Inside Walmart's New Shoppable 'RomCommerce' Series and What It Harbingers for Brands
Why This Whiskey Brand Sends Superfans From All Over the World to Vermont Every Quarter
How to Better Support Mental Wellness at Work
Here Are the Top DEI Trends of 2023 -- and What They Mean for the Year Ahead
The 10 Best Business Movies of 2023, From 'Barbie' to 'BlackBerry'
There's a right and wrong way to curse.
Elon Musk's crude commentary regarding corporations pulling ads from X in the wake of his seeming approval of anti-semitic remarks is an example of the latter. In an interview at the New York Times DealBook Summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Musk said: "If someone's going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f--- yourself," said Musk. "Including Bob," he added, referring to Disney CEO Bob Iger, who was onstage earlier during the event. When Sorkin attempted to follow up, Musk doubled down, repeating, "Go f--k yourself."
But not all cursing is bad. Studies reveal the neurological benefits of dropping a selective f-bomb, but they also reveal that cursing has become more commonplace for executives in workplace settings in recent years. Further studies have shown that those who do curse are viewed as more honest than those who don't.
So should you walk into work tomorrow peppering your team with expletives? No. Remember, the mean-spirited Musk-esque rebukes aren't wise. Other use-cases may be fair game, however. Here's how entrepreneurs can successfully deploy cursing as a tool for good.
This may be the most important part of cursing at work: who will hear you and how will they receive it? Recently, during the taping of Inc. Uncensored, a podcast from Inc. Business Media that delves deep into issues related to entrepreneurship, Muse founder and CEO Kathryn Minshew casually mentioned that early in her career a few of her fellow executives suggested she drop "an f-bomb" in her first meeting with a new team. Otherwise, her colleagues told her that they would think they couldn't swear in front of her. In other words, doing so would set them at ease and make her seem more relatable. "So I was like, all right, that's funny. Let's go. And never really let off," says Minshew.
British science writer and cursing expert Emma Byrne, author of Swearing Is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language (W. W. Norton & Company, 2018), says there are a few things at play here. The first is that swearing is much more common among men. This is because men typically have a much smaller emotional vocabulary compared to women and rely on curse words to compensate and intensify whatever it is they're saying. So a well-placed f-bomb can indicate that she speaks their language. Byrne also notes that women are typically conditioned to speak more indirectly than men, so the f-bomb can be a way of saying "it's okay to speak to me directly."
Byrne says she has been in this situation herself numerous times. As a woman in a male-dominated field, she's found this to be an effective strategy for breaking down barriers and assuaging the "fear of needing to be deferential," says Byrne. "Not being able to be as blunt with me as they might be with male colleagues."
Whether you're meeting your team for the first time like Minshew, speaking to an outside audience like Musk or speaking at a company all-hands meeting, it's crucial to know the context when you plan on dropping an expletive. Are you looking to shock? To fit in? Depending on your desired outcome you'll want to tailor your language. Denny Cherry & Associates Consulting founder Denny Cherry says that when he is unsure of how a curse will be received he lets his conversation partner make the first move. "When meeting with a new client my approach is to always let them drop the first f-bomb during the conversation. Once they do, I know that they are fair game," says Cherry.
Byrne calls this the flirting stage of swearing and says it's a useful tool when cursing at work. "You start with something a bit milder, see if the other person receives it. If they receive it usually then it's kind of polite for them to build on it and swear back within a few sentences. So it's that sort of flirtatious building from a damn to f-k that," says Byrne.
Be authentic.
A key component of using a curse word at work is authenticity. Byrne says if cursing doesn't come naturally to you, don't force it. Most swearing is used as a way to level your social hierarchies and say that we're on the same page-you and me, we're in the same group, we trust each other, says Byrne. Jennifer Schielke, CEO of the IT company Summit Group Solutions, says that she doesn't use curse words for this exact reason. "The times I find I draw a connection best with others is when I am genuinely interested in them and open myself to be unguarded," she says. "I relate with people by finding common ground, and up to this point, I haven't been stuck with the only option being [to use] fancy curse words," says Schielke.
Swearing strategically as a means of connection can backfire if it isn't an authentic representation of you. Like when every business leader and politician began using the same hand gestures after body language research showed it conveyed authority, the gestures are still used but can feel phony to some. "The chances of coming across as either inauthentic or just not understanding your audience's mindset outweigh any sort of spontaneity of swearing," says Byrne.
A refreshed look at leadership from the desk of CEO and chief content officer Stephanie Mehta
Privacy Policy
When and How to Curse at Work
10
3
01.12.2023
Inside Walmart's New Shoppable 'RomCommerce' Series and What It Harbingers for Brands
Why This Whiskey Brand Sends Superfans From All Over the World to Vermont Every Quarter
How to Better Support Mental Wellness at Work
Here Are the Top DEI Trends of 2023 -- and What They Mean for the Year Ahead
The 10 Best Business Movies of 2023, From 'Barbie' to 'BlackBerry'
There's a right and wrong way to curse.
Elon Musk's crude commentary regarding corporations pulling ads from X in the wake of his seeming approval of anti-semitic remarks is an example of the latter. In an interview at the New York Times DealBook Summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Musk said: "If someone's going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f--- yourself," said Musk. "Including Bob," he added, referring to Disney CEO Bob Iger, who was onstage earlier during the event. When Sorkin attempted to follow up, Musk doubled down, repeating, "Go f--k yourself."
But not all cursing is bad. Studies reveal the neurological benefits of dropping a selective f-bomb, but they also reveal that cursing has become more commonplace for executives in workplace settings in recent years. Further studies have shown that those who do curse are viewed as more honest than those who don't.
So........
© Inc.com
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Rachel Marsden
Donald Low
Bradley Blankenship
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
Abbas Juma
Michael Kwet
