Never Talk Out of School

Never talk out of school. Never discuss a past client's situation or staff. Never discuss the exact nature of a specific client's problem. And of course never, ever discuss previous assignments in terms of how bad that particular client was or how ignorant you thought they were. It does not matter whether you never mention the client's name or not.

As soon as you begin to "bad mouth" others for whom you have worked with, a client will see you as a danger to his organization. He will see you do not exercise discretion. And this may impact his organization or the people within it negatively.

As soon as you speak negatively, or say something that you may think is humorous at the previous client's expense, this present client immediately puts his name in place of the client you are referring to. And they say to themselves, "What if he starts talking about us (or me) in this manner?"

You will soon find yourself out of a project, a project that gets scoped down in size, or no follow-on work.

But since you are a professional, you already know this. But we can all use helpful reminding.

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