Just Gonnae No?

Whilst in Barcelona for VMware Explore Europe 2022, I got the opportunity to spend some quality time with a good friend of mine. Many moons…

Whilst in Barcelona for VMware Explore Europe 2022, I got the opportunity to spend some quality time with a good friend of mine. Many moons ago we worked together as engineers and now support each other in our executive roles. To say we’ve seen it all, would be an understatement!

He was telling me stories of uncovering problems with a team that had recently joined his division, and although he spent several hours with them, one word kept coming up and told him everything he needed to know. I’ve come across the exact same in my work, so I thought it worth writing about.

“there is one word that is innocuous and hides in plain sight which dismisses, diminishes and reduces whatever it is connected to” — Dr Jonathan Ramachenderan

As a leader, be careful when you say “just” and listen closely when you hear it from others.

We use the word “just” a lot, and often to mean different things. We can use it in the sense of the timing, such as “I’ve just seen this”, and to articulate exactness — “That’s just what I need” or “It’s just over half”.

The problem is the darker side of the word, when we use it to express “merely”.

When writing this article, I actually found many definitions to be lacking when it comes to describing this latter use of diminishing something. I came across a post by Tim Bray, who dives into the philology of the word, tracing it back to the full Oxford English Dictionary where he found “Used to extenuate the action expressed by a verb, and so to represent it as a small thing”.

As a leader, your job is often to simplify problems to make them more actionable and communicable.

There’s many positive ways to do that, but the word “just” can sound condescending or belittling of someone’s efforts . When talking to an engineer about a problem they’ve been working on for hours, the last thing they want to hear from their leadership is helpful suggestions that sound like “could we not just”. Or maybe it’s towards the end of the day and you would like the team to “just implement one small change” before they go.

I’ve seen this in practice, where a manager in my team was struggling with her teams’ motivation and asked me to sit in on a team meeting. I noticed that when she was giving instructions to the team, the word “just” would appear. In our follow up chat, we concluded that it was rooted in a lack of confidence on her part, whereby reducing/simplifying the task somehow made it feel like less of a command and easier to accomplish.

With any task, there may be factors or dynamics at play that you are unaware of that make it more challenging than saying “just” implies. With repetition, resentment builds and motivation suffers.

Equally, you must listen for it carefully in your team. One word can tell a much broader story about what’s really going.

• “We just need to …” — is often the hallmark of someone who doesn’t understand the bigger picture or the implications of their work.

• “They just need to…” — is an indication of organisational silos and a lack of respect/empathy between colleagues.

• “You just need to…” — could show a person becoming frustrated, perhaps feeling they don’t have any power.

• “I’m just an engineer” — can highlight a lack of engagement and empowerment. They feel uncomfortable or unwilling to take on responsibility or participate.

In all of the examples, it would be so easy to miss these subtle emotive cues. By listening carefully for that little four letter word, we can perhaps avoid confrontation or determine a path of action to solve the problem, rather than the symptoms.

Just Gonnae No?

Hopefully that has been helpful, or at least made you thoughtful about the impact of even the simplest of words. If you are using the word “just” then, in the words of Oxford English Dictionary, please avoid using it to “represent as a small thing”.