A few weeks ago, I commented on this quote which was posted on LinkedIn by a group with over 3 million followers. While the number of likes, comments and shares captured my attention, the use of the word ‘loyal’ was what prompted me to comment.
There is no need to include the word loyal. The quote is more inclusive without it. While I accept that the topic focus of the quote may be on loyalty, there is a general principle regarding pushing people to a point that they no longer care, and how we can manage our communication to avoid such a situation, that is worth discussion.
Since this is such a large topic, I shall limit my comments to a business context. What causes someone not to care about their performance at work? What causes a dip in performance or loss of motivation?
Of course, there can be many factors so to keep this to a 3-minute read, I will focus on one that is within our control and which absolutely has an impact on others; the micro messages we communicate.
In his book Micro Messaging, Stephen Young details the organisational impact of what are termed ‘micro-inequities’. A micro-inequity is a negative signal sent by any of body language, facial expression, tone of voice and/or verbal inflection. They are subtle (or not so subtle) messages that devalue and discourage others and can include looking at your watch or phone while another is talking, interrupting, ignoring, sighing, poor eye contact, already moving to the next person when shaking hands etc.
When we receive regular micro-inequities from someone, it communicates their negative opinion of us. When this comes from our boss or management, there can be a direct organisational impact whereby motivation and ultimately performance are impacted.
What makes this even more prescient, is that senior executives are more likely to ‘bestow’ micro-inequities on juniors without realising it. One of the reasons for this is that when we are senior, we receive more ‘micro-advantages’ (smiles, nodding of the head and general deference etc) from others, thereby reinforcing our own behaviour. Another reason is that few people are willing to risk telling a senior executive that they are bestowing micro-messages on others for the fear of consequences.
The solution is simple; train management from the top down on the importance and impact of micro-messaging which will include installing a system for self and peer awareness.
The results? Following a training with Merck referenced by Stephen Young, within 6-9 months of micro messaging training, 90% of executives were aware of their micro-messages resulting in an 85% improvement in business relationships. Now that’s organisational impact!
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