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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Today's audio blog is about words.

[00:00:02] Words matter.

[00:00:04] Words are important.

[00:00:07] Words have impact.

[00:00:09] When we were children, many of us heard the expression "sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will never hurt us." That is about as far from the truth as we can possibly get. And it was created by adults who were trying to tell children it's okay. Shake it off if somebody says something nasty to you. But it's not okay. That's how we get bullying.

[00:00:41] With little girls, when a boy is mean to them, they get told, "he does it because he likes you. No, he doesn't do it because he likes me." It's because culturally, we are not taught that a) words matter and b) there are boundaries.

[00:00:59] But words matter. And words really matter in the workplace.

[00:01:05] So I'm going to give you some examples in the customer service world of how words mattered. But they weren't used appropriately. And before anyone leaves nasty comments about how I have no idea how hard it is to be a customer service agent, yes, I do. Been there. Done that. Have the t-shirt.

[00:01:26] The first two examples have to do with the situation I had in September when I had no water in my apartment or my office for 25 days.

[00:01:36] The insurance agent for my landlord would call and she repeatedly kept saying, "I understand. I understand. I understand." Now I know that she was completely ill-equipped to do the job that was in front of her.

[00:01:54] But I had to explain to her. That no, unless she was without water. She did not understand. So using that phrase was demeaning. And was not helping to move us through this conversation.

[00:02:16] The second issue was them verbally promising to have emergency technicians at the door within 24 hours. And then telling me after that did not happen that really, they had no intention of having someone within 24 hours, because that was the weekend and they didn't want to pay the weekend rate.

[00:02:42] The third example of where words matter is actually a more serious situation if you can imagine. I am diabetic as a result of another serious illness. As such. I wear glucose monitoring sensors so that I don't have to prick my finger.

[00:03:05] And without these, it makes it very difficult for both the doctors to analyze what is happening and for me to manage the situation. Here in Spain, we do not get these from the pharmacy like you do in the U.S.. So I have to order them. Directly from Abbott. Usually it is a very straightforward process. I order them. Within a few days, I get a shipping notice. And no more than a week, they have arrived at my door with the very friendly delivery service man calling to ensure that I'm going to be home to get my important package. But this time almost two weeks had passed and I had not gotten a delivery notice. So I went through their customer service department.

[00:03:52] And at first I received a flippant answer of there's no problem and you will get an email when they're shipped as if I shouldn't have bothered reaching out. When I pressed him on the issue and said, no, this is very abnormal. It has been more than two weeks, and I am about to have a critical situation. He said. He was sorry for any inconvenience.

[00:04:22] Now. I'm sorry for any inconvenience is a phrase we might use if there was a missing pair of shoes. It is not something that you would use for medical equipment that is necessary.

[00:04:39] And. I blame this, not just on the person who said it, but on the management above him and the training that he received because that was just plain poor training. If he is taught to say, I'm sorry for the problems.

[00:04:58] Any time, a customer isn't happy without actually hearing what the customer says, that's actually only causing him more stress and grief when people are upset.

[00:05:10] Words matter.

[00:05:13] And in the workplace, if you are in a leadership position, words really matter.

[00:05:21] One of the things that we encourage and practice in our coaching and training programs is transparency.

[00:05:28] But we encourage practicing the message and how you want to deliver it because words matter.

[00:05:37] And the messaging needs to be genuine, but it needs to be well-received. Which means you need to think about your audience and what you are saying. So we always encourage when you have important messages to deliver, that you practice them and you get feedback. If they are that important, don't just write out an email.

[00:05:58] And one of the exercises that we do is we have people write out emails or practice speeches for difficult conversations. And the reason we do that is because you may have an idea of how what you were saying is perceived, but the reality could be completely different. And it's important to get that feedback and that perspective on how your message is being received and then re-practice it.

[00:06:27] But sometimes we don't have that luxury of time and practicing because we are very in the moment. And this is another thing that separates managers from leaders. How they handle conversations that are oftentimes sensitive to ensure that their employees feel heard and understood. One of those things is "my door is always open."

[00:06:56] First of all, that sounds lovely. But if you are a manager or you're trying to be a leader, Your door is not always open because chances are you're swallowed up in way too many meetings because you have not taken my program about how to get rid of meetings. And you do not have the time to have your door always be open.

[00:07:18] Which means one of two things. Either when someone approaches you, you're going to do the, "oh, walk and talk with me. I don't have much time" or "can this wait until later because I'm very busy right now." Or someone is going to try to actually book time with you and there's just never going to be any time.

[00:07:40] Well, your employees are not going to feel heard, if there is no time for you to hear them.

[00:07:47] Then when you do talk to them, if you are rushed, stressed, focused on other things, you're likely not going to hear what they are saying. And you are going to brush them off or make a quick response. Or pass responsibility for solving whatever it is they're working on back to them without any constructive feedback on how to arrive at a solution.

[00:08:12] I am not suggesting for a minute that as a manager or a leader, that it is your job to solve everyone's problems. But it is your job to give constructive feedback that people can use to help solve the problems on their own and have a point of reference. Because after all, if they had the solution, they wouldn't have come to you in the first place.

[00:08:36] Words matter.

[00:08:39] And we need to work on how people see and hear us in general every day conversation.

[00:08:49] There's a lot of work to be done around microaggressions in the workplace- both intentional and unintentional.

[00:08:57] Words matter. So, if you don't even realize that what you're saying is not being heard or perceived well, this is a problem. There's a video that I just shared the other day on my personal Facebook page that is meant to be a parody. It's women taking on the role that they see men having both at home and in the workplace. So instead of the men making the comments or friends making the comments about, "oh, how lucky you are, that you have a husband that helps out with the laundry," they've reversed it. And it's women making the comments as if the men were in the, the reversed role..

[00:09:40] And it rings so true. And I think if you watch that, you will see that not only have you been on the receiving end of those comments, if you're a woman. But unfortunately we probably, if we're honest with ourselves, have made some of those comments. Making comments about how women look after they give birth. Or while they're pregnant. Making comments about how people got promotions. So I encourage you to look for this video and give it a listen or a watch because it really draws home the point about how much words matter.

[00:10:21] And then I also have some books that I find really useful that you might want to check out. One is How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work by Robert Keegan and Lisa Lahey. Another one is Clean Language with Wendy Sullivan and Judy Reese. And Judy does lots of great workshops that you can sign up to take to work on clean language.

[00:10:44] And another one that I recently just bought and read is The Anti-Racist Organization by Shereen Daniels. And there's a chapter in there that the book just happened to open to when I opened it from the mail. And on the page, it says. "Our culture isn't racist... is it?" And on the next page in bold type, it says, "but we have nice people."

[00:11:12] And I think a lot of times we gloss over how our words are impacting people by saying things like this, 'but no, we're not racist. We include everybody.' Or 'we have nice people. They're really trying hard.' But if the impact of what they are doing is marginalizing a group of people. Then we have a problem.

[00:11:38] Because words matter. Actions matter as well. But words matter.

[00:11:45] And if people are not watching what they're saying, and I don't mean policing and saying, "oh my gosh, I can't say that at work," but genuinely understanding the impact of their words, then we can't move forward as an organization.

[00:12:01] So that's a lot to think about, but think about if you have a customer facing component to your organization, what are your employees saying to your customers to make them feel heard in a meaningful way? - Not in a disparaging way or a demoralizing way like "I understand." But in the workplace itself, what are you doing to ensure that everyone feels heard by you? and feels safe to speak to you, because they know they are going to be heard.

[00:12:40] A lot to think about today and I'm sure I'm going to come back and touch on this in a later episode, because I can think of so many other things to say, but just to remember

[00:12:49] Words Matter!

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INDRA A. BOOKS

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