Word Choice Matters
“Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.” ~ Isaac Newton
“Word Choice Matters.”
It’s a mantra we use in our training. As leaders, not only do we have to give our people good information, we need to give it to them in ways that motivate them. And we need to avoid giving them information in ways that attacks their sense of self-worth.
Consider negative feedback. If one of our team members gives us a draft of a document that needs to go out to the client but which needs some revisions and corrections, we have several options:
We can fix it ourselves, since “it’s just faster if I do it.” But our people will never learn how to produce a client-ready document that way.
We can point out the errors using the old “red pen” technique, leaving X-marks on things that are wrong and handing it back to them. This is soul-sucking and demotivating, and it will not build mutual respect and loyalty. They might also not know what is wrong with the marked passage or how to make it right.
If we want out people to learn, grow, and become more competent professionals, we need to invest the time to communicate what needs revision, how to revise it, and why we do it that way. For example, “Good work on that draft! We just need to make a few revisions and it will be ready to send to the client. See that part on page three that I circled? We need to add X and Y, since that’s in the contract. And please revise the part on page five to remove the stuff about Z; we no longer need to include that since the new statute took effect. Once that’s done, let me see it one last time before 4pm, and you’ll have knocked this one out of the park!”
If we choose to convey our respect for their abilities and competence, rather than just giving them a “wrong, wrong, wrong…” message on repeat, we build our people up and develop mutual respect and loyalty.
(image source: www.pinterest.com/pin/101894010312560037/)