She introduced new terminology (“words to work by”) that altered the meaning of events and actions in important ways; for instance, instead of an “investigation” into an adverse event, the hospital would use the term “study;” instead of “error” she suggested people use “accident” or “failure.” In subtle but important ways, Morath was trying to help people think differently about the work – and especially about what it means when things go wrong. These leadership actions comprise what I refer to as framing the work.

Your grandmother taught me to read when I was only four. She also taught me to write, by which I mean not simply organizing a set of sentences into a series of paragraphs, but organizing them as a means of investigation. When I was in trouble at school (which was quite often) she would make me write about it. The writing had to answer a series of questions: Why did I feel the need to talk at the same time as my teacher? Why did I not believe that my teacher was entitled to respect? How would I want someone to behave while I was talking? What would I do the next time I felt the urge to talk to my friends during a lesson? I have given you these same assignments. I gave them to you not because I thought they would curb your behavior - they certainly did not curb mine - but because these were the earliest acts of interrogation, of drawing myself into consciousness. Your grandmother was not teaching me how to behave in class. She was teaching me how to ruthlessly interrogate the subject that elicited the most sympathy and rationalizing - myself. Here was the lesson: I was not an innocent. My impulses were not filled with unfailing virtue. And feeling that I was as human as anyone, this must be true for other humans. If I was not innocent, then they were not innocent. Could this mix of motivation also affect the stories they tell? The cities they built? The country they claimed as given to them by God?

Powerful Words

Talk That Prompts Others to Act, Persist, and Generate Imaginative Solutions

Say This

Not That

Why

“We’ve shortened all thirty-minute meetings to twenty-five and sixty-minute

meetings to fifty.”

“We’ve made our meetings shorter.”

Concrete language is more persuasive than vague

language because it demonstrates more knowledge about the details of a situation and gives more tangible guidance about what to do.

“The subtraction game is great.”

“The subtraction

game was great.”

The present tense is more persuasive than the past tense because it suggests greater confidence and

certainty about what is best to do now and about how to respond to current challenges.

“I don’t want to waste your

time.”

“I am not allowed to waste your time.”

Use terms that suggest you have chosen to act this way, that you are doing it because you have the power to do it, and you believe it is the right thing. Avoid terms that imply your actions are imposed against your will by rules, laws, or norms you can’t change or by powerful people.

“Your employees are

cold and callous and made my mom cry [:( ].”

“Your employees

are unpleasant

and hurt my mom’s feelings.”

Sensory metaphors, words and phrases that express concepts by linking them to bodily experiences such as touch, smell, pain, hearing, smiles, and tears, are easier to remember, more persuasive, and more contagious.

“We’ve completed our

journey, but our friction fixing will continue.”

“We’ve reached our destination, and we did some mighty fine friction fixing.”

People who frame accomplishments as a journey are more likely to think about and learn from the path they took and persist after reaching a milestone; people who focus on the destination tend to treat it as “mission accomplished” and disengage.

We ask: How, indeed, have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want? More to the point, what am I willing to give up to stop being complicit?

I have an inner protocol in my doula work with parents and babies: ask myself if I am needed, support only as needed, do absolutely everything that is needed (change the diaper, sweep the floor, rub mama’s feet, take out the trash—no task is menial), and make space for the natural order to emerge.