The Dangers of "They"

"They."   It is an indiscriminate, often poorly defined mass of whomever upon which we are able to pin a lot of blame and escape ownership.   As in:

I don't know why we can't do it, all I know is that "they" told me we can't.

"They" don't get it/respect me/respect us.

"They" simply don't understand and never will.

"They" tell us what we need to do and we just do it - that's all.

Sometimes substitutes are used for "they."   "Upper management."  "The Government."  "The administration."   The intent is still the same;   it is the assignment of blame to a mass with no face.

It is the vagueness and sweeping generalities of the statements that offer no assistance toward building a better world.  It is as if we can abdicate all responsibility and any sense of ownership  in an Orwellian sense if we use the word "they."

So first of all, if this general assignment of blame is to escape responsibility - it needs to stop.  It doesn't make anyone feel any better;   it doesn't right any wrongs.

Secondly, if there is a case of justice to be made, we need to utilize better semantics.

Specifically - who is it?   And what exactly did they say?  And who can verify what they said?  And are we sure that the impact equals the intent?  If we can answer these questions, then we can proceed to correcting a wrong with greater veracity.   And if we disagree, then we know whom to disagree with. . .and perhaps we could have a conversation with that person(s) and present our side of the story.

The other difficulty with "they" is that it is accompanied by a spoken or unspoken "us."  The usage immediately draws a line in the sand and whether it is a social, workplace or governmental matter, we are seldom well-served by such delineation.

The vague assignment of blame.   The generalizations.   These things enable us to talk big, but the impacts are extremely short.   If you really want to solve a problem, don't hide behind these clouds.   "They," in fact, is often all of us.   Let's be more precise.   Let's be more collaborative.   Let's talk about what we can accomplish together.

My book "Courageous Questions, Confident Leaders" is available on Amazon Kindle