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Working Words

The Power of the Written Word
by Sherry French

When I was a young woman starting out in the big bad business world, it always bothered me how people, and I hate to say it, but women in particular, could be so catty and backstabbing. It got to the point where I hated the coffee room at work. I never knew what to expect there and it was anything but relaxing. I was always shocked when someone would make a scathing, hurtful remark to another person and I learned not to trust people who spoke to me about others behind their backs. Despite their friendliness, I figured that if they would speak unkindly or reveal secrets about other people to me, the chances were good I'd be the subject of a conversation at another time.

My way of dealing with this was to walk away and ignore it. If someone were unkind to another in my presence I'd be quiet. If someone decided to talk to me about others, I would also keep quiet, extricating myself from the conversation as soon as possible. My younger self avoided any kind of confrontation. My older self is better at dealing with things, but still doesn't like to jump into the thick of unpleasant things.

Then I learned the lesson of tacit agreement the hard way. I learned it when someone started a sentence with, "Sherry and I were talking the other day and we thought..." On the day in question Sherry spoke very little and certainly didn't think the things that followed. It was after clearing up the misunderstanding with the third person involved in this story that I learned this valuable lesson: Silence isn't always golden. Sometimes you have to let it be known that you don't agree in order to make sure others don't assume that you do.

I still wasn't very good at confrontations though. I wanted people to like me, I didn't want to cause waves or, worse, get yelled at. Then, I happened to be reading an article on the subject of communication that suggested we ask ourselves three questions about a comment we're going to make before we go ahead and make it. The three questions were:

Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?

The objective of asking these questions is to be able to answer at least two of them with a "Yes". If you can't then you should probably keep the words to yourself. Now obviously people can't evaluate every sentence they utter in this way before speaking. We'd end up seriously behind in our conversations (much like the experience of serious lag in an online chat - not fun!)

However, the three questions stayed on my mind after reading them. One night when working late, I made use of the enlarging feature on the company photocopier. The next day people arrived at work to find the following message plastered in huge letters to the coffee room wall:

"Think Before You Speak! Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?"

The coffee room was a-buzz. I would walk through on my way to the ladies room and hear the whispered "who, when, why, what does it mean" questions. I confess that I even whispered a few of them myself. I noticed that the people who were most guilty of behind-the-back talk started glancing at others suspiciously and hesitating before they spoke. The people who couldn't seem to keep from making nasty comments suddenly were able to do so. No one tore the sheets off the wall. I had expected someone in upper management to consider these crudely crafted signs inappropriate office decor, but obviously no one did. Something unexpected happened as well. After the initial response to the signs, when some people had long forgotten their presence, others would use these signs like a weapon in their battle against conversational injustice. They were used in a joking way. An unkind comment would be greeted with a chorus of, "That's not kind! Do you know that's true? Did you really need to say it?"

The coffee room became a pleasant place. It was often filled with laughter and pleasant banter, people completing magazine questionnaires together or sharing little aspects of their lives. The pages on the walls were a bit battered and starting to yellow by the time I left that job, and for all I know they still hang there twenty years later. I never did reveal where they came from, though I suspect the friend who helped me learn the lesson of implied agreement might have guessed.

So, I learned that I have to speak up sometimes and I learned another lesson from this story as well. I could have repeated the theory of those three questions over and over again to people in that office and not have had as great an impact as hanging those thirteen words on the wall. I learned firsthand the power of the written word, reaffirming the fact that I must be a writer who learns to use this power well.

Sherry French
Copyright February 2000

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