As a leader within your organization and as a person out and about in the world, your words matter. We stopped for lunch on a long drive and the young waiter said to these 2 members of the older generation, “Hi guys, what can I get ya to drink?” Throughout the meal he used the honorific “you guys” in an other-wise perfectly acceptable service environment. It stuck in my craw. And, likely lowered his tip.
You might be saying, “Nora, get over yourself.” And, you would not be wrong. However, the switching costs of “getting over it” are not trivial. It changes how the listener holds the experience. Can you afford to be that sloppy? Aren’t we trying to align the hearts and minds of our organizations? How often do you use terms unconsciously that distance the audience from you, and you didn’t even know?
This is not about being politically correct. Complaining that anyone is just too sensitive, or that you’ve been allowed to get away with it for your whole working life is a sorry excuse for someone who wants to stay relevant in the workforce. Of course you can choose to stay in the past. And you will pay a cost. And, your team will have high switching costs that could have been avoided.
One way to discover how much switching/recovery costs you are unconsciously causing is to ask for feedback regularly from team members on how your communications are being received. If you have a multigenerational workforce, you will be surprised how willing people will be to share their responses to your communication style. They are translating you – from young to old or or old to young; from male to female and back; from native speaker of your local dialect (like California to New York); from Pd.D. to high school graduate and back. Think there is no cost in that?
You already know how to do this and unconsciously adjust to your audience regularly. Make it a little more conscious and improve the quality of your communication. Looking for a small hack to improve the success of your organization? You just got one.
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