No right time to use the word “Just”
People who have worked with me will probably know that there is one word I avoid in management. In this Play I will use this as an example of how small elements of management behaviour can have big effects. In particular I will focus on one small word and how damaging it can be on psychological safety.
JUST
“Just” people
When we use the word “just” about people, we are de-personalising that individual. Let’s look at a typical example:
Sukhi is just a junior developer
Using this phrase is replacing the individual in your mind with a generic class of person. This is something which we all do all the time in our heads, and we should guard against it.
We are hard-wired to put people in groups to make quick assessments, from the days when antelopes were food and leopards were danger, and fast classification would save your life.
When interviewing similar behaviour leads to “unconscious bias”, where rather than judging the individual being interviewed, we classify them within seconds of when they walk in. We then judge them not by their uniqueness but by our past experience of other people who look like them or act like them.
Whatever Sukhi’s skills, experience or difficulties, you are ignoring them in favour of your own past experience of the class of person you have put them in. Everyone is unique and if you talk to Sukhi you will find she is not “just” anything.
It is also easy to use this form of phrase about ourselves.
I am just a graduate
This can be genuinely downgrading ourself and failing to identify our own unique skills and suggests an individual needing coaching. In many cases, individuals who say this are repeating back the way they are treated by their management. They are told they are “just” a class of person and they become bounded by those expectations.
Why does this matter?
De-personalising individuals is the opposite of what an Agile leader should be doing. Snap decisions based on “gut feel” are not the best way to run a modern organisation. This approach puts the speaker in the Hero role and the audience as a generic resource. It is very much the basis of Scientific Management, which seeks to represent all workers as identical individuals doing reproduceable work, which conflicts with the complex environments of Agile.
A leader’s job is to understand his people, understand their differences; optimize their interactions, their educations, their experiences
W.E. Deming
“Just” work
The word “just” can, if anything, have an even more damaging effect when applied to work. Here it is used to minimise or even trivialise the work being discussed.
Just finish this document for me
Especially with the power dynamic of the speaker being a manager or team lead, the word “just” has several effects.
- It identifies the work as small and low value.
- “Just” reflects a “Theory X” mindset and removes autonomy and self-managing from the individual
- It emphasises the difference in status – the speaker is unloading work which is tedious or low status.
- “Just” removes the need for any appreciation for the work, because it has been identified as trivial.
- Since the work is trivial, it assumes it can be delivered rapidly with no disruption to other work.
Why does this matter?
Generally “just” bypasses the decision making processes which the organisation should have adopted. As a result, this is a common cause of overloading individuals, increasing work in progress, missed schedules and eventual burnout. When a manager or team lead introduces work with “just” there is rarely the opportunity to explain existing loading, or assess why the work may be harder than the manager imagines. The individual’s contribution is not appreciated in the same way that using “just” with people the individual themself is not appreciated.
All that people need to know is why their work is important.
W.E. Deming
What can I change?
Consider how your use of language affects your team. As we have seen, even the smallest of words can have an impact.
Think what you intend to say and whether your words are really saying that. Consider the impact of the words on the audience. And genuinely listen to feedback if people tell you that you make them uncomfortable.
Remember that your teams are real, complex individuals, with all the leadership challenges that implies. They are not “just” anything.
And of course, avoid the use of the word “just”. There are few occasions (maybe outside the legal system) where the word adds value, especially when used by a manager. I’ve largely trained myself out of using “just”, and hope I manage to catch myself when I slip up.
Leave a Reply