Around 7% of the UK workforce is now unemployed and the number is likely to continue rising throughout this year, according to ‘analysts’ or, if you prefer, people who are often no better at predicting the future than you or I but who have mastered the art of sounding as if they are!

These redundancies are a statistical and economic fact of life at the moment.. but there is also a human side, quite apart from these. A human impact on the person who was previously a carpenter, office worker, manager, shop assistant, etc. and who has just been told that that’s all changed and that instead they are now, wait for it, ‘redundant’.

NLP and the impact of words

NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. This name was meant to convey how comprehensive it is

• Neuro referred to the mind-body interaction
• Linguistic referred to our use of verbal and non-verbal language
• Programming referred to the automatic programmes or skills-recipes which we have for doing everything we are good at doing.

Understanding how we use language and how it impacts people is a very important part of NLP; as Richard Bandler, a principle figure in the original NLP-developing team, once said ‘language is our middle name’.

‘You are redundant!’

We respond to words both logically and emotionally so when somebody says to you ‘you are redundant’ it can have many implications.

• Financially you have to change your lifestyle for a (usually unknown) period of time
• Socially you can lose a group of friends and acquaintances, especially if you have been in the habit of socialising with your work colleagues
• Your sense of security and permanency changes: before you could plan ahead whereas now, well, who knows what the future holds!
• Importantly, your status or Identity (or self-esteem) can change among friends and family. Before you may have got status from your work as a builder, shopkeeper, manager, etc. Now, unless you’re very careful, you could begin to think of yourself as ‘unemployed’ or, worse still, ‘redundant’.

Maintaining morale

There are lots of state-sponsored agencies, individual consultants, websites, books, and newspaper and magazine articles which provide practical information on dealing with the financial and even social side of redundancy.

But unless you ensure that you respond realistically and objectively, rather than emotionally’ to words such as unemployed or redundant there is a risk that you might begin to think of yourself as a redundant person – which the dictionary describes as not needed or superfluous!

Taking on such an Identity will likely undermine morale and with it the motivation and enthusiasm to turn the situation around.

‘You are redundant’ or…??

Perhaps a key thing to consider is ‘Is it me or is it them?’ Am I superfluous or are they unable to provide enough business to keep me on board?

This is not a trivial distinction.

Unless we have a crystal-clear understanding of the reality behind the words’ and behind the ritualistic verbiages used in the process of sacking someone, there is a risk we will emotionally be undermined by the experience and consider it a verdict on our self-worth rather than on the abilities of those running the organisation.

Remember these people were happy to keep you on board when the economic situation was healthy. Now, because they haven’t been able to respond creatively to the new economic situation, they can’t afford to keep you on board.

Now is this a reflection on you… or on them?

So rather than ‘I am redundant’ you might want to consider ‘I am eminently employable – but the managers of the organisation were not flexible enough to respond creatively to the current economic situation’.

Small switch – potentially big impact.