During his inconsistent first 20 years in a business environment, Tom Dowd learned lessons, both positive and negative, which transformed into shared professional success. The experiences guide readers to differentiate themselves and enable them to work smarter—not harder—to thrive in corporate chaos that, due to the current economic conditions, has taught the employed and unemployed alike to simply try to survive.

Following is the next chapter in Dowd's book, The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a cynic to a professional in the corporate world. Earlier chapters are linked at the end.

5. Stop and Smell the Roses—or At Least Stop and Say Hi

We constantly hear how busy or stressed people are. Personally, I think this topic in the workplace has overtaken the weather as the top subject matter at the water cooler. In my opinion, we have all the time in the world—it is a matter of our choice of how to use it. We are running around manically picking up documents off the printer, emailing something important, multitasking, and jumping on conference calls. I get it. We have business to take care of.

I am a naturally fast walker. I like to get to places in a straight line and typically do not deviate from my path to get to my destination. I wouldn't say that I am always in a hurry, but I like to be efficient. The simple act of walking fast applied an unflattering label to me professionally. I was often accused of being unapproachable. Why? I was just going where I needed to be. I always seemed to give a quick smile, I thought.

What people see is all they have. They saw my eyes forward, the straight face saying, "I am on a mission." The quick smile was not enough to elicit a response. For the most part, there usually was something to do or a place to get to, but not always a "mission." I was unintentionally closing people out.

Tom has more than 20 years of experience in the financial industry in management and leadership roles, and runs his own business, Thomas Dowd Professional Development & Coaching, as a speaker, author, trainer and coach. Tom developed a series of management presentations into a speaking program called "Powerful Professional Transformation: Unleashing Leadership." The speaking engagements turned into "The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World," a book detailing Tom's own professional growth based on lessons learned in his career. "Transformation" received honorable mention in the business category at the 2012 New England Book Festival. Tom has since written his second book "From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide."

Tom is currently the vice president of education for Dirigo Toastmasters Club in Belfast. Toastmasters International is a supportive learning environment of more than 270,000 members worldwide looking to improve communication and leadership skills. As a founding member of the club, Tom has been involved in Toastmasters since September 2008. Tom holds advanced communication and advanced leadership certifications with Toastmasters International, including High Performance Leadership certification. In November 2011, Tom was selected as the District 45 Toastmaster of Year, which represents more than 100 clubs in the states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and the three Eastern Canadian Provinces of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Tom has also exhibited consistent success when competing at the division (state level equivalent) and district levels in Toastmasters speech contests, which include humorous, inspirational, impromptu and evaluation events. He was the Table Topics Impromptu 2012 District Champion. Additionally, he is a member of the National Speakers Association and a member of the Camden Lions Club.

Tom graduated from the University of Delaware in 1990 with a Communication degree, concentrating on interpersonal and organizational communication.

Tom currently lives in Camden with his wife and three daughters.

In all of our busy worlds, we have only a finite amount of time in each day. We must decide how to use that time. Some people like to get involved in social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), while some like to text message the person at the desk next to them. The use of electronics and the ease of virtual communication have negatively impacted our ability to even want to have a personal conversation with the people we spend a lot of time with at work. Even with the ease of electronic communications, we close people out when our faces are buried in our mobile devices checking emails or simply giving a head nod to someone while a cell phone is glued to our ears.

Ask yourself the question, "Do I know the name of my co-worker's spouse?" The message isn't to drop everything you are doing and become inefficient at work just to get to know someone's spouse's name, kids, or pets. The message is to take a couple of minutes, when it makes sense, to establish a relationship with the people you work with. In some cases, it may be to re-establish a relationship with someone at a different personal level. In addition to just making someone feel valued and appreciated, the personal aspect of the job has huge benefits to the professional side.

When I managed the hardest working people in any company, the front line people who worked directly with our customers, I learned to make it a point at the beginning of every day and at the end of every day to tap the chairs of the people I worked with to say hello and thank them for their efforts. I had seen a few very well respected, senior leaders do this for years. I started doing it myself because I wanted the perception of floor presence. I kept doing it because I learned so much about people just by asking about their weekends, the ball game, or the dance recital. It created new questions and discussions for other days. I liked to surprise people with a question about their sons or daughters, or ask about a sick relative. I didn't realize how much I was getting out of it, and how the people I worked with appreciated it.

The most important part was the thank you I wanted to provide them for coming in that day to take care of our customers. It seems like Management 101, but I must have missed that day of class early in my career. However, if it is fundamental management, then why was I one of the few people doing it in the management ranks? I actually put it on my calendar to walk on the floor at certain periods of time to thank them for their efforts.. The appointment pop-up in the midst of a typically busy day was a constant reminder that my success was directly tied to the people doing the hard work. People often thanked me for investing the short amount of time to do this. This observation also did not go unnoticed by them. Stop and smell the roses, and find the value of a simple greeting.

6. Send a Note to Say Thank You, and Mean It

The typical email and instant message exchange at work ends with "thanks" or even "thx," to which the receiver responds, "np" (no problem). People are appreciative of the assistance and support they receive, but it often feels so ineffective because of the overuse of one word: "thanks." There seems to be no time or effort dedicated to it. Don't get me wrong—I'm sure the people I help are appreciative of my efforts. However, the perception of that quick "thanks" because it is more muscle memory than genuine recognition may take away from the heartfelt feeling of that appreciation.

If an instant "thanks" response came within seconds from the person you helped, it probably even caused a little extra effort on your part to go back in and delete it. I have caused some debate at work when I've broached the subject that I have a large amount of "real" emails I need to get to in a day. The point is that I like to be efficient and don't like to waste time. I don't want to be misinterpreted, because I like a pat on the back as much as anyone. However, I don't see the value of a message where someone took an extra six key strokes and hit send.

I have often struggled with addressing a lack of genuine sincerity of many of these quick and thankless "thanks" responses. My message is that if I do something for you in the course of my normal job responsibilities, I don't need the thank you—I will do it for you anyway. It may be my job, or I want to just help out a teammate. That is good enough for me. If I am constantly helping you out specifically, and you want to invest the time to individually thank me with a phone call or heartfelt email, I would appreciate the gesture and take notice of the invested time you took to do it.

The genuine meaning comes when the receiver perceives the feeling behind the sender's intentions to say thank you. When the sender adds a little note that mentions specifically what they thought was special from you, this little touch makes a world of difference. As a recipient, I feel more grateful for that type of note. As a sender of thank you notes, taking the small amount of time to handwrite one is also impactful. Likewise, adding a few sentences to an email or recognition note will add a smile to anyone's day.

In any case, I won't get into a contentious argument in the professional environment about the etiquette of all thank you delivery and methodology. I simply want to drive home the point to ensure that the recipient feels the effort that you put into thanking them.

Finally, the recognition should also be immediate. I have seen too many examples of formal recognition months after the event that triggered it. The instantaneous response shows you are paying attention—as long as it is more than "thx." I like to build time into my schedule once a week for about fifteen minutes to reflect upon the efforts of others to send notes based on recent performance. Try it—you will make someone's day. You do not have to thank every person for every email that you received in your inbox during the week. Try to think of a memorable experience and genuinely thank the people who deserve it—I bet you will have a smile on your face, too.

7. Learn to Communicate Assertively

Many people internalize their thoughts and feelings. These thoughts may build up over time and cause pent-up frustration in the wrong circumstances. Some negative thoughts may gain momentum and may impact the future effectiveness of what you are trying to accomplish, and even impact a relationship that is being established because of a misunderstanding that needed clarification.

As stated previously, I have a tendency to be an introverted individual and have been known to internalize feelings. I have often said, to myself, "I wish they wouldn't do that," or, "I wish they would stop...," or, "I wish (fill in the blank)." I have had to make a concerted effort to push myself through these types of random thoughts, and make it a point to have a conversation, especially if I want to ensure that all parties involved are on the same page.

I was flying across the country on a last minute red-eye flight from California to New York. My originally scheduled flight had been cancelled due to foul weather. I'll even toss in the fact that I had been bumped up to first class before the other flight was cancelled. Since I had to switch airlines and make same-day arrangements, most of my normal preferences, such as window seat and front of the airplane, were not available. Unfortunately, I was given a middle seat on an airline that seemed to have smaller seats than I was used to. I was not in the most pleasant of moods as I boarded the plane.

A young woman approximately twenty-five years old was sitting next to me, to my right towards the aisle. On a flight that takes over five hours and flying through the night, I was ready to go to sleep. The airline was gracious enough to give us covers for our eyes and the seatbacks had televisions to watch when we were not sleeping. I began to warm up to the idea of this flight; until I closed my eyes for the first time. The young woman beside me was visibly nervous. She was jittery, shaking, twirling her hair, and constantly bumping into me, waking me up out of my light sleep. For two hours, I peered over her way to see her fixated on the Weather Channel. Each time the satellite picture showed the snow building up in New York, her body shook intensely. These weather updates came every twenty minutes. After being startled by her multiple times, and building up a frustration of, "Wait until I go home and tell my wife how miserable this flight was," I stopped myself. I took my eye cover off and my headset out, and asked her if she was all right. She said that she was nervous (no kidding). She feared she would miss her connection and be stranded in New York.

I started to calm myself down in an attempt to empathize with her situation. I began to have a conversation with her by asking more questions about her situation. I didn't want to spark a conversation for the sake of conversation. I had a purpose. I wanted to sleep and she looked like she needed a Plan B in New York. I had to be creative, but assertive enough to get there.

I used a level head to creatively determine what needed to occur to calm her down and create a game plan for her. I couldn't scream at her because I had a few hours left of the flight and I think the close proximity might cause a slight issue. I asked more direct questions, such as, "What is your biggest worry?" She mentioned she wasn't able to contact her parents in Virginia, who were going to pick her up after her connection. I asked her what I could do to help her, including assisting once we landed. We decided that we would go to the customer service desk to switch flights and I allowed her to use my cell phone to call her parents.

I started to think that I had a long time before I got home in order to complain to my wife about my terrible flight experience. I had a four hour layover until my next flight, so what did I have to lose by helping someone who obviously needed it? During my interaction with the young woman, I had to explain to her that worrying would not solve any of the issues, but actions would. I also realistically told her what I had coming up the next day, including a long drive after my final destination, and I needed the sleep. I was taking assertive steps that would have been difficult for me to take just a couple of years before.

She began to understand both sides. The young woman was gracious and appreciative of the advice and the assistance. I couldn't tell you how she did for the next few hours, because I slept like a baby. We landed and took care of the things she had been worrying about.

Communicating assertively does not mean you have to communicate aggressively. The message is to say what is on your mind at the time it is on your mind. It does not mean go ahead and scream and shout when emotions are high. It does mean maintain a level head and state the facts, including what's in it for you and what's in it for them.

In another example, I took on a new position. I became the organizer of an important meeting and I wanted to impress my new co-workers by doing a good job. During the middle of the meeting, one of the leaders began to call me "Skippy." I thought it was odd the first time I heard it, but chose to ignore it. The second time I heard it, she was asking me to do something for her. I stopped, and gave a look that got an interesting reaction. I told her my name was Tom. I professionally asked her to call me by my name. She unprofessionally called me "Skippy" for a third time, and this time asked for the rest of the group to join in. Striving to get beyond the immature nature of the action, I simply responded again with a level head and said, "You can call me Tom, and if you want me to respond back, you can call me by my given name." This conversation was not pleasant, but it was needed if I wanted to establish myself appropriately with everyone there, including the one attempting to label me with a nickname.

Again, we both had something to gain. I needed early respect in my new role and she needed things from me to have the meeting run well. We both got what we wanted, including clear expectations and a real conversation.

I look back on the many times I allowed examples like this to fester and put me in a bad mood. All those times when I was swearing in my head and fuming at the person or situation, I could have been attempting to resolve the situation. I now realize there were times I allowed unnecessary things to go on in the workplace by simply internalizing my feelings of, "I wish it would stop...," but chose to do nothing about it. We should all be assertive when the need arises and watch problems get resolved. You may be surprised at the positive reception you get from the receiver of your message and you will appreciate your own ease in tension.

Previous chapters:

• Part I-Vision and Mission, Introduction-The Roots of My Transformation

• Part II-The Transformation, Chapter 1-Get a Mentor

• Part II-The Transformation, Chapter 2 - Be a Mentor, and Learn Something Yourself

• Part II, Chapters 3 and 4 - Gain trust and respect; write down your accomplishments