Emphasizing the PositiveYou will encounter situations throughout your career in which you need toconvey unwanted news. However, sensitive communicators understand thedifference between delivering negative news and being negative. Never tryto hide the negative news, but look for positive points that will foster a goodrelationship with your audienceUsing Bias-Free LanguageBias-free languageavoids words and phrases that unfairly and evenunethically categorize or stigmatize people in ways related to gender, race,ethnicity, age, disability, or other personal characteristics. Contrary to whatsome might think, biased language is not simply about “labels.” To asignificant degree, language reflects the way people think and what theybelieve, and biased language may well perpetuate the underlyingstereotypes and prejudices that it represents.3Moreover, becausecommunication is largely about perception, being fair and objective isn’tenough: To establish a good relationship with your audience, you must alsoappearto be fair.4Good communicators make every effort to change biasedlanguage (seeTable 4.1). Bias can take a variety of forms:8Gender bias.Avoid sexist language by using the same labels for everyone,regardless of gender. Don’t refer to a woman aschairpersonand then to aman aschairman. Usechair,chairperson, orchairmanconsistently. (Notethat it is not uncommon to usechairmanwhen referring to a woman whoheads a board of directors. Archer Daniels Midland’s Patricia Woertz andXerox’s Ursula Burns, for example, both refer to themselves aschairman.5)Reword sentences to usetheyor to use no pronoun at all rather than refer toall individuals ashe. Note that the preferred title for women in business isMs.unless the individual asks to be addressed asMissorMrs.or has someother title, such asDr.9Racial and ethnic bias.Avoid identifying people by race or ethnic originunless such identification is relevant to the matter at hand—and it rarely is.10Age bias.Mention the age of a person only when it is relevant. Moreover, becareful of the context in which you use words that refer to age; such wordscarry a variety of positive and negative connotations. For example,youngcan imply youthfulness, inexperience, or even immaturity, depending on howit’s used.11Disability bias.Physical, cognitive, sensory, or emotional impairmentsshould never be mentioned in business messages unless those conditionsare directly relevant to the subject. If you must refer to someone’s disability,put the person first and the disability second.6For example, by saying“employees with physical disabilities,” not “handicapped employees,” you
focus on the whole person, not the disability. Finally, never use outdatedterminology such ascrippledorretarded.
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