The Small Signals We Send Each Other

Caressa Moy, Chapter Financial Administrator

Every year before the National Convention, the AMTA holds the Volunteer Leadership Conference (VLC). The VLC brings together AMTA chapter volunteers and board members from across the United States for strategic planning, operational training, and leadership development.

This year, the leadership training portion of VLC focused on strengthening communication — specifically, creating an environment of psychological safety, which is so important to the work we do not just as your AMTA-MA chapter volunteers, but as massage therapists.

As massage therapists, we were taught to honor the unique physical, emotional, and cultural backgrounds of every client. But outside of our massage space, how often do we really think about how our own affect how we perceive, react to, and interact with those around us?

The VLC workshop led by Ivy Planning Group was a unique opportunity to build greater self-awareness and recognize how seemingly small interactions can have big impact. They introduced to us the concept of MicroTriggers — small, subtle behaviors, words, or body language choices that spark disproportionately large emotional or behavioral responses in others. Seemingly benign micro-behaviors — a sigh or phone check, a single offhand comment, or inequities like a difference in how someone is addressed or acknowledged in a group — send unintended baseline signals about how much a person is valued. Accumulated signals turn into perceived patterns of behavior, and these patterns solidify into a toxic team or workplace culture where people — be they massage clients or volunteers — silently disconnect, withdraw, and quit.

Taking accountability of our microtriggers (both the ones that trigger us and the ones we commit, and how we respond to them) — and advocating for those we see microtriggers committed against — is so important in our volunteerism and in our profession, both of which thrive on high levels of trust, engagement, and retention. VLC this year was a wonderful reminder and lesson that we intentionally strive to exhibit positive micro-behaviors like active listening, thoughtful questioning, and meaningful praise to build strong trust, genuine connection, and lasting relationships.

“The real value of this work happens when we take what we learned and begin noticing those everyday moments differently — how we show up, how we respond, and the impact we have on the people around us.” — Janet Crenshaw Smith, President, Ivy Planning Group