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I've been noticing the language and the words we use. I notice when a person says something is “driving me crazy.” (Do you really want to say that? Are you crazy? Do you want to be driven crazy?)
Or I'm reading someone’s post about the importance of one space after periods when we write vs. two spaces and they conclude “I’ll die on that hill.” Yes, I laughed…but do you really want to say that? Or people say something is “killing” me. (I hope not). I pass a sign on my eclipse walk: "Sick and tired of the sewage in Alewife Brook?" Ug on several different levels. There’s a lot of military and violent language in our vernacular and in our business language. Do I really want to “crush it” or “crush my content”? No thank you. I’m writing about this on LinkedIn because not only is our language important but what we say and how we use it has the power to create our future, almost brings that future into existence, when we use it thoughtfully and well. It matters. This is especially true in leadership. When you open your mouth as a leader, you’re telling your people where to focus, what is important (and conversely what is not, by what you aren’t talking about). Watch your language. Pay attention to what is coming out of your mouth. Your leadership and company’s potential resides in your language and the words you choose, the conversations you choose to have. Some places to practice this: Speak the future you want into existence. Describe it. Explain where the company is going. Talk about your vision. Talk about your values. Ask your staff what they’re hearing. Talk about how you’d approach a situation. Talk about mistakes you've made and what you’ve learned along the way. Ask your staff what they’re learning about being more effective. Give lots and lots of examples (other companies, a news article or current event, feedback from a customer, a recent result that is aligned with the future you're wanting, etc.) Say it over and over in different ways. Acknowledge someone’s actions who is demonstrating what you’re talking about. Results won’t be immediate but if you’re persistent and consistent (in staff meetings, in emails, in 1-to-1 conversations), you’ll start to see a change in your organization. A client I’ve worked with recently used to be frustrated that her staff wouldn’t think for themselves and handle situations but kept passing it back to her (“Mary will handle it.”) But as she began to practice talking about her vision, the future, her values — she started to create a lane of leadership underneath her stepping up, giving her some lift, taking a bit of the pressure off everything coming back to her and sucking her down into the pressing day-to-day issues in her organization. This is how you not only develop your people but create the future you see and speak the future of your company into existence. Walking through the grocery aisle, I run into quite a few employees shopping for other customers for pickup later, a practice that started with the pandemic.
What I notice is that these employees are not very aware of me or other customers in the store. They’re focused on finding the items on their list. They don’t seem to be aware when they or their cart are in my way and preventing me from getting what is on my own grocery list. However, other employees of the store, who might be restocking shelves, do notice when they’re in the way and move aside or try to help with more of a service orientation. I read a while back that these internal shoppers were tightly managed and assessed on the speed with which they can fulfill the order. Being measured on that by the management has the employees focus on their speed and efficiency, and not on the impact to shoppers in the store. I was listening to John Oliver Tonight’s episode on college loan debt. He mentioned how one loan servicing company measured employee performance, according to a whistle blower, on keeping their calls under 7 minutes. If they went over 7 minutes, their performance was downgraded. Since they often couldn’t answer the complexity of questions they received in 7 minutes, the customer service people started to hang up on the student borrower at the 7 minute mark. Oops. Here’s what we miss: anytime management opens its mouth, they’re telling people where to focus. If you have certain measures for performance, employees will create specific actions toward those measures. But client experience is not equal to the KPI. A client experience is whole: nice store, but I keep getting blocked or run over by employees. Good bank—but I can never get my questions fully resolved. It makes me wonder why we miss what really drives the P&L. If we think our P&L can be adequately met with too tight guidelines (Boeing, student loans, shoppers), the collective client feeling toward that company becomes one of distrust, even as the internal metrics look profitable and successful. When we hammer on specific success KPIs, but not a wholistic view, we’re sacrificing vitality of people, and client trust with the company. Be careful and thoughtful about what you measure in your business and how you choose to measure employees’ performance. Of course, a company has internal measures of performance. Often these are designed to create the desired performance from their employees. You want to make sure that the internal measure doesn’t create a conflict of interest or compromise another value you find important, such as service. |
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