We have gotten ourselves tied up in a space where we use terms of endearment to address those around us. It’s become very common in some people’s vernacular and the hope is it will make the person on the receiving end feel seen, loved, welcomed or safe.
In a professional and business setting, it does the quiet opposite. This may be the cause of your colleagues not feeling comfortable coming to you in need of support, or it may be the reason as to why they are avoiding contact and communication with you. It is breaking the bridge between you and them.
Terms of endearment create an environment that is too personal without building trust first. They can make someone feel uncomfortable in an unsafe way. It can also be very off putting and disrespectful to others.
The intention in using them is to create an environment where your colleagues and guests feel warm and welcomed but it may be doing more harm than you can see. It can be pretty obvious when one is thrown off by being addressed by “love”, “babe”, “sweaty” by someone they don’t know or that is leading them. This is where observing body language and reaction to these terms is important to pay attention to. People are always speaking to you without vocalizing it.
Learning someone’s language is the baseline of building trust from within. Terms of endearment are very intimate and a personal interaction. Let’s make a conscious effort to step away from them in the workplace until you understand how people want to be addressed at first.
Like any reprogramming of any habits, it will take time to eliminate them from your vocabulary at work.
Here are 5 practices to help you get to know your teams’ language and how they want to be addressed while eliminating the “loves and babes” from your interactions.
1 - Ask all of your team members what their preferred name is.
2 - Anytime you are addressing your team, use their preferred name. If the “loves and babes” split out - apologize and use their name instead.
3 - Catch yourself and stop yourself when you feel the “loves and babes” splitting out. It’s ok to stop mid word. This is the process of reprogramming your word flow.
4 - Teach your team the same practice. Eliminate the terms of endearment from your culture as a whole. If you are doing it collectively, it invites accountability and it feels less challenging.
5 - Celebrate the days you notice you reduced the use of terms of endearment. It’s not an easy process!
The goal is to always be learning how to create a more safe and respectful work environment. It all starts with language, learning yours and your teams’. And then working together to build the bridges of strong communication.