Thanks Steven. Accounting professionals are a different brand of people, lost in their numbers, processes and systems. 🙂 I doubt they take it lightly but when one is focused on 1 area, we often use words and phrase that are detached from the human perspective. A good point. Thanks!

My pleasure Julia. Delighted you found the analysis useful.

Thanks April!

Dressing according to the work culture is important, Marquita. Your experience reminded me of the time I was working in Copenhagen where the dress code is informal and had a shock the day I saw my colleagues dressed like Britishers. 🙂 It turned out they were going to meet a new client who was British and were dressing for the part. Adapting to the need of the hour is important, as you and Natasha have pointed out. Thanks for enriching the conversation!

Thanks Sanjay. I’ve seen the SMS lingo being used during messaging by millennials and while I too get it, it doesn’t bode well for their careers if that is the same lingo they’re using at work. I agree with you that businesses need to find the sweet spot for baby boomers as well as the younger generation.

Thanks Julie. Simply removing those words from our vocabulary and using more empowering ones can make a big difference to our presence and self-confidence.

About a month into the job the other managers organized an intervention and asked me to “lighten up!” I was still wearing suits and talking like I was negotiating a contract (which made some feel like I was talking down to them), while everyone around me was in shorts and getting in touch (literally) with the animals we cared for and I needed to do a better job of fitting in. They weren’t mean about it, in fact, we all had a good laugh. But that was an important lesson for me that I’ll surely never forget.