there was a voice inside me that said, Michelle, go purchase toilet paper… and I did. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t clean out the local grocery store, but I stocked up along with a few cases of Ensure and protein bars. Afterall, there are six of us in this house and four of them are 6’3” men!  Then the reality of it all set in… my husband began working from home and the college kids had to abandon their campuses and we realized we were encroaching on new territory; this was going to be a novel experience for everyone. Conference calls, zoom chats, college tests and assignments were being engaged in every room in the house. Text messages would ring out alerting everyone not to knock on certain doors because exams were in progress, task force meetings were taking place, and interviews were being conducted. You get the idea. Given my background as an executive coach in etiquette and protocol, I began seeing a pattern in the questions I was being asked. Questions ranged from, “How do I refuse a handshake?” to “How do I tell my boss that I am experiencing task saturation and I can’t be “on” seven days a week” to “How do I gracefully bow out of a virtual cocktail party when everyone knows that I am home?” Thankfully, I have the answers to these and other popular questions on my recent podcast linked below. My niece is the director of social media for the Arch Diocese of Washington D.C. and when she called to see if I was interested in talking about the do’s and don’ts of business etiquette during this time, I jumped at the opportunity to share some very useful tips! 

There are a few silver linings that have come from Covid-19: Families are spending more time together, there are dolphins in the canals in Venice, and husbands aren’t seeing nearly as many Target bags appear in their houses. For me, there has been the gift of time. I am honing my French skills, which I normally put on the back burner of my daily agenda.  I encourage everyone I speak with to pick a skill that will increase and improve their value proposition in the workplace when this is all over. (What we don’t want to do is binge watch episodes of The Office or Gilmore Girls, eat baked goods, and go back to the workplace five pounds heavier…seriously!)

In the past few weeks, the number one skill I have been asked to coach is the ability to use the phone effectively. Why? Well, because almost everyone under the age of thirty-five are texters. That means the art of conversation is not a skill that has been successfully developed. The good news is that this is a transferable skill and can easily be mastered.  In fact, a few years ago there was a world leadership conference that determined about eighty percent of millennials fear using the phone and would have a panic attack if that was part of their job description! If that sounds like you, please allow me to help you develop that skill during this time, so this time at home is productive for you. Learning to master the phone will be very liberating! You can’t believe how comfortable you can become and how much you can accomplish once you know the tricks and tips necessary for a successful call. It is often the difference between getting the job or not getting the job, closing the sale or not closing the sale, and getting someone to help you with something or walking away empty handed. Now, think of learning this phone skill in terms of that eighty percent I was talking about earlier… If eighty percent of millennials are threatened by this communication style, can you imagine the advantage you could have being in the twenty percent?!

I pray that all of you are safe and well in your homes as you read this and that the biggest inconvenience has been your lack of socialization and a dramatic reduction in your use of paper towels. Remember, this is a fantastic time to increase your skills and develop new ones – let me help! The podcast episode is linked below.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/60bi36Z6yoK3t0RaGNoPEX?si=6q8I-bM3THGmGwl1XoqAoQ