"We need to destroy the competition."

Have you ever stopped to think about how the language of business is incredibly violent?

"James from sales has been killing it this quarter, but we are still losing ground to the competition."

I mean, right down to thinking about your target customers.
Really! As if the people that pay for your products are part of some game of warfare.

"This appears to be a legal minefield, could you take a stab at drafting a new policy?"

And all that is before we get into language that is, often without thinking, used to oppress people.

"I know you have to be crazy to work here, but he was committing career suicide."

There's a lot of sexually violent language in business too. A CEO of TMobile USA once tweeted that the competition were "raping customers for every penny they have".

Needless to say, there is no way we can have empathy for each other, if we are treating each other as enemies.

If you want to turn your business into a force for good, the mindset and language of your team is one of the many things to work on.

If this resonates with you, check out Non Violent Communication as a starting point.