There are countless currencies in this world—money of course, but also time and attention. Whenever people spend either one of these on you, you can bet that they are (at least subconsciously) measuring the returns of their investment. You surely know this too: when you like to spend time with someone, or time and attention listening to something, it’s because you’ve decided that what you get out of it makes this worth your while.

Every time you open your mouth,  you’re asking people to spend both their time and their attention listening to what you’re saying.  A high ROI would mean delivering high value (information, entertainment, etc) in return for a small investment (a short amount of time.) A low ROI would naturally mean the reverse; such as making long-winded, repetitive sentences costing your listeners much in time and attention; yet delivering little in terms of value or entertainment. The longer you speak, the higher the price you’re making them pay, so the higher the value ought to be.

Low ROI has always been frowned upon in certain environments, be it geography (New York) or industry (finance.) But it’s even worse today; when both time and attention are at the highest premium. So—what’s your ROI?

In these turbulent times, key business relationships are more important than ever. Who can afford to lose the goodwill of clients, colleagues, or superiors? Yet the  anxiety-laden climate can lead people to make more mistakes than usual. And if you’re the one who has to point this out to them, it can be a true minefield— in a threatening environment, we tend to react defensively to any accusation.

When attempting to justify themselves, people will often turn on the accuser instead, because if you indicate something they’ve done has hurt you, they have two choices:

1. I’ve done something bad to a good person. Oh, how terrible of me!
Now, how likely do you think it is that they’ll want to stay in that mode? Not very. So instead, they’ll quickly switch to:

2. They say I’ve done something bad to them. Well then they must’ve deserved it, otherwise I wouldn’t have done that!

So how can you indicate the problem without emphasizing that it’s their actions which hurt/displeased you? Defuse and depersonalize.

Let’s take an easy example from home: you surely know to avoid out-and-out blame such as the accusatory, personal, and generalized “Why do you always leave your clothes on the floor?”

Indeed, you could more accurately say “When you leave your clothes on the floor, I feel upset” because let’s face it, it’s our decision to become upset. And best of all would be to not mention their actions at all: “When I see your clothes on the floor, I feel upset.”

And of course, tell them the corrective action you’d like to see, depersonalizing that too: I’d greatly appreciate if the clothes could go in the hamper. You can even offer to help with the solution (Would it help if you had your own hamper in your room?)