Why did he just leave? — Worthwhile Language Advice
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If you’re wondering about it, chances are good someone else is wondering about it too!
Here’s a real interaction that I wrote about in my recent article on why we should apply game theory to language.
A sales rep “Chris” tries to bond with a new prospect “Marc” and asks if the fancy coffee he’s got with him is a Christmas present for his wife. But Marc is married to a man and is Jewish.
The service Chris is trying to sell is complicated, B2B, and has lots of moving parts. Marc decides that if Chris isn’t sophisticated enough to take into consideration that not everyone is straight or Christian, he shouldn’t be trusted when it comes to the more complicated components of the service. This service requires thinking ahead and taking multiple variables into account. Also, why should he trust a company with a frontline representative who makes such basic mistakes?
So, Marc leaves, gives up on the company and ends up buying from a competitor.
After presenting this interaction in workshops, I’ve been asked some version of this question a few times in recent months:
Why did Marc just leave? Couldn’t he have given some grace and explained to Chris why his assumptions were off? Couldn’t Marc have taken the time to educate Chris a little bit so he’ll do better the next time?
This is a great question. Let’s dig in!
There are a few reasons why it’s just fine for Marc to take his business elsewhere without explaining or educating. At the heart of those reasons are danger, unfair burdens, and responsibility.
But before we get to those reasons, let’s lay the foundation and look at exactly what Marc might have explained if he had decided to take the time to educate Chris about what had gone wrong.
The clearest way to do this is using my 6 Principles of Optimized Language. Because Chris violates every single one of these principles with just two words, wife and Christmas.
Reflect reality. A) Marc’s wedding ring points to a husband and not a wife. B) Marc wasn’t buying Christmas presents because his family doesn’t celebrate Christmas.
Show respect. When he assumed they weren’t relevant — or didn’t even remember they existed — Chris didn’t show respect for other religions or for marriages beyond male-female unions.
Draw people in. Rather than drawn in, Marc felt insulted, not taken into consideration, and pushed away to the point where he took his business elsewhere.
Incorporate other perspectives. Chris got stuck in the dominant perspectives of straight and Christian people.
Prevent erasure. Chris’s words erased people who aren’t in hetero relationships and people who follow other religions.
Recognize pain points. Chris did not recognize how painful it can be for people whose romantic and family relationships have been denigrated, stigmatized, and made illegal. And he did not recognize how irritating it can be to move through public spaces that are filled with music, decorations, shopping suggestions, and holiday greetings that assume you are celebrating a holiday that is in fact not your own.
It took less than 5 seconds for Chris to say something so irritating, so alienating, so suboptimal, that it tanked the sale he was trying to make.
I tell my clients all the time — suboptimal language is expensive and bad for business. And, like Chris, most people whose suboptimal language has driven away prospects or clients or employees have no idea that their words were to blame.
Photo by Karl Frederickson (via Unsplash)
Danger
So why do I think it’s ok for Marc to not put in the time and effort to educate Chris? One reason is danger.
In this particular interaction, Marc was in the power position. He has the money, he is the decision maker, and he can buy what Chris is selling or he can leave. If Marc decides to tell Chris that something he said was alienating and insulting, he’s not really in danger. What’s the worst that can happen? Even if Chris doesn’t really mind violence against gays or Jews, it is highly unlikely that he’ll become violent in a business setting.
But this power dynamic is rare. Where the person who has been disrespected and erased and alienated actually has more power.
What’s much more common is that the target of suboptimal language is either on the same level or has less power. In both of these situations, that targeted person is in real danger of retaliation if they try to point out and explain that language has expressed bias and caused a problem. Just a few examples:
An employee with a low-frequency name (let’s say it’s Aissata) repeatedly asks her colleagues to stop mispronouncing her name, misspelling her name, and calling her unwanted nicknames. In retaliation, she is moved to a remote desk, reassigned from the good clients, and left out of meetings and conferences.
A retail clerk, let’s call him Lucas, has transitioned while at his job. Lucas has to regularly ask one of the regular customers to please use his correct name rather than his deadname, and to accurately refer to him as “he” and “him” and not the incorrect “she” and “her.” Lucas is always polite, smiling, and using his “service voice” when making these requests. The third time the Lucas does this, the customer explodes with anger and yells for the manager. He tells the manager that Lucas screamed at him, cursed at him, and was inappropriate. The security footage has no audio, and Lucas ends up suspended without pay for a week.
An employee asks her manager to tell her teammates to stop calling her sexy, to stop commenting on how her clothes fit, to stop asking her about her sex life, to stop speculating what it would be like to have sex with her, and more. A few weeks later she is fired for “performance issues.” She has consistently been a high performer with no documented issues in either one-on-ones or performance reviews.
People who are the targets of bias know how dangerous it can be to point out that bias and ask that things get fixed. And they often make the choice to protect themselves and keep quiet rather than speaking up and leaving themselves open to retaliation.
Overburdening and Responsibility
In my research, I have found that people who are the targets of suboptimal language — along with other kinds of bias — often the only ones to take action. They are the only ones to identify the problem, educate about it, and devise a solution. Not the people causing the problems, the ones violating the principles of optimized language and doing harm. But the people being injured.
What would look like if this wasn’t an injury caused by words but instead physical harm?
For example, say someone’s leg gets gouged at work. An employee was careless with a sharp thing they were carrying and injured their colleague. If this was parallel to an injury from words, the person whose leg was gouged would be expected to:
Diagnose their own wound
Educate other people about these kinds of wounds
Convince some people that their wound is real
Figure out how to sew up and bandage their wound
Figure out how to sew up and bandage similar wounds on other people like them
And all the while:
They’re injured the whole time
No one takes them to the doctor
They don’t have medical training
There’s a good chance they’ll get wounded again
They wish they weren’t injured and could just do their job
Their uninjured colleagues are more productive
If they ask colleagues to stop wounding them, there is a good chance the colleagues will get angry and retaliate
It starts to seem absurd when the injury is a physical injury, right?
But I see this again and again when the injury is one caused by harmful language and bias. The burden is inappropriately on the person being harmed when really the burden should be shifted to the people doing damage.
Photo by Tarik Haiga (via Unsplash)
To sum up, it can be exhausting and depressing to deal with the same language problems again and again. To have strangers and acquaintances and colleagues use language that doesn’t reflect your reality, language that is disrespectful and causes pain. Language that erases your perspective and experiences and pushes you away.
If you’re already trying to stay polite and professional and mask how angry or irritated or hurt you feel, where are you supposed to find the time and energy to make things better?
I have spoken with person after person who is bone weary.
Why is it their job to explain to people why and how they should do better? Why should they spend their precious time and energy and effort on someone who hasn’t been careful with them? Why should they put themselves in danger?
These are people who will choose to remove themselves when it’s possible.
They find the competitor who is careful and considerate. They shift away from the brand with insensitive advertising or disrespectful policies. They quit and leave for an employer who will treat them with respect and protect them.
This is why it was perfectly ok for Marc to quietly leave and find someone else who treated him with respect and consideration. Let’s put the responsibility to learn and put in the effort where it belongs — on the people who can and should do better.
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