Dear Crucial Skills,

I have a coworker who has consistently misspelled my name for six months. It’s displayed correctly on my desk and my email signature, and yet this persists. How can I approach him about this without provoking defensiveness?

Signed,
Misspelled

Dear Misspelled,

I can relate. There are about a dozen different spellings of Brittney, and I have seen them all. I usually give a pass to someone I just met or don’t know very well. But I can understand that when your name is repeatedly misspelled by a coworker or close friend, it can start to feel like something more than an honest mistake.

While all the Marias and Davids out there might not be able to relate to this specific frustration, there are a myriad of seemingly benign actions others can take that, when done with seemingly little care and concern, can start to grate on your relationship. For example, mispronounced names, unwanted nicknames, playful teasing, misuse of pronouns, disregard for professional titles, and bad jokes might be fine once, but if done on repeat could begin to feel like blatant disrespect.

So, the question is, what do you do or say when someone you are close to seems to overlook or disregard issues that matter a great deal to you?

Below, I’ll share a few ideas for stepping up to the Crucial Conversation. I’ll start with one of our most important skills, Master My Story. 

If you’ve hung around here for a while, you’ll recognize this skill as a frequent go-to. The reason Master My Story is so foundational to Crucial Conversations is you’ll have a hard time succeeding in any dialogue if you enter the conversation telling yourself a victim, villain, or helpless story. Your victim story might sound like this, “I shouldn’t have to tell Raul that he has misspelled my name, he should know how to spell it by now.” A villain story might sound like this, “Raul knows how to spell my name and could do it right if he tried, but he’s lazy and careless and doesn’t respect me.” A helpless story would sound like this, “No matter how many times I ask Raul to spell my name correctly, he simply won’t do it.” 

Telling yourself one of these stories will guarantee that you bring resentment, emotion, and a whole lot of assumption into the conversation—none of this will serve you well.

Instead, and before you have the conversation, do some work to master your story. To turn yourself from a victim into a contributor, ask yourself: What am I pretending not to notice about my role in the problem? In this case, have you asked your coworker to spell your name correctly or are you just annoyed that they haven’t noticed it on your desk and email signature?

To master a villain story ask yourself: Why would a reasonable, rational, decent person do this? Does your coworker move quickly when responding to emails and simply needs to slow down? Do they treat you kindly and respectfully in other interactions? Do they truly not know how to spell your name because they aren’t as observant as you’d like them to be?

To master a helpless story, ask: What should I do right now to move toward what I really want? You asking for advice on how to hold a conversation is the right next step, and I think you’ll find that a simple, drama-free conversation will likely do the trick.

Once you’ve mastered your story, you’re ready to have the conversation. And my advice is to keep the scope of the problem small, and the tone relaxed. Match the intensity of the conversation with the scope of the incident. In this case, we’re not talking about deception, abuse, violence, etc. I know this matters to you but consider that others may not put as much stock into the spelling of a name as you do. So, keep the conversation as low-key as possible.

Avoid pointing out that they’ve been misspelling it forever, that it’s clearly printed correctly on your desk and in your email signature, and that it’s causing you huge grief. Since it’s the first time you’ve brought it up, treat it as a minor infraction that’s easy to solve. Because it is.

The conversation will probably sound as simple as this: “Hey, in that last email, you misspelled my name. It’s spelled B-R-I-T-T-N-E-Y, not A-N-Y. I understand it’s commonly spelled the other way, but it would mean a lot to me if you could spell my name as I do.”

I suspect that this is all it might take. They will likely feel embarrassed that they’ve spelled your name incorrectly, maybe realize they’ve been misspelling it for some time, and be eager to correct it—especially because your approach was casual and void of accusation.

You’ve fallen into a common pattern, and that is being afraid to speak up about something relatively simple because past experience tells you that it will only end in disaster. You imagine that pointing out someone’s error will cause them to hate you, lash out, or cut you off entirely. In reality, most people need and deserve the opportunity to hear feedback and act on it.

Speaking up will also serve you because what we don’t talk out, we act out. I suspect that as your coworker continued to misspell your name without simple correction, your resentment and your stories about their motives grew uglier. But all is not lost, use this opportunity to master your story and then make a simple approach to correct the behavior and you’ll quickly squash all those feelings bubbling below the surface. If after approaching your colleague, they continue to misspell your name, then your next step would be to hold an accountability conversation. There are some good tips in this article.

Best of luck.

Brittney