3 “Qualifier Phrases” to Avoid Using in Business (and other areas) if You Truly Have any Emotional Intelligence
There is a pandemic going on. No, not just COIVD-19. There’s a pandemic in the business sphere where people are over-qualifying their statements in a failed attempt to take the “sting” out of their comments — and guess what?
Not only do these qualification phrases not work, they often end up backfiring. Cheap qualifiers at the beginning of a sentence to break bad news or express disagreement is lazy. It presumes that because you’ve used a hackneyed preface, it gives you license to say whatever else that follows.
“To be honest…” / “Frankly…”
Why would anyone need to ever say this? Are you suggesting that under normal circumstances, you are not honest or frank? Anytime folks hear this phrase, they know you are setting them up with something harsh anyway. In fact, it often raises people’s defense mechanisms because the phrase is so commonly invoked without any thoughtfulness, that it completely backfires by triggering people to “brace for impact.”
You’re better off being respectful and giving the feedback directly.
Instead of:
“To be honest, I just don’t think this business plan is going to work. Here’s why…”
