The Attitude of Gratitude - Replying does not mean Answering

Daniel Ng

The Attitude of Gratitude - Replying does not mean Answering

In the ever increasingly connected digital world, it most times seem that the more we are connected, the less we communicate.

That has impacted not just what we say to one another but how we respond to each other and has sometimes completely lost the social etiquette of REPLYING.

REPLYING does not mean you only do it when you have the answer or the solution to the question posed. REPLYING is a polite attitude to tell the person who asks that you saw it, and is taking action to solve or find the answer or asking others to help, and not have the person wait is your silence as you go about looking for the answer or help.

Why is REPLYING important (even when you do not have the answer)?

It tells the person that you are looking for the answer. He or she does not therefor activate another channel to help because you were silent. This is an efficiency discussion as a same challenge, because no one replied saying that they are on it, may cause chaos and confusion in having duplicate work done for the same challenge;

Define the expectation in the timing of looking for the solution. Tell the person who asked to give you 5 minutes, till the end of the day, or week to get it done. If the timeline is unacceptable, a discussion will ensue and an agreement done to scope out the timing;

Common courtesy to advise your approach, timeline and willingness to help. Silence in this case is not golden.

In the context of social media, if you sign up to participate, you have signed up to greater cause. For LinkedIn, if come one asks you for help or asks a question, you could either say you will or you cannot. Do not keep silent.

Social Media etiquette is Social Etiquette gone Digital.

Daniel Ng

Exco and Chairman of Membership Committee at Smart Cities Network

A passionate leader with extensive Asia Pacific experience in general management, marketing, sales, operations, government relations, communications (Internal, PR & AR) and in building teams of professionals for startups, scale-out enterprises and SMBs. Supported businesses from its startup phase of low million dollars target to one that generated US$500 million across APAC, with a highlight of building the Volume Storage Business for IBM Asia Pacific from zero to US$33 million in a year. Developed Initiatives that powered the transformation of skills for Open Source and Big Data - Red Hat Open Source Collaborative Innovation (OSCI) Initiative and Cloudera Big Data Skills Enablement (BASE) Initiative to complement their leadership in technology and solutions. Led companies like IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat, Cloudera in various capacities and lived in Asia Pacific in places like Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China; and Canada, Daniel is fluent in English, Mandarin, Malay and 4 other Chinese dialects. A trusted advisor to organisations like Singapore Chinese Chambers of Commerce & Industry (SCCCI), MAD Academy and OpenGov Asia; and was mentor to Singapore Management University (SMU).