Have you ever been to one of those internal ‘branding exercises, where everyone is supposed to rally around a new statement of purpose, or mission? Words like ‘empower’. ‘trust’, ‘dignity’ ‘respect’ are presented as if they wield a kind of magical power. Once they appear on the strapline, they must be true.
Positive affirmations are a key stock in trade of the positive psychology movement, and I know they can be very powerful. But the idea behind a positive affirmation is that it expresses some thing you want to become, so saying that have already reached that state helps you to get there. But this doesn’t work so well if your intention is to pretend that you are something you aren’t. If your organisation is not an empowering place to work then putting the word on your PR and branding materials is not likely to change that. If managers don’t trust their staff and respect them, then saying they do will not be believed.
What is more likely is that people become cynical. The less the words used reflect peoples real experiences the more disconnected they are likely to get. And the less they believe what leaders say, the less power leaders are able to wield. Kenneth Gergan, one of my favourite writers on organisations, says that leaders need to be understood – power rests in comprehension. No matter how much normative power a leader has, if no-one understands what they are saying, their worlds will have little impact.
But words are powerful, which makes it all the more complicated. What you say does matter and does have an effect, all sorts of consequences actually, and many you can’t predict. Which is why words should be used with care. If you don’t want to put the changes in place that might mean that your organisation did become more empowering, more trustful then there is little point in saying that you do. On the other hand, if you really want some thing to happen you need to make sure you are using the right words to communicate what it is you want done and why. But whatever your desire, you have to remember that words have a life of their own; they can cause unintended hurt or pain, they can also sometimes have surprising consequences – they can become unexpected rallying calls … although je ne suis pas Charlie…
Humansinwork 