{"id":148,"date":"2018-08-01T19:16:04","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T19:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielvlopes238992071.wordpress.com\/2018\/08\/01\/the-3-phrases-youre-saying-that-trigger-employee-disengagement\/"},"modified":"2025-02-28T11:00:53","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T19:00:53","slug":"the-3-phrases-youre-saying-that-trigger-employee-disengagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canopy.is\/blog\/2018\/08\/01\/the-3-phrases-youre-saying-that-trigger-employee-disengagement\/","title":{"rendered":"The 3 phrases you\u2019re saying that trigger employee disengagement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stop saying these words\u200a\u2014\u200ayou\u2019re wearing your employees thin.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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You\u2019re doing it again. You don\u2019t mean to, but it\u2019s happening: Your words are damaging your team. Small, off-hand remarks color how an employee thinks you value their work. Comments seemingly innocuous to you are in fact infuriating to your team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may have started to notice this. When you praise an employee, your compliment is met with an empty stare. When you announce a decision at a meeting, the reaction is silent agreement\u2026 or perhaps, silent fuming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your words aren\u2019t helping. They\u2019re hurting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As demoralizing as it might be to recognize this, there\u2019s an upside. Improving employee engagement can be as straightforward as changing what you\u2019re saying to your team. It doesn\u2019t have to be about investing thousands of dollars in a new employee benefits program, or bringing in an external consultant to write a custom employee engagement survey. To boost your team\u2019s engagement, you can simply stop saying certain phrases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are three phrases I\u2019ve been a perpetrator of saying\u200a\u2014\u200aand that I\u2019m sure you have too \u2013 that can cause an employee to be disengaged<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot now\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You say this when a new idea is offered. Not every time, but half of the time. I get it. You can\u2019t implement every idea, and it\u2019s tiring to field new initiatives during a meeting when you\u2019re already short on resources. But consider how dismissive the phrase \u201cnot now<\/em>\u201d can be, when an employee goes on a limb to offer a well thought-out idea. Snuff out a suggestion and you snuff out an employee\u2019s motivation to bring it up the next time around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While you can\u2019t implement every idea, your knee jerk reaction doesn\u2019t have to be \u201cnot now<\/em>\u201d each time. Instead, say specifically when you\u2019d like to reconsider the idea (e.g., \u201cCan we revisit this next month<\/em>?). Or say honestly share why you don\u2019t think it\u2019s a good idea, all together (<\/em>e.g., \u201cHere\u2019s why I don\u2019t we should pursue this\u2026<\/em>\u201d). Your team will appreciate your candor, instead of feeling strung along that maybe this will happen in the future, maybe it won\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, remember that suggestions are a harbinger of employee engagement. Your team cares enough to want to make things better. Greet these suggestions with enthusiasm, curiosity, and a genuine desire to explore them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood job\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

An employee completes a project and we instinctively say, \u201cGood job<\/em>.\u201d Ron Carucci in Harvard Business Review calls this \u201cdrive-by praise<\/a>\u201d We pop our heads into their office and briefly say \u201cthanks<\/em>,\u201d or send a quick \ud83d\udc4d on Slack. Yes, it\u2019s better than saying nothing, but employees want (and deserve!) more. They want specifics on how they can improve, and feedback on what they did well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uttering \u201cgood job<\/em>\u201d doesn\u2019t show that you understand all the work they did, and doesn\u2019t help them do better next time. Don\u2019t wait for performance reviews to give detailed feedback, either. Take a few minutes every week or two to provide feedback and sincere, specific praise for what you think they\u2019re doing well. For example, you could say, \u201cI learned a lot from you by watching how you interacted with that upset client with grace and steadfastness.<\/em>\u201d Compare those words to merely saying, \u201cGood job with that angry client<\/em>.\u201d If you\u2019re curious for more ideas for ways to express gratitude in words sincerely, read this<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cASAP\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We lean heavily on these four letters, as managers. Fires are burning everywhere, so saying \u201cASAP<\/em>\u201d communicates urgency to our team. But urgency is a spectrum\u200a\u2014\u200aand ASAP includes no nuance for where on that spectrum something actually is. As a result, \u201cASAP<\/em>\u201d creates confusion for our employees: \u201cIs it actually urgent, or somewhat urgent?<\/em>\u201d When employees feel constrained on time unnecessarily, they\u2019re frazzled\u200a\u2014\u200aand their work and morale suffer because of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than relying on these four letters to communicate urgency, first consider what degree of urgency is this? For example: \u201cThis is highly urgent and needs to be turned around in the next 24 hours,\u201d<\/em> or \u201cThis is fairly urgent and should be prioritized over most tasks, but can be finished by the end of the week.<\/em>\u201d Be conscious that the amount of time you give someone to complete a deliverable affects their level of engagement. Gallup in fact found that \u201cwhen employees say they often or always have enough time to do all of their work, they are 70% less likely to experience high burnout<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Saying these phrases on occasion are harmless. It\u2019s the repetition of them over time that inflicts harm. Like a tire driving over a road, the more pressure applied and the more times travelled, the more you wear the ground underneath it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Better to just stop driving on those roads. Better to just stop saying these phrases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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