Weapons of Delight
“Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.”
The English nursery rhyme above was composed to persuade child victims of name calling or taunts to try and ignore the attack, refrain from physical retaliation and remain calm & good natured. ‘Be the bigger person’ has the same intention. I think it’s tough to remain calm and good natured when someone is saying things that hurt. Sometimes when faced with verbal attacks fight or flight kicks in — that’s our nature!
I’ve been an organisational leader for a while now and one thing I know for sure is that words can hurt. The assailant, whose words have stung, is often oblivious they have caused any pain at all. The victim can’t believe what was said and then even worse…forgotten so easily.
We impact every person we interact with in either a positive or negative way. Each interaction, whether it’s a new client, the receptionist at your Dentist or Brian from Accounts, presents you with a choice to direct the moment in a positive or negative way.
How we decide to frame our intent, consciously or unconsciously, is fascinating and depends on all kinds of things: your current level of apathy, how your last interaction made you feel and of course the modern influencer of whether or not you’ve had your morning coffee!
What can radically impact the choice you make is first being aware you have one.
Lodro Rinzler, in his book “The Buddha Walks into the Office”, suggests we take up the challenge at work to use our speech as a “weapon of delight”. I love this idea. Words can hurt, words can heal and words have incredible power.
I don’t have much time for superficial, mindless or thoughtless conversations. By that I mean gossip, lies, plotting, stranger shaming — anything where the intent is to be purposefully negative about another person for no good reason. It’s always made me uneasy and it never leads anywhere useful.
I do make a distinction between thoughtless conversations and Team Banter, which is highly valued and cherished at 10collective. Team Banter involves the taking the micky, winding people up, telling stories and yes at times mocking each other relentlessly. For this to not be hurtful there must be trust and a safe way for someone to speak up if it’s not fun anymore.
Upsetting things can happen at work and we often don’t see them coming. Situations can leave us feeling groundless: a few thoughtless words coming from a stressed colleague or an angry client can make you feel small, like the rug has been pulled out from under you. But, unexpected positive things come your way too, right? A recruiter might call you with a new exciting opportunity or your team lead gives you feedback on the awesome job you are doing. Becoming aware that these interactions shape and shift how you feel can be a revelation. Not only do we have a choice over the way we might impact others with our speech, we also have control over how these interactions impact us. That awareness can be the beginning of personal mastery and developing your powers of resilience.
I wonder what would happen if more of us started to shift our focus to make our words a ‘weapon of delight’ rather than a source of control, power or dominance? What might happen if we spent one whole day committed to the intent to make every interaction we have with another human a positive one? What if an entire office made the commitment to use their speech for the power of good, while of course still focused on getting things done?
It might drive us all nuts, it might feel forced and maybe a bit lame… not sure, but I’d give the experiment a go. My hypothesis is that people would visibly relax, anxiety levels would drop and up goes the collective confidence. I suspect every workplace could do with some of that.
