The language you use has an incredible impact on your culture. It also says something about how your lead.

We're talking about a different kind of swearing. Here's how to recognize it and what to do about it.

I don’t mind swearing much, particularly when delivered in a clever, passionate way. In a classic conversation with Jim Cramer, Jon Stewart uses some choice language when describing how angry he gets when he thinks about financial news being packaged as entertainment. Swearing like this is passionate, timely and pointed:

Stewart’s amazing timing and wit don’t hurt either.

There is however, a four-letter word that makes my skin boil. The word is “Can’t”. In any company that claims to be innovative, this word is more destructive than any other word in the English language.

Paraphrasing Henry Ford, ‘If you think you can do something or think you can’t do something you are right.’

Turns out a different kind of swearing happens in corporations around the world. It sounds like:

• We can’t produce that, or
• It’s not going to happen, or
• I don’t like it

Here’s the classic definition of swearing: To use abusive, violent, or blasphemous language against.

So if you regularly hear phrases above at work, make no mistake, someone is swearing at you.

Here is a simple, but profoundly powerful technique. The next time you hear yourself about to use this type of swearing, pause and reframe your concern as wish or a how-to question.

For example, imagine you are an expert at producing paper. A coworker wants to market a nonflammable notebook for fireman and soldiers. You know that paper is flammable so it is impossible. Say, something like this: I wish I could find a paper that was nonflammable, or how to keep paper from bursting into flames when it hits 451 degrees?

(oh, well how about we use plastic paper, or coat the paper in fire resistant chemical, or create a cool-fire proof binder…)

This technique allows you to use your expertise to reframe your concern. You have been mature enough to identify why you don’t think an idea will work in a way that still leaves open the possibility that there may be an answer.

When someone says “I don’t like it” it makes me &^%$* angry. They have just stopped the conversation; thrown up a stop sign; frowned on my idea; made me feel stupid. On the contrary, when someone makes a wish or asks a how-to question, they have invited me into a challenge. I like challenges.

So, the next time someone says something can’t be done, teach them how to make a wish. They will soon find out that you make wishes come true.

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