25 Nov Ghosting: Saying no is hard to do!
By Pasadena Private Lending President Mike McAdams
Beyond the dating world, non-responsiveness has been creeping into the business world and, frankly, it is bad for business. A Korn Ferry International consulting firm journal article from October 2025 quotes the New York Times that the phenomenon of unsatisfactory conclusions and unexplained responses have reached an epidemic level far beyond personal relationship situations.
Korn Ferry says psychological reasons for people not getting back with answers to even the simplest business questions, inquiries and requests to colleagues, suppliers and even clients as stemming from accidental forgetfulness, self-protection or even a sense of shielding someone from bad news. However modern technology, increasing workloads and decreased sense of connectivity to other people has been driving the spike in unresponsiveness.
Business ghosting takes many forms including quitting a job without notice, not following up as promised on a project or commitment, failing to provide a quote or bid, promptly answering an email from a dissatisfied customer, or calling someone back as promised. And whether it is called ghosting or more traditionally, poor communication skills, people, companies and brands are defined and redefined by such bad habits.
Of course, as noted above, technology, that great combination of efficiency improver and disconnector of humanity, is playing a role as the pace and variety of technology places additional workday strains. The pandemic added additional pressure to communicate remotely and as face-to-face communication become more limited, peoples’ inclinations to “do what they said they would do to people’s faces” became increasingly less relevant. Moreover, email and other less-personal communication forms have made it easier to both respond… and not respond… without guilt.
And as Korn Ferry states, post-COVID, “when we go from one meeting to the next, rushing to read emails on the run, it gets easier to check out on the difficult issues and those that are less critical at the moment.” Of course, it is also easy to just miss an email as well when we get hundreds a day. But when we belatedly discover that we missed it… what do we do?
The negative impact of all this can be that clients and coworkers, service providers and prospective employees can get the wrong idea of a firm from just one bad communication experience.
So how does Korn Ferry suggest the worst can be avoided? Those prone to ghosting by avoiding direct, frank, and prompt communication for whatever reason need to realize the harm they do to themselves and their organizations. By practicing awkward communications… even by scripting them out in advance and roll playing them if necessary… they can rise above their inhibitions. Simple apologies, even months later for failure to respond can also go a long way. And as for many things, it all starts at the top; business leaders need to be bold and clear and encourage their teams to be the same in communication.
In all our articles, we try to relate the topic to Pasadena Private Lending and make it relevant for our clients and even future clients. In this case, while we try to approve all our borrower’s credit requests, inevitably, not all work within our credit framework. When that occurs, we try to clearly and promptly explain our reasoning and whenever possible suggest alternatives or even other lenders that might be better suited for each prospective borrower. Ghosting a prospect by letting them guess at our process or decisions for weeks or telling them something that makes the turn down easier for us doesn’t make for an honest relationship with what might an excellent long-term borrower in just another year or two.
The specter of bad corporate image and reputations can hurt any firm with just one poorly handled communication. Smaller firms have that much more to lose… and to gain… by getting such things right each and every time.