There’s one toxic word that I find more than any other derails collaboration – particularly cross-disciplinary collaboration. This word is dismissive, demeaning, inconsiderate, and when you use it, the other people in the meeting will immediately turn off, and it will be incredibly hard to get them back on board, because this word makes it clear that you don’t understand what they’re doing, you don’t understand why they’re doing it, you believe their expertise is trivial, and you think you know better than they do.

Any guesses?

Stop here. If you have an idea what that word is, write it in the comments below. I’m super curious what people think.

For me, whenever I find myself using this word, I have to stop. I’ve made it a habit, and it took *years* to start being able to catch myself before using it (most of the time these days) or even after using it (still happens). But whenever it does happen, it’s worth stopping the conversation immediately, rewinding, and taking the time to clarify that I didn’t mean to use the word, and let’s dive deeper into the discussion because there’s clearly something I’m not understanding.

That word is “just”.

Why didn’t you just do it this way? What if we just did X? Just do Y.

It seems so simple. It’s something people say *all the time*, and I guarantee you that every time you say it, the people listening to you hear, “Why aren’t you seeing the obvious thing?” because that’s what “just” means in this case. Shortcut all the possible considerations for anything else, “just” do it the simple way which is obvious to me because I’m smart and you’re not.

Whenever you have an urge to say “just”, the better approach is, “Would it be possible to do X?” “I was thinking we could do X, but is there something I’m missing?”

There’s a chance that sometimes people have missed something simple. Maybe they were worried about things that aren’t as important as they seem. Maybe they wanted to write “good” code instead of something quick & dirty. But *the vast majority of the time*, if you’re a decent manager/leader, the reason people haven’t “just” done something isn’t because they missed a trick. It’s because *you* did.

Assume that your employees know what they’re doing. I know it doesn’t necessarily feel like it, but when people hear, “Why don’t we just…” the implication is almost always, “Why don’t you know what you’re doing?”

Excise the word from your work vocabulary entirely, and I promise you, your conversations will get more interesting and go over better instantly.