Research tells us that the real reason most people leave an organization has nothing to do with pay. It has to do with their feeling of belonging. It has to do with how much they feel connected. And very, very often, it’s because they either feel disconnected or disrespected by their supervisor or they feel disconnected within the organization.
When the subtle messages occur, we call them micro-messages and microbes yours. The micro-message are those subtle things that you say when you’re interacting with others. It could be something like, “hurry up,” “I don’t have much time.” Or you interrupt or you move quickly from that person speaking, trying to hurry to the next person. Those would be negative micro-messages.
We also call those micro-aggressions or micro-inequities. Micro-behaviors are those nonverbal things that you might do that also disconnect. Things such as looking at your watch when someone is speaking to you or inviting someone in and getting them to start talking. Or imagine when you’re at a meeting and someone is speaking but you’re looking at your notes and you’re doing other things rather than paying attention to the person speaking. Particularly for individuals who are different from the majority in the organization, folks that we call diverse, even though everybody’s diverse, particularly for them, those messages are loud and clear.
Now, the good news is there is a solution if you’re willing to practice. There’s a technique that I call STOP The “S” stands for state the behavior. The “T” stands for tell the person how you feel. The “O” stands for options, and the “P” stands for positive results. It only takes about 45 seconds when you practice it and when you do it well, you need to practice it, though, because this is an emotional kind of feedback. So, practice it and then deliver.
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