Maybe you’ve heard people say that what you give voice to is what becomes your reality? Maybe you’ve heard of “neuro linguistic programming?” Maybe you’ve had a vicious argument with someone not because of what they believed, but because of the way they phrased it? (We call this “being in violent agreement.”)
My thoughts on this subject: I think most of it, as executed, is baloney.
I do believe that our perspective drives our behaviors, which in turn drive our results, and that changing our perspective will lead to new outcomes. But. I also believe that humans have not yet reached a point where we’re good manipulators of this process. We can understand it far better than we can do it.
Handing people neuro linguistic programming as a tool for success is like handing a weekend golfer a set of cavity-backed golf clubs: sure, they’ll make success a bit easier, but until that golfer gets his stance, swing, tempo, and power under control, the clubs will result in only limited and variable benefit.
There are, however, a few places where I think changing the way we talk could make a huge difference in our ability to excel, both at work and in life. Here are three of those areas, and the new words I want:
- Politics. Most of the words we have to describe the political process carry a negative overtone. (Politics, logrolling, Machiavellian, two-faced, self-interested.) Still, the process of negotiating for control of a group’s agenda is a critical and natural part of group dynamics. As a concept, this process needs to be divorced from the gamesmanship often associated with it. Agenda Setting! My suggestion: Allow “politics” to refer to the games people play and use “agenda setting” to describe the process of focusing a diverse group on a single issue: “Dave is trying to set the agenda, so he’s out talking to the union leaders right now. I just hope he has enough credibility to get them onboard… otherwise, it’s going to be politics as usual.”
- Weird/creepy/eerie/freaky. We can’t deny that there’s stuff out there in the world we don’t yet understand… but if every time we talk about it we treat it as something spooky, then we won’t embrace it when we should. Serendipity is a fact of life—haven’t you ever made a fast friend, fallen in love at first sight, or just found yourself in the right place at the right time? Yes? Wouldn’t you like a word to describe what happened other than “freaky?” Happy accidents occur all the time, even at work; I don’t want to talk about them with the same goosebump-raising language people use when they think they’ve seen a ghost. Really nice. My suggestion: Let’s resurrect that tired, bland phrase “really nice” and use it to describe anything good that happens that seems out of the ordinary: “I hadn’t thought of Jim in years, so I called him… turns out he’s hiring and needs someone with my skills! I got a new job today! The whole thing was really nice.”
- Improve. What does a slow worker on probation need to do? Improve. What does a star employee need do to get ready for a promotion? Improve. Same word, same process, very different realities. To the first person, improvement is a requirement for keeping the job. To the second person, improvement is required only for moving ahead. The problem I have, as a coach, is that if I use the word “improve” with a star performer, I create political risk for that person: someone else in the organization—through malice or ignorance—may interpret that word to mean that this person is not cutting it and needs to get better or get fired. Not good.Nexting. My suggestion is to invest an entirely new word here. “Improve” is ambiguous, “polish” is too surface. I want a word that means “improve in anticipation of reaching the next level, and my vote is for “nexting.” As in, “I’m working with three people right now. I have an improvement plan for Anna, and nexting plans for Sameer and Barbara. Barbara in particular is a star.”
So when you see me in the hall, talking about a really nice nexting session, you’ll know what I mean.
Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.
I'm the CEO of Ajax Social Media. We're helping 1 million people shine by making their online stories better. 
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My friends and I refer to it as ‘hostile agreement’ and knowing what that is and being able to vocalize it has helped defuse any number of situations.
‘Setting the agenda’ is as good as anything. However I think that would also eventually (probably fairly quickly) become a negative as well. Most people don’t like the idea of consciously directing people’s thoughts, values, and desires. That weakens them but seems true in my experience. I think the word choice for avoiding the negative connotation really depends on the audience. ‘Focusing the group’, ‘offering suggestions’, and ‘getting my voice heard’ can serve as euphemisms when your audience can’t accept deliberate social interactions.
‘Nexting’ seems like it may run into a word association problem with ‘texting’ and require explanation. Would ‘growth plan’ work as well? Of course, you could just call it an ‘awesome plan’ to avoid any possibility of people thinking it was a bad thing.