[klenwell]

Excellent advice. This is like the golden rule of dealing with people. Well, the other golden rule. The professional one, I guess you could call it. Be explicit, polite but firm.

It works well for both managing people or doing customer support. It doesn't work for everyone. But as you note, it works in the vast majority of cases.

If you've read the Ask a Manager column, you'll recognize it as a core principle there. And if you've ever watched The Dog Whisperer, you quickly discover it works for dogs, too. (You just have to learn a few tricks for communicating with them.)