Rude employees are rude for a reason: you allow them to be. It's not their fault—it's yours. You hired wrong, you trained wrong, or you coached wrong. Just as you must kill an aggressive cancer by nuking it with chemotherapy, you must eradicate rudeness by displaying a zero-tolerance attitude. We don't care if an employee "makes his numbers" or excels at some other aspect of his job. If he's rude, he has to go. Fire him, and for good measure, encourage him to work for a competitor.
- Roy Barnes and Bob Kelleher, Customer Experience for Dummies
A top executive in a public relations firm has a favorite saying for clients who are at a loss about what to reveal: "When all else fails, try the truth." In business, as in life, telling the truth—no matter the short-term consequences—is far more beneficial than getting caught in a deception. People are generally forgiving, almost to a fault. But deceive them and they will remember it for a long, long time. "Try the truth" applies to everyone in the workplace: the boss, the manager, the new employee, the client, the contractor.
Requiring others to define relative words is just as important as asking them to explain specific pieces of jargon. Relative words are nonspecific, descriptive words that only have meaning in relation to something else. 
Let's say you work as a manager in a software development firm where dozens of software engineers write mountains of code every week. The products are so complex that the overall design is divided among several teams. After years of your employees bringing in projects late or riddled with bugs, you discover that the key to consistent high-quality performance is getting them to practice two vital behaviors: (1) admit when they have problems, and (2) immediately speak up when they won't meet a deadline. When your software designers do these two things consistently, products get completed correctly and on time. When they don't, they don't. 
In the beginning, I thought inviting people to lunch was a good idea. Then at one of the lunches, I found out that an individual had worked the overnight shift, changed out of uniform, and caught a couple of hours of sleep prior to joining me for lunch. This person didn't have enough time to go home and come back for our lunch, and didn't want to miss the opportunity to accept a lunch invitation from the CEO. From that day forward, I knew that I had to have meals with staff members at rotating hours to fit into their schedules, not into mine. Even to listen, you have to make yourself available to the logistic needs of others.
Clarity is the most important concept in personal productivity. The number one reason why some people get more work done faster is because they are absolutely clear about their goals and objectives and they don't deviate from them.