How can an administrator turn staff into professionals? Focus on attitude, says Cynthia R. Grosso, founder of the Charleston School of Protocol and Etiquette in Charleston, SC, and a speaker on corporate etiquette and professional success.
People think professionalism is action. It’s not, says Grosso. “It’s an attitude.” And mostly it’s an attitude of self-respect.
A professional attitude cannot be imposed
Developing a professional attitude has to be something staff want to achieve, cautions Grosso, “not something they have to do.” Otherwise, they won’t put forth the effort.
And what makes developing a professional attitude attractive to staff is the what’s-in-it-for-me, or the personal value it carries, which essentially is the fact that self-respect generates returned respect from the people who see it.
5 simple steps to professionalism
Grosso cites several factors that take staff to the professional level—all of them amazingly simple. But don’t stop with these, she says. Let staff develop other elements to add to their professional picture.
Step 1: Say hello
The most important factor of professionalism is also the most often overlooked: a personal greeting and an introduction.
In any business, the biggest complaint customers have is that they aren’t greeted when they come in,
Grosso says. A greeting “is a form of respect” for the client and at the same time “a form of self respect” for the staffer, because greeting someone opens the door to being greeted back.
If the phone is ringing and it’s not possible to speak to someone immediately, double the greeting when the call ends. Stand up “and make a big point” of giving a personal hello.
Greetings are important within the office as well. Too often staff get so focused on their jobs “that they miss the people.”
The personal benefit of this element of professionalism: people who greet others warmly and with respect get the same in return.
Step 2: Smile
Another important albeit small element of professionalism is smiling—at clients, at co-workers, and at the attorneys.
Professionally, it promotes client satisfaction. And for the staffer, there are several good outcomes. One is the fact that a smile makes the smiler feel better, because the action of moving the muscles to form a smile “sends positive reactors to the brain.”
Another benefit is that a smile indicates self-confidence, and people tend to respect and follow other people who show confidence, Grosso says. “A smile is the most positive thing anybody can do to influence others.”
The overall personal benefit: smiling makes an individual somebody other people want to be with.
Step 3: Go one step beyond
Yet another small element that leads to professionalism is what Grosso terms “the WOW! factor.” It’s the one-more-thing approach of giving more than people expect.
She cites a local tire store that always gives an extra something with a tire purchase, such as “we noticed your wipers were worn, so we replaced them free” or “your washer fluid was low, so we replaced it free.“
There’s a bottle of water on the console when the customer leaves, and there’s a flower on the seat for female customers.
Her advice is to ask staff to come up with ways to make clients leave thinking “WOW! that was nice.“
The legal profession is competitive to the point that your clients have lots of choices, and they will choose the office that offers that one more thing.
The personal benefit: clients view the staff as WOW! people.
Step 4: Put an end to sticks and stones
Still more professionalism can be achieved by ending the negative remarks.
The benefit to the office is obvious. A positive attitude creates a pleasant environment. The personal benefit is that plus more.
A staffer who gossips or speaks ill of peers or of the attorneys is personally destructive, Grosso explains. The negative talk undermines self thought, self confidence, and self esteem. And the people having to listen to it feel that way about the person doing the talking.
There’s irony, too, in that the person being talked about doesn’t hear what’s said and so goes on with no negative effect at all.
Step 5: Mind your manners
Finally, professionalism is manners and etiquette, and again, attitude makes the difference, Grosso says.
“Holding a door for another person isn’t an action but an attitude,” she says. The same is true of letting the door slam on that other person. It’s a demonstration of attitude, and people who have that type of attitude “live their whole lives like that.” They have homes and marriages and jobs that are as negative—and as unprofessional—as they are.
The personal benefit: manners and etiquette toward other people generate manners and etiquette toward the staffer who gives them.
Conclusion
Don’t expect to create professionalism in a day. Grosso points out that as administrator, you’ll have to remind staff often that their attitude is what makes them professionals and that being professionals is what brings them personal satisfaction.
