How You Say It Matters

"Remember the meeting time."

"Don't forget the meeting time."

Do both of those say the same thing? Not as far as your brain is concerned.

Why?

The brain doesn't register the negative. So if you use the negative sentence “Don’t forget the meeting time,” your brain is ignoring the “don’t” and hearing the statement “forget the meeting time.”

If you use the positive sentence, “Remember the meeting time,” you’ll have a much better chance of seeing your participants show up on schedule.

The mind wants direction, not a sense of "lack." That's why it's important to pay attention to how you say things. If I tell you that something is "not very expensive" you'll focus on "expensive."

Try these:

• "New" vs. "Untried"
• "By 5 O'clock" vs. "By the end of the day"
• "Economical" vs. "Inexpensive"

Note: This is how improvement efforts often get bogged down at the outset.

"I want us to make fewer mistakes" translates differently than, "I want to increase the accuracy of our customer service solutions by 30% before November 30."

 

Comments

[Carl Ingalls]

Steve,

Supporting evidence from Twitter: tweets that are stated in the positive receive more attention (retweets and/or replies) than tweets that are stated in the negative.

Thank you for your thoughts.

Carl Ingalls (@Carl_Ingalls on Twitter)

[Ron Edmondson]

This is good Steve. I wrote about a similar topic today (team vocabulary), but yours is better.

Still, here's mine: http://www.ronedmondson.com/2010/11/when-i-say-i-and-when-i-say-we.html

Thanks for your contribution to the field of leadership.

[Bill Peel]

Thanks Steve. I don't want to forget this-----I mean, I will remember this!

[Bela Johnson]

Someone asked about research to back this up, so thought I'd provide what I found after asking myself the same question:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/138797.php

[Steve Roesler]

Bela, thanks for that URL. That particular study is even a bit newer than the one that I had seen (but managed to lose).

Greatly appreciated and I'm going to tweak the post to include your contribution.

Steve