Trigger Language in the Workplace

Hello and welcome to the Australian Institute of Insider Threat. Hi, I'm Boaz Fischer and I have Peter Nattrup with me. Thank you. In this interview, we're going to unpack the power of communication, exploring how leaders can avoid the pitfalls De-escalate conflict and foster trust through thoughtful language. Yes, we are going to talk about words that can make or break and very much focus on trigger language.

Yes, absolutely.

So let's start off. What do we mean by trigger language?

So any phrase or words that create an emotional response. that escalate an emotional response inside of the person who's receiving that information or receiving that word or that phrase that can damage their performance, that can degrade their standing value inside of themselves in the team, and even kind of affect the whole team dynamics.

Okay, so can you give me some examples of what could be such as trigger language that A recipient could potentially hear.

So on an individual level, what are some of the words that we probably would not like to hear is, you know, so what do you actually do here?

Yes.

Which straight away puts the receiver of that information into a defensive mode.

Yes.

And all sorts of thoughts will go through their heads like, oh, my job's at stake.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any others that come to mind?

So let's have a look at a team. You know, if you start using the word inside of a team dynamic, you know, rightsizing, which is a euphemism for some of you are going to lose your job.

Yes, yes, exactly.

Those sorts of things will definitely spark an emotional reaction. Even in people who are emotionally resilient, the moment you start looking at the work-pay level, most people are pretty sensitive about that. Yeah.

So how can such language, or let's call it dismissive language, alienate, dismiss, create such a negative impact on the person themselves?

Most people who work in an environment or who work with an organization have a sense of value. And it's that sense of value that allows them to bring their best game to the team. And that's what you want. You want to have all your personnel, all your team players bringing their best game and their best enthusiasm to the team. The moment that you start using a trigger word or trigger phrases, that undermines that, that creates doubt, that creates uncertainty, specifically around their future or possibly around something that happens for them personally as well too. Yep. Then you actually degrade that performance. Now, it's a matter of how often that happens and whether that becomes a culture within the organization or whether that was just a once-off.

I want to go sideways. I hope you don't mind because it's not one of the questions, but trying to understand human behavior in terms of when someone talks to them in a Their world of what is perceived as animosity, why is it triggering that sort of reaction? What's going through? Because I could say something to you, it'll be very different to another person.

Yes, absolutely.

So why do some people feel more aggrieved or it escalates conflict?

Because in their world, this is something that's, that is to them a problem. So we could be in a lunchroom talking about pimples, right?

Correct.

Oh, you know, these pimples, this, that and the other. And then there's one person in the corner of the room going, yeah, yeah. So that's triggered that person because for that person, they have a self-image around pimples to use a very bland or out there example.

Let's talk about the tone and the role and how that sort of communication is perceived in the workforce.

Yeah. So you're looking a lot at the position or the rank or the hierarchy of the person that's making those statements. If you have somebody who has power and authority over you, your radar and sensitivity for what's coming down the track is very much heightened. So as a person of seniority, I suppose, awareness of what your words will do is very, very important. And, you know, let's just say you need to talk to somebody about their position. That can also be done very empathetically. Yeah. By blasting on in and say, well, you know, we're engaging in rightsizing here at the moment, immediately puts the person off.

How does cultural difference and also people's sensitivities affect the different level of trigger language?

It comes down to cultural differences are absolutely a must. There are some cultures that will not look you in the eye because that's not how they operate. It's not because they're being dismissive or because they're being underhanded or anything like that. It's just the way their culture works.

Correct.

So that's a really blatant example of needing to be aware of the way that the cultures are and certain cultures, you just don't broach certain topics. Correct. So to be in that environment with people, you need to have a sensitivity about what their culture also is and you'll pick that up pretty quickly.

One would hope.

One would hope. I won't do that again.

Yes, exactly. Let's look Let's look at the downside of trigger language. What's the long-term impact in an organization if sort of left unchecked?

Sure. So in most cases, you know, people will stumble upon something that triggers somebody else and that there is a buffer factor there somewhere. You know, it can happen once, maybe twice, but after about the third time, let's just say, people start going, there's more going on here than anything else.

Yeah. How much does it go from a sort of a trigger language to something that is deemed as harassment, would you say? If it's— I'm guessing if it becomes more repetitive.

Yeah, it depends on the recipient. And this is the really important bit. It depends on the recipient. I call it emotional brittleness. Without, without, without, you know, we're all emotionally brittle about something.

Yes.

You know?

Yes.

So we need to be really able to calibrate into the person and read, oh, I think I've stepped past the mark. And then take steps to mitigate that. And that can happen on a peer level, that can happen on a management level, it can happen on any level, but you need that sensitivity.

How well do you think leaders, management executives can actually identify when their own language is contributing to the impacts of others?

Depends on whether they've got a radar for it. Most leaders, most managers are very purpose-driven. They're very outcomes-focused. And inside of their mind, what they will be saying is not really perceived as anything other than definiteness. What's needed is that awareness, how does that land?

Yeah.

When I'm sitting around the table and there's somebody in my peripheral vision that's suddenly looking down and becoming, and you can tell this person just suddenly detached.

So that was gonna be my next question. It is how can they become more consciously aware about their language?

It's by consciously practicing consciousness. Yes. Observation is a discipline. But it's also what to look for. It's also something that you need to know, what am I looking for? If you're not used to seeing a person's energy level or engagement level dissipate, you'll never spot

it.

So there is a certain amount of training that needs to happen in there as well too. Now, training can actually happen in the real world situations as we grow up.

Yeah.

You know, our parents train us about certain things, our school friends, our friends in the footy team, they all train us. about those kinds of things. But there are people who go through life that never ever pick up on those cues.

How can organizations, and I suppose there's a side question to it, how can organizations train or help their employees, managers, leaders to become more consciously aware about trigger languages? And I suppose the next question is, is there someone within the organization that has the capability to help train? You know, where does that knowledge and training come from in the first place?

So it's really interesting because the way I see an organization, and we talked about this before, I see an organization as a dynamic biological entity. And there is a certain amount of self-healing that needs to happen within the organization. So in terms of training, I would probably empower management, peer-to-peer management to pick each other up and say, hey, did you realize that you just said that to Joe Blow? And that really didn't land very well. And here's what you might want to do.

Correct. Yeah, the only challenge with that is the— I was just thinking and trying to put myself, let's say, in a management role is that if someone comes to me and saying, the language I was using or I could do better. I suppose you're always asking what would they know, how would they know in terms of about communication and behavior of people because it's pretty hard, tends to be a little bit specialist role.

Yes, it does. So there's 2 layers to that. One is that it needs to be approved from the top down. The way the flavor of the organization is derived precisely by the head or the heads that are driving that organization. And secondly, there are trainings available through the Institute, as a professor, for instance, that will allow that exercise because it's a muscle. Empathy actually is a muscle. Correct. It can be trained. People think, oh, you've got it or you haven't got

it.

Well, yes and no. Because there are people who have trained themselves to have empathy. And then that's anchored to various situations as well too. So you might have somebody who's totally unempathetic at home, but they've anchored empathy into the work because that's their bread and butter. And they're very successful at it.

Yep. Moving forward. So what can organizations, what sort of strategies can organizations do to now to try and de-escalate That sort of, let's say if it's, if trigger language is quite commonly used within the organization, what strategies can they use?

Whether you're now dealing on an individual basis, whether you're now dealing on an organizational basis, there's certain steps that you do. You name

it.

This happened. You just did, you just said right-sizing. Reframe

it

and say, this is now actually a different kettle of fish. This is now, look, we really want to make sure you're in the right position at the right place. You contextualize it and say, okay, in this context, you were saying that to this particular department, but in actual fact, it's more applicable to that department. And this is the purpose behind it.

Okay. So it's very— yeah, I want you to sort of dive in a little bit more around the context because that's super important.

Exactly.

Because it's not generic. It's not about everything. So it's super important. On this particular instance.

Exactly. So most of the time when something comes out that can be taken as a trigger, there is a driver behind it.

Yes, correct.

Part of the miscommunication is that the driver is not understood at the beginning of a conversation by the other party, by the other person receiving that information. So what context is that you say, okay, look, we really need to expand. Let's take the, what do you actually do here?

Yes.

We really need to expand our skill sets Because we feel that there are certain people who can be beneficial to train other people to do that. So in that context, can I ask you, what do you actually do here?

Yeah.

Whoa, different kettle of fish entirely.

Correct.

So these are the skills that I'd love for you to be able to translate into this department or to this person. All of a sudden you've got a collaborative energy coming out of that rather than a combative energy or a dismissive energy.

Yeah. How does— or let me put it a different way. How does empathy and active listening help with sort of the communication within your organization that happens after conflict? How do we integrate empathy and active listening?

Yep. Empathy is the ability to look at a situation from another person's shoes. One of the most important management tools Is that most effective managers will let everybody else in the room talk.

Yep.

They will let everybody else in the room have their say and then they will say, okay, based on what I've heard, this is how I assess it and people will nod. That's part of empathy. Yes, that's right. This is what I said. If somebody goes, no, not really, or starts looking down, you go, did I miss something? And then at that point in time, the effective manager will turn around and say, okay, from what I see, this is how we go forward.

Yep.

So that empathy is really important, but also active listening is paramount because there are so many people out there that will talk assuming they know what the situation is. And everybody says, this guy's lost it.

Yeah. Are there, I mean, you mentioned about tools, are there frameworks or tools that can help teams develop sort of a shared communication in terms of building respect and better communication?

Yeah, look, there are a number of different avenues, there's a number of different approaches. I think the one that I personally like very much is the ability to As I call it, name it, reframe it and contextualize it. But there are other models around as well too, which will be a whole training session in its own right. But at the same time, this is a really quick takeaway from that because the whole point is to actually address the situation, address the elephant in the room, get everybody on board and understand why that was happening and then move forward.

Okay. So I found what you just mentioned really important. My question now is whether employees will feel safe enough to say, look, I'm happy to name it, I'm happy to reframe it and talk about it. But how do we make the organization and specifically the employees feel safe that they can share communications?

Yes.

And grievances and so forth. And how do they build that sort of increase building the level of trust?

Yes. Trust is built up over time and consistency. If you fool me once, fool me twice, but you won't do it a third time. Yes. The idea is that there is a— I mentioned before that you need as somebody who is especially leading people and organizations, You need to have a certain amount of discipline around that and that discipline does not necessarily mean that you go straight for the goal. It means that you actually get everybody on board before you set out the goal so that everybody says, oh yeah, that's a really, that's where we want to go. So that's probably the most important part.

Okay. We sort of come to the end of it. So let's sort of reframe it for one of the key takeaways. The key areas that people are watching can take from regarding trigger language?

Self-awareness, probably more than anything else. And also the ability to tap into somebody else emotionally and be able to have the willingness to turn around and turn it right. I mean, there will be people who will take these kinds of trigger languages and deliberately needle the other. That kind of behavior will probably need to be spotted by somebody else and like, we don't do this here.

Yeah, exactly.

Which gets back to the way the organization is headed up.

Yep. Cool. Well, thanks for that. Thanks, Peter. Much appreciated.

Pleasure.

Thanks for watching and stay tuned for the next video. Cheers.

Cheers.