How honest should you be when someone asks for help?

There are times when telling the whole truth is simply cruel, as when a doctor can choose whether to tell a dying patient in clinical detail how his health will decay, I wrote 25 years ago in a column about how high-profile figures had been caught in a lie. “There’s great room for discretion, for knowing when not to speak,” Sissela Bok, the author of Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (Vintage Books, 1989) told me back then.

But how honest should you be when someone asks you for their opinion on something on which they’ve been working hard and about which they are clearly quite proud? If a friend or colleague has, for example, been working on a cover letter for a job, a letter to the editor of a publication, a grant proposal, an opinion column, a book, or other similar efforts and he, she or they asks you for your feedback, how honest should you be?

Presumably, if the person is asking you for feedback they want your feedback so they can make whatever they are working on as strong and clear as it can possibly be. There are times, however, where some people asking for feedback simply want confirmation of the brilliance of their existing effort. In the latter case, the result of offering constructive criticism may result in a bit of a rift between the asker and the respondent.

I get asked regularly to review work for people. When it’s work done by a student for class, the expectation is that they will receive as many constructive comments as I can muster and I try to deliver. But often it’s a friend or colleague. I have no way of knowing at the outset if they are simply looking for confirmation of their brilliant effort or if they truly want comments that I believe might make what they’ve done stronger. (A hint of the latter is often when the request to me is prefaced by a comment like: “All of my friends love this. What do you think?”

What’s the right thing to do in such situations?

For those asking for feedback: If you really don’t want feedback and might resent any feedback you receive, the right thing is not to bother asking. It would be better if you truly thought that feedback might improve what you’ve done, recognizing that you don’t have to take all or any of the suggestions someone offers. But if you are incapable of accepting feedback and really only want a sign off on your existing brilliance, don’t waste the other person’s time.

For those giving feedback: The right thing is to be honest, but to be clear and specific in your comments. Stay focused on the work itself and how it might be improved rather than judging the person because he doesn’t know how to use a reflexive pronoun correctly. Whatever the project is, it’s good to remember that it’s the other person’s work, not yours. In giving feedback, your role is to try to assist them in making their work as strong and clear as it can be.

For readers of my column: I continue to appreciate the feedback some of you regularly send, often about how I might do better. I will continue to try.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

When a service provider disappoints, what do we owe them?

What, if anything, do we owe service providers when we decide to no longer use their services? The question seems a simple one. Many of us have left cable service or cell phone providers because of consistently poor service or outrageously high prices.

Beyond ceasing to pay our former provider after breaking up, we rarely if ever feel the need to explain why we are leaving. Occasionally, the old provider might send an impersonal email or letter letting us know it really, truly missed us and wanted to woo us back. But where were these “baby, I love you” letters when we were waiting on hold for 37 minutes before being disconnected? We’ve moved on. Nevertheless, old providers will persist in trying to woo us back.

But what about when the service provider is not some large impersonal corporation where the only employee we might ever have seen was the person sitting in a company van in our neighborhood? If we know the person whose services we are severing, do we owe them an explanation?

A reader we’re calling Bob had been using an accountant we’re calling Zack to file his annual income tax forms. Bob had met Zack when Zack was a CPA with a large accounting firm that had done work for the company where Bob worked. They had made idle chit chat and struck up a cordial relationship before Zack struck out to launch his own accounting firm.

The first two years went well. Bob would call to set up a meeting with Zack after he’d filled out the tax organizer Zack had sent him. They’d discuss his taxes, and Bob’s tax forms would arrive for his signature shortly after. In year three of their relationship, after Bob showed up for his annual appointment, he found himself meeting with Ted, a recently hired junior accountant at Zack’s firm.

Bob was disappointed that Zack had never called him to tell him he would be shuttling him to a junior member now that the firm was growing. That disappointment grew and Bob decided to find a new accountant.

Months later, Bob ran into Zack at a holiday party at the company where they had met. Once again, they fell into idle chit chat that led to Zack mentioning to Bob how disappointed he was that he had never called or emailed him to let him know he was changing accountants.

Not knowing how to respond, Bob said nothing, but wonders if he owed Zack, his accountant, an explanation.

He doesn’t. He had every right to be disappointed that Zack never mentioned he’d be moving him to a junior associate, which would have been the right thing to do. If Zack had told Bob his reason it might have helped Bob to see the wisdom of providing future clients with such information, but Bob had no obligation to help Zack run his business better.

When services no longer meet our needs, regardless of the reason, we have no obligation to stick with those services if we have other options. Service providers would do well to remind customers how much they love their business while they are still in the fold and better yet to show them the respect that makes this point for them.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Is it OK to embellish our accomplishments?

Is it ever OK to exaggerate your accomplishments?

Several years ago a colleague pointed out to me that another former colleague of ours had listed himself as the founding editor of a publication we knew he’d contributed to but hadn’t founded. A few weeks ago, another colleague from the same publication exchanged texts with me about a different former colleague who made a passing reference in a social media post to a website he’d launched where we remember him being an entry-level employee. (One of us remembers him as an intern. Each of us is certain he didn’t launch the site.)

I was listening to a podcast the other day where one of the hosts lists among his many accomplishments his own radio show. While I know the podcaster is a frequent guest on someone else’s radio show, it’s not really the podcaster’s radio show, even if it sounds more impressive to say so. I do enjoy his appearances on that radio show and would have found it impressive enough to mention that he’s a regular guest.

Do such embellishments matter?

If such exaggerations were listed on a resume or curriculum vitae and were discovered, they likely would indeed matter. Reports of people who have lied about their credentials when applying for a position only to find themselves removed from that job as a result are fairly abundant. They’re also not new. I wrote about a high-profile case about 20 years ago involving the president of the U.S. Olympic Committee who apparently had not earned the doctoral degree she claimed.

But the fear of getting caught exaggerating or outright lying should not be the motivation to avoid embellishment accomplishments. Granted, such embellishments may start as what are perceived to be small tales to boost a profile. But often these small tales take on a life of their own and can easily turn into larger lies that need to be fed. For those who engage in such embellishments, I suppose, the imposter syndrome is not a psychological condition so much as a reality of their own making.

There is a line between trying to paint yourself in the best possible light and claiming ownership of accomplishments that never happened. The former might include a well-wrought cover letter using strong action verbs and vivid stories to inform a prospective employer what you’ve done. But it doesn’t include allowing your exuberance to cascade over into fabrication.

The right thing is to be truthful no matter how boastful you choose to be. If you want to build trust with others, own your accomplishments without feeling the need to make stuff up.

If being truthful isn’t motivation enough, then go ahead and remember that it’s often not the small lies we tell that trip us up. It’s the lies we tell to cover those lies that do us in. Whether you’re applying for a job or posting on social media, remembering that there are those who know if you’re making stuff up out there. Let them and others appreciate you for who they know you to be and for the stuff you’ve actually done. It’s likely impressive enough.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

    

Should you correct email sender on factual errors?

When, if ever, should you correct someone who spreads factually incorrect information to you and others on email?

Last month, The Right Thing marked its 25th anniversary of running as a column. A reader we’re calling Harris has been reading and responding to the column for more than a decade, after first discovering it when it ran in a North Carolina newspaper. Harris is an attentive reader, offering both praise and correctives when they are called for.

A few weeks ago, Harris wrote to tell me about an email-only connection he had developed with a man in his area several years ago based on their “common political outlook and interest in the news.” The man regularly forwards a lot of political cartoons and commentary to Harris.

But recently, after Harris started fact-checking some of the man’s missives, Harris found some claims in the emails to be false.

“I politely asked him not to send things to me that he hasn’t verified,” wrote Harris.

Late last month, Harris and several others on an email chain received a video from the man with a video with the sarcastic comments “Thank you, Democrats” and “Sad but true” preceding the video link.

“Regrettably, I found multiple sources that said the video wasn’t true,” wrote Harris. “Normally, I would have just ignored it, but then I received a 'reply-all' email from one of the other recipients saying, 'well, damn this is scary as hell.'”

Harris finds it unfortunate that the man shows the email addresses of all the recipients, none of whom Harris knows.

Harris asks if he should email the responder to “ease her pain,” email all the recipients and the man to set the record straight, email only the man to suggest he send a correction, or just mind his own business.

“I’m inclined towards the latter,” wrote Harris, in part because after he learned the man’s wife had died recently, he had called him for the first time to offer his condolences and suggest they might meet for lunch “when he gets his life back in order.”

“I believe in ‘truth, justice, and the American way,’” wrote Harris, “but it gets complicated when feelings are involved.”

While Harris is showing grace by not wanting to criticize the man for spreading an error-filled email, that alone should not be enough to stop him from emailing him to let him know the facts in his recent email were wrong.

Harris had already asked the man not to share un-fact-checked forwards with him. And while the man was grieving, that grief did not stop him from sending the email. If Harris believes it’s important to let him know the facts in the email were wrong, the right thing is to email him to let him know.

Were it me, I would email the man directly and let him decide whether to send a corrective to the entire list. Harris might also take that moment to ask the man if he could blind copy his recipients rather than have all their email addresses visible on the emails he spreads.

He could also remind him he’d prefer to be taken off the list of emails that aren’t fact-checked.

If he’s still up for an in-person lunch, he can lead with that – all the more reason to email him alone and not all those on the email string unless he’s looking for a bigger crowd at the lunch table.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

What should I do with misdelivered mail?

A reader we’re calling Cliff wrote that every time his regular U.S. mail carrier goes on vacation, he ends up getting mail meant for his neighbors that is misdelivered to his house.

“I can always tell when there’s a substitute on duty,” Cliff wrote, noting that often it’s only the mail from his next-door neighbor, but sometimes it’s mail meant for four or five different houses along his street.

If Cliff happens to be on his front porch when the substitute mail carrier arrives, he checks the mail and will hand back any misdelivered pieces. But most often, Cliff only discovers the errors long after the mail carrier is gone.

Cliff wants to know what the best thing to do is. Put the mail back in his own box with a note to the mail carrier? Drop the mail meant for others into a postal box up the street from his house? Call the local post office? Or simply put his neighbor’s mail in their mailboxes? Cliff also wants to know if it’s OK to simply toss anything that looks like it’s junk mail with a neighbor’s name on it.

I am not an expert in federal laws regarding U.S. mail, but Cliff should not destroy any mail addressed to someone else even if he deems it to be junk. That decision about junkiness should be left to the intended recipient.

Any of the options Cliff asked about seem reasonable, though it’s not likely that calling the local post office will help a great deal if the substitute mail carrier changes every time the regular carrier is on vacation.

If Cliff knows his regular mail carrier well enough, he might want to take the time to let her know about the recurring misdeliveries when she is on vacation. The regular mail carrier might have advice on how best to proceed.

She might advise Cliff that calling the local post office might actually have some positive affect. Or she might be willing to let others at the post office know about the recurring issues.

My experience with local postal carriers in the city where I live has been largely positive. I once wrote about my former mail carrier (now retired) who spent months tracking down three boxes of books meant to be delivered to me that somehow ended up on someone’s porch several blocks away.

While Cliff putting the misdelivered mail back in his box or dropping it in the mailbox up the street might get the mail to its intended recipient at some point, the most expedient thing might be for Cliff to walk next door or up two or three doors to give the intended recipient his mail.

Granted, Cliff has no obligation to do the mail carrier’s job for him. But the simplest and most direct solution seems to be to just give the right person their mail.

Again, I’m no expert in federal U.S. mail laws, but taking a few moments to get something that belongs to someone else strikes me as a neighborly and right thing to do.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.