All of us have professional communication habits. And these habits, both consciously and unconsciously, can reflect our professional biases. Biased behavior often reflects professional baggage created by embarrassing, humiliating or toxic encounters with clients and colleagues.
When professional bias and baggage influences our professional communication, everyone is impacted. Leaving these biases unaddressed creates lousy employee experience. Connecting these dots, when employees feel disenfranchised from one another, their experience and success suffer. Ultimately, customer experience reflects this scenario as customer success and customer retention also are impacted.
If you do not think your professional communication is impeded by your biases, ask yourself these two questions.
Why do I feel uncomfortable?
First, consider whether, or not, you are comfortable communicating with people outside of your professional discipline, pay grade, level of education or generation? In addition, let’s put a bigger spin on that word: “comfortable.” Do you avoid working with colleagues and clients who solve problems differently that you do, because of how their professional discipline “thinks things through”?
When you are more comfortable sticking to your own kind, rather than stepping one millimeter forward outside of your communication comfort zone, your actions are biased. My keynotes and workshops take a deep dive into just why your (and their) biases and baggage impede the quality and outcomes of your professional communication.
How come I feel incompetent?
Next, consider whether, or not, professional communication disconnects impede how competent you feel. What happens when you speak with people outside of your professional discipline, pay grade, level of education or generation? And, let’s build out that word: “competent.” Let’s get real here. Are there colleagues from certain professional disciplines which make you feel “less than,” if not straight-up stupid and unintelligent? And, even if you avoid working with these colleagues, sometimes working with them is unavoidable.
When you feel marginalized, excluded or intimidated by the professional communication patterns, behaviors and actions of employees from different job titles, pay grades, levels of education or generations, everyone loses out. Consider how my keynotes and workshops explore why professional bias and baggage – yours and theirs – ultimately impedes the quality of workforce capacity and output.
Continuing the “same” professional communication combined with the “same” behaviors only reinforces workplace profession-based biased. How about changing up your human capital strategy?
Isn’t it time to liberate yourself, and your workplace, from unproductive and unprofitable professional communication bias?
- Planning your next corporate or association meeting? Engage me to present one of my Storytelling for STEM Professionals and Left Brain Thinkers speaking programs, workshops or moderated facilitation services. Contact me here.
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Babette Ten Haken’s One Millimeter Mindset® Storytelling Speaking Programs, Workshops and Facilitation Services leverage storytelling for STEM professionals and left brain thinkers to catalyze employee and customer success and retention. She motivates individuals and teams to combine courage, curiosity and critical thinking skills to co-create compelling stories which inspire trust in one another. Especially in industries with STEM and left-brain stakeholders.
Find out more about Babette’s professional story here. Babette is a member of SME, ASQ, SHRM and the National Speakers Association. Her playbook of communication hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Babette’s speaker profile is on the espeakers platform. Contact Babette here.
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