Change your language - Change your work culture

I've primarily written this article for Business Owners/Leaders & Managers)

I never quite understood why working towards completing something by a particular date/time is called a ‘Deadline’? When in actual fact what you’re doing is the complete opposite. You’re bringing something to ‘life’ by that particular date/time.

I feel it has something to do with a deeper ingrained way with how we’ve come to approach work. Simply put, fear-driven. “If you don’t complete this by then, then you’re dead’. This is obviously an extreme way to put it, but the sentiment is the same. Do this, by then, or else.

Take a moment to think about what’s probably going through the head of the person that has just heard this, “Thanks Boss. That makes me feel really motivated to start work on that straight away... Not.”

Even just saying the word ‘deadline’ to myself I can feel a little spike in my stress levels. Yet so many workplaces use this as a common language. We should be very careful of the words/language we use around the office. Trust me, it matters. A lot.

Our unconscious relationship with words certainly affects our level of output. Take another word, for example, sales.

As a business owner, you might have a positive reaction to this word, however, 97% of employees have a negative response to this word.

Let’s do a quick exercise. What’s the first word that comes to mind when you think of the word sales? I’m guessing a lot of you said something along the lines of pushy, yuk, greasy, car salesman. Now if you're thinking this, imagine what your staff are thinking when you say “Ok team. This week’s SALES target is X”

I would highly recommend you take some time to review the language that is used in and around the workplace. This could even be something you get the team involved in. Write a list of all the words that you feel may or do have a negative or even uninspiring correlation with them. Then get creative with replacing these words/phrases with other more positive/interesting ones

I recently did this with a client and here are just a few of the changes we made:

Deadline > Lifeline

Sales > New Friends

Project > Adventure

Target > Nirvana

Report > Manifesto

Office > The Hive

The real benefit of doing this is that it begins to create a unique culture. It may be a little awkward or even humorous at first, but once the entire team gets behind the changes you’ll start to notice this new empowering/creative vibe start to develop.

There is one last thing worth noting here when it comes to changing language that is equally important, and that is the intention and tone behind the words.

Even if I did start to use ‘lifeline’ instead of ‘deadline’(which would be a great step), if I said it in a contradicting, forceful manner it actually becomes worse than the original, as you’re now coming across as inauthentic. Which breeds a whole lot of downhill cultural habits, like gossip, resentment and laziness.

Therefore, language must go hand-in-hand with honest intention. If you get this mix right, the cultural changes can be quite significant.

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