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How To Say What You Mean And Make People Mad

This article is more than 8 years old.

I knew when I left the corporate world that I wanted to start writing.

I heard that our company was going to be sold on a day when my husband and I had Blackhawks tickets. He picked me up at the office at five and we went to the game. I said "Big news! The company is going away."

I watched the guys skating around but I couldn't concentrate. My mind was blank. The hockey players looked like raisins moving around on an oval-shaped white plate. I couldn't follow the action.

I couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that my team of co-workers was going to break up, that our wonderful company was going away and most likely, that I'd be leaving my job very soon.

Later I would cry and go through other emotions, but that night I just tried to enjoy the game -- without much success.

My husband asked me "What does your instinct tell you to do next?" and I said "It tells me to write."

I started writing a column for the Chicago Sun-Times.

I started to get reader mail right away. I asked my husband "Guess what some guy told me in an email message today?"

"What?" he asked.

"He told me to stop spreading my radical ideas around," I said.

"Isn't that the best? I wish he could see me driving my radical minivan to the radical Cub Scout meeting. I think the poor man would be disappointed."

You wouldn't expect that someone who writes about work and leadership would get hate mail, but it doesn't take much to rile people up.

All you have to do is say what you think. You are going to upset people just by sharing your views.

Back then, I hadn't come up with the Reactionometer yet. The Reactionometer was the first dial that we created at Human Workplace when we started our movement in 2012. We wanted to show the normal distribution of reactions to any frame-shifting idea.

When you say what you think, some people will love it. They had been feeling the same way you had, but you spoke up and made that viewpoint real. Maybe they didn't realize that anyone else felt the same way they did.

You put your ideas out there and let other people gather around -- or run away. Some people won't like what you have to say. Some folks will tell you to pipe down.

What does it mean when people tell you to hush up, keep your ideas to yourself and stop talking?

It only means that your words stimulated a fear reaction in them. Your idea shook them up and made them feel as though their world had been rocked.

I remember getting in trouble in first grade for asking my teacher, whom we called Sister, if the stories we were learning like Jesus in the manger and the loaves and fishes were true stories that really happened, or made-up stories like Grimm's Fairy Tales, meant to teach us lessons.

I thought it was a reasonable question. I got sent to the bad-kid corner for the rest of the day and I missed recess.

The first step in finding your voice is to say what's on your mind -- your own opinion, not words somebody else fed you or taught you. That's a big step right there. Many of don't dare say how we feel, because we're afraid of other people's reactions.

In the working world we can start to believe that the only opinions we're allowed to have are 'safe' opinions. I have sat in many business meetings and heard people say "Those are dangerous words, in this company!" They said it without irony.

They don't think it odd for a grown-up person, a taxpayer and a professional to say "I dare not think that way."

They don't think about their own opinions. They don't turn ideas over in their minds. They know what they're supposed to think, and as soon as they know that, their brain shuts down.

I always wonder how their bodies handle the stress of being and doing what somebody else wants them to be and do, and whether they realize that they're playing a part every day when they go to work.

The first step in finding your voice is to speak up about something that needs to be said but that no one is saying. The second step is to let whatever reactions you get wash over you. Don't react. Keep breathing, soften the energy around you and let your words land.

Let people react while you stay calm. Remember the Reactionometer! Not everything people say in response to a new idea is a faithful representation of their true feelings. Anyone can get startled when they hear something new - an idea or concept that challenges their view of the world.

After some reflection, the folks who hated your worldview may warm to it, but as you get more comfortable sharing your thoughts you won't care whether people love them or hate them. Your vocal cords are muscles. They only get stronger when you use them.

If no one ever disagreed with you or took exception to your opinions, could you really say that you had anything to say?

It's good to toss a stone in the pond and let the ripples spread out. We started the Human Workplace movement to drop a lot of stones in the pond and get as many ripples going as possible.

I write to make people think. Everything we've been taught is not true, and the more we re-think our strongly-held beliefs, the better.

The first few times you speak your truth you may feel a flutter of fear as you open your mouth.

If that flutter is enough to silence you, the world will never receive your brilliance. If you push through the flutter and say what's on your mind, you'll be amazed to see what happens. The ripples in the pond will be obvious.

Don't be upset with a person who comes up to you after a meeting at work and says "Thanks for saying what all of us were thinking!" Don't be frustrated that that person and maybe everyone in the room let you speak while they stayed silent.

That's what leadership is. You gave someone else a shot in the arm and they may speak up the next time, in another meeting in another room.

You have a message and people need to hear it. Not everyone will like it. God bless them if they do or they don't.

Their reactions belong to them. They have nothing to do with you -- you are on your path with a message for anyone who wants to hear it!

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