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The word "always" should be banished from the English language. Well, maybe not banished completely. But really, it's almost never accurate. Speaking of "never," it should go too.
"Never say never," they say. I say, "Never say never...or always."
I was sitting with a manager last week in a one-on-one coaching session. He had a difficult employee and told me that the employee "always" argues with him.
"Always?" I said.
"Always!" he insisted.
"So he doesn't ever not argue with you? You cannot find even one example where you asked him to do something without his arguing?"
"Well, maybe a couple of times," the manager admitted.
"So what would happen," I asked, "if you went to the employee and told him that he always argues with you?"
"We both would know it wasn't true."
"Exactly." I said. "What then would happen to your credibility?"
"It would be damaged."
"And what's more important to a leader than his or her credibility?"
"Nothing."
"Right," I instructed. "So I suggest you speak to this employee about his argumentativeness with two or three recent specific examples and without exaggeration. Okay?"
"Okay."
When you exaggerate while criticizing a subordinate, your credibility is indeed damaged, and everything else you have to say can be called into question. It's perfectly reasonable for that person to think that if you exaggerated about one thing, you could easily exaggerate the rest.
We tend to be glib and thoughtless about our exaggerations. For example, when someone is often late to work, we say they are "always late." Not true.
When someone has a temper we say they are "always flying off the handle." Not true again.
When someone is slow to speak up in meetings, we say they "never talk." Not true.
When someone doesn't get their work done on time very often we say they "never meet a deadline." Not true yet again.
Accuracy in critiques is vital; exaggerations are lies.
When I'm coaching a leader, and they use either the words "always" or "never," I riddle them with questions until we get down to reality, they cry uncle and admit that neither is actually true. I won't deal in exaggerations. I will deal with accurate reality.
To see things as they really are benefits us, too, because we can get overwhelmed by a mostly made up reality. But if we get rid of those two words, "always" and "never," reality seems more manageable.
And I'm not exaggerating
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