285. What If Happens Words Make Sense Not

Words matter more than you think they do. Companies that scale recognize the importance of clear and consistent communication... do you?

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I definitely have a geeky side to my personality.

[Editor’s Note: no comment]
[Editor’s Note: seriously, I’m biting my tongue]

The dork in me is forever fascinated with words and their usage. For instance, I recently saw somebody describe their company like this:

We have developed the decision support tool that will supersede the current transformer technology with quantitative reasoning.

I’ve read that sentence about 80 times. It’s awesome. It makes me smile.

The thing I love about it is the level to which it is jam-packed with bullshit. Nearly every word is more ridiculous than the next. It gives me butterflies reading it.

As one would imagine if one knows me enough, I’ve begun to armchair analyze the person who sent it though I don’t know a single thing about them. But you can bet your bottom bumpkin that I’ve developed an entire persona in my head about the type of human that would create that sentence and think “Yeah, this is pretty good.”

On a similar note, I once worked with a fellow who would always jumble together ridiculous tech language when talking to non-tech people. He’d say things like this:

We had a critical syntactic anomaly within our operating framework and had to do a full audit to isolate the issue that was undermining the environment.

Back in the day (whatever day that was), hearing somebody use jargon like that would cause me to cocoon into my impostering zone. I believed I just wasn’t smart enough to understand.

I’m over that phase.
I now find it all so ridiculous.

When people use big and complicated words they are often just trying to hide some failing or insecurity about themselves.

As far as the coworker, he was trying to send up a smoke screen to cover the fact that he wasn’t good at his job. A more confident person would’ve said, “We had an extra character in the code but it’s fixed now. Oops.”

Consistency In Communication Is Critical

I recently wrote an article about the connection between street signs and poor communication in the workplace. You should read it.

The article prompted my friend Tobin to write a piece on Common Language. You see, as a part of his work with corporations and C-suite leaders, he creates glossaries to help organizations maintain consistency with their wording.

His thinking in that article is so spot on I can barely see the spot from him standing on it.

Consistency is critical when it comes to effective communication.

Consistency is also critical when it comes to building a happy and productive company culture.

Let me give you an example.

The Way Of Communication

As a leadership coach, I’ve been fortunate to work with different types of companies across different industries.

One of my clients, let’s call them Array, is a very successful service provider. They are a multi-million dollar company. They’ve focused heavily on employee happiness. Their goal has been to have the happiest employees in their space, and they did a really good job with it.

God bless ‘em.

They have a term for their employee happiness initiatives. It’s called the Array Way.

Unfortunately, as Array grew larger it has become harder for them to retain all their employees. Poker nights and birthday gifts aren’t enough anymore.

So one day, while talking with the company leader, I decided to delve into the Array Way. After all, the Array Way seemed to be the cornerstone of the company’s culture.

I was confident that everyone in the company knew the term “the Array Way”, but did they all know what it meant? Heck, I wasn’t even sure if I knew what it really meant.

So I asked the leader for his definition of the Array Way.

What he cobbled together in a 2-minute explanation kinda made sense… for a startup culture. But as your company or team grows, your terminology must be fine-tuned.

Good communication must be clear and concise for it to be scalable and effective.

So I asked him if everybody else would define the Array Way in the same words as him.

He wasn’t sure.
So we tested it.

As it turns out, each employee we spoke with used different words to describe it. There was little consistency.

Is this inconsistent communication the reason why Array now has a higher turnover rate? Though it’s probably not the only reason, it sure isn’t helping matters.

Communication About The Common Good

A company is nothing more than a group of people working towards a common good.

Actually, I take that back.

A company is nothing more than a group of people. The “working towards a common good” part relies on a common understanding of what the common good is.

The only way to do that, short of mental telepathy, is with common words that describe the common good for all the people to share in common.

So I ask you:

• What words are you using to describe your company?

• Are there any words in your mission, vision or values that fuel your joy for your job? Does your company even have a mission, vision or values?

• If I asked everybody in the company to describe the organization, would they all say the same thing?

If you don’t create clarity and consistency with your words, your employees won’t have clarity and consistency with their behavior.

This isn’t about semantics; it’s about ensuring that everyone in the organization is on the same page. It’s about making sure no employee ever explains your business with the absurdity of “a decision support tool that will supersede the current transformer technology with quantitative reasoning.”

Remember, words matter.

If you want to explore whether your company is using the right words, drop me a line. I’d love to chat.

In the meantime, I want to tell you, from the bottom of my heart, that your engagement weaves the golden threads that not only enrich our collective journey but also elevate the caliber of our dialogues.

You’re my hero and I appreciate you.

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