We often talk about how businesses have changed and how people are now working in hybrid models. Many employees are becoming entrepreneurs and business owners. As a result, they are often overwhelmed and have to give priority tasks and time blocks and improve efficiency in their business. I’m happy to chat about these topics anytime, but that’s not what this blog is about.
Have you ever reached out to someone via social media, email, or text for a potential business interaction and then been ghosted? I’m not talking about dating, but rather business interactions. I don’t want to sound old-fashioned, but I’m appalled by this behavior. It’s something that I would never have considered doing in a business environment, or in a personal environment for that matter.
Today, there seem to be many people reaching out who are scammers or only interested in selling things to us. No one likes dealing with these types of people. However, when you’ve engaged with someone and started an email or text correspondence, or bought a product or service, you wouldn’t expect them to disappear and ghost you.
Unfortunately, my brother and I, and other business owners I’ve spoken to have encountered this type of behavior. Based on our experience these have been mainly 30-somethings who are not used to having hard conversations. Being able to say no you can’t help someone isn’t always pleasant, but it’s a necessary part of business.
Knowing how to respond to such situations is a valuable skill that can be useful in various areas of our lives, including business development, job hunting, and asserting or protecting ourselves. Therefore, it is important to learn and develop this skill in order to handle hard conversations effectively and to achieve success in different aspects of life.
When you rely heavily on communicating through your phone, such as texting or social media, and lack the skills to have difficult conversations, your body’s natural “fight or flight” response (conceived by Walter Cannon), can be triggered, leading you to ghost someone instead of facing the conversation.
Having a background in sales, I was always happier to have someone say “No” than to string me along or to just stop communicating.
If this were a cartoon, you could illustrate it by having two people standing opposite each other. They start talking, have two or three interactions, and then one of them just stops talking. The other person keeps talking, waving their hands to get their attention, but there’s no response from the other party. As silly as this sounds, that’s actually what’s happening when you’re being ghosted.
It’s a shame that ghosting might be the direction human beings are embracing: a lack of real interaction, turning on your heels, and running when the conversation gets tough. You can imagine how other things in life will be a challenge if ghosting is your go-to response.
I hope we can start to engage and turn this around, that this is not a norm that we see increasing in a business environment. I know I will continue to have as many live conversations as possible. What will you do?
