A recent study got me thinking about the use of language to indicate connection.  The study shows that we are more likely to choose conversational partners who talk like us, rather than differently.  Now, to be sure, picking a ‘conversational partner’ is a low-impact choice, but nonetheless one implication of the study is that we like or trust people who talk like us more quickly than we do others.  And the differences can be quite subtle – a word here or there, a turn of phrase. Do you say “I’m going on vacation,” or “I’m off on holiday”? We are good at analyzing other people’s speech and deciding if we belong to similar groups or not, and we are more or less likely to make friends accordingly.

One of the first speeches I wrote after leaving the Governor’s office in the Commonwealth of Virginia was for a tech exec who was heading to Australia to talk to a division of his company there.  This executive had never been to Australia before, and he knew little about the culture.  He didn’t want to unintentionally put his foot into something that would make HQ (and himself) look bad.

We had quite a debate about whether or not to try to introduce some Aussie-isms into the speech.  The risk was we would get it wrong, and my speaker would look like an idiot; the reward was that we would bond more closely with the audience. We opted for the bonding attempt, and I am glad to say that we ended up doing exactly that as the reports I got back from down under indicated that my speaker had managed a five-wicket haul, or a home run as we would say in the United States.  The audience loved his Aussie-isms.

Full disclosure:  I phoned a friend while I was working on the speech – an Australian who happened to live in the city where the speech was taking place – and I was able to check my use of bonding language with him.  Research was important then and remains important today!

Another study from almost a decade ago found a similar strength in making connection through ideas and exchange of information – showing that you share knowledge about similar things.  You’re both firefighters, or fans of Taylor Swift, or you both love to grill with that green egg thing.  My friend Chris Tuff calls this the ‘race to the middle’, as in middle ground that you share.  Finding mutual affiliations are good shortcuts for building trust, as we instinctively believe that if you share my passion for really hot chili peppers, let’s say, you must be a good person.  It’s not strictly logical, but it’s a good quick substitute for the much longer process of establishing durable trust.

Understanding the affiliative power of language allows us as speakers, teachers, or leaders to build trust with our audiences, students, and employees by doing our homework and finding out some common terms of phrase they would be likely to use.  I would suggest not going with the super-trendy, because slang is always going in and out of style, and you’re likely to get it wrong.  Just stick with simple words, like whether your people call a break from work a ‘holiday’ or a ‘vacation’.  Use words that your audience is likely to use, and they will find you to be more trustworthy, agreeable, and worthy of their attention.

No worries, mate; she’ll be right.

(With apologies to Martin G. Moore.)