THE BIG SILENCE

One of the biggest take home lessons I learned from reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is that while we may not control what happens to us, we have complete control over our reaction to it. Think about this for a moment, that in that that space between action and reaction, a choice is made by each person and in that choice lies power over life and death, right and wrong, prudent and imprudent.

Now, this is one thing in theory but it really sunk in a few years back when I had just started working for a high-level executive who needed some information immediately from another high-level executive.

So, I sent an initial detailed e-mail on a Thursday and hadn't heard anything by Monday morning. So, I sent a follow-up e-mail. Almost immediately, I got a response from this veteran executive, saying "Obviously you don't know my policy on asking twice. If you do it, I don't respond at all."

I was taken aback. I had no idea if he was serious or not, but I assumed he was since I had never met him before and would have no reason to think he'd approach with me with any type of jocularity.

And I started to fire back a smart ass e-mail, something along the lines of Sorry, I wasn't aware of your no-follow up policy. That has to work well for the quality of your work..

But I didn't.

I stayed my hand and kept quiet.

And within ten minutes I had the info I wanted from him in an e-mail. I responded to him immediately, thanking him for getting to it so quickly and apologizing for the indiscretion, promising that it wouldn't happen again.

And you know what, he responded in humor, something about keeping my boss's people in line.

And to top that off, this guy remembered my name and sought me out at the next all-associates gathering. He introduced himself, shook my hand, and we both laughed about his no-follow up policy (which apparently was legendary throughout the company and everyone was initiated into it at some point).

You never know who is going to be your next contact point within your network for a new job or opportunity so when you feel like burning a bridge, take a pause and make sure that you really don't want to get to the other side.

On the other hand, there are times when Fantastic Bastard's creedo applies: Why burn a bridge when you can blow one up?