In a past endeavor I was working with a leadership team that had fantastic aspirations for the company – they genuinely wanted to serve the best interest of the group and run a successful enterprise. The only problem was that they had high turnover, a stressful environment, and very little accountability. Clearly, there was a disconnect between the aspirations and the reality of the company at the time.
Enter communication. It’s a building block of human society – in fact, did you realize that a main reason we develop language in the first place is so that we can execute complex communication? In addition to this, our language – our words – impact the way we think. Communication is so critical to literally every human undertaking – but how many of us take the time to study effective communication and then have the humility to address instances when we fail to communicate well? It’s funny how something so critical is so often ignored.
Our first task was to set up a platform to start talking about the subject – awareness leads to thinking which yields assessment and then action – and what came to light was fascinating. We uncovered the system of chaos that the company had been operating in for literally twenty years. Very, very slowly, people in the company started to take responsibility for their own use of words. What resulted was a shift in culture where each employee understood how he contributed to the system and how he might start to impact it for the better.
How did we determine that communication was the place to start? What about business development, billable work, client relationships? What about internal processes, waste, and planning? As I list these items, you might already be hearing the commonality between all of them: communication. If we aren’t able to communicate effectively, we cannot work well together.
Words matter. The context we say them in matters. Why we say them matters. We can bring people together or we can tear them apart. We can uplift or we can cast down. I know we have each experienced an instance when someone’s words helped us remember our passion and our purpose – and that helped us strengthen our weak knees and redouble our efforts toward the difficult task at hand. We have all also experienced someone issuing a cruel, cutting remark just because they could. We’ve all done both of these things too. My question to you: How might you start shifting the culture around you simply by paying attention to the words you use and how you use them?
Activity: For one day, try to pay attention to the words you speak and the reaction you perceive from the people you are speaking to. Is it positive? Negative? Can you tell? If you’re really brave, ask people what their experience is. Then, see what you might adjust to align your actual behavior with the culture you want to create around you.