A bureaucratic phrase can make a human decision sound like weather.

GRATITUDE

WHAT THIS MEANS

Official phrasing has a way of making decisions sound like conditions. It has been determined, resources were reallocated, the position was made redundant. Somebody decided all of that, and the language turns it into a change in the weather that nobody could have prevented or explained.

When you meet that kind of wording, translate it back. Who decided, on what basis, and who could change it. And in your own communication, especially when delivering bad news, name the decision and the decider. It is harder and it treats the person receiving it as an adult.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

When were you told something happened, rather than who decided it?

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