January 2008

Communication
Words have meaning

Every organization speaks its own language and can even experience different dialect variations between departments and divisions. As such, what is understood to be the meaning of a word or phrase is not always what the communicator intended. The results of these miscommunications can have surprising consequences ranging from harmless minor mistakes to detrimental companywide conflict.

One of the most desired outcomes of training is for employees to use a common vocabulary. This is not always easy as a base of employees is made up of individuals who come from different companies, geographic regions, countries, and organizational cultures. They have attended training programs where various phrases and catchwords are used to differentiate vendor programs. Unfortunately, this results in high-levels of miscommunication that impacts performance and productivity.

All too often buzzwords and acronyms are used without a complete understanding of their meaning and implications. We tend to gloss over their precise meaning to create the depth of understanding that we require to effectively communicate. Words do have precise and often emotionally charged meaning. Ask anyone who hasn’t carefully crafted an email and then received an angry response to what appeared to be a simple request.

One way to avoid many of the problems discussed here is to ask the other party to define the meaning of the word or phrase they used, even if you assume to know its meaning. A study conducted by Motorola revealed that when they communicated the term, “easy to use” to their customers, it had over 32 different meanings. Consider that the next time you use one of the organizational terms commonly thrown around like continuous improvement, paradigm shifting, innovation, leadership development, or even flexibility.

By asking what the other party means when they use these words or phrases, you may be quite surprised by what they are actually communicating to you. Without the ability to align your thinking with those of the other party, miscommunication will occur, whether with customers or on the production floor.

Another technique that is especially effective with distance learning or virtual team training is to create a glossary of commonly used terms and phrases. At first blush, this would appear a daunting exercise that is more complex and time-intensive than most companies would care to invest. However, its use and application results in a notable reduction of employee errors, mistakes and conflict as a result of miscommunication.

English is widely considered the language of business and while it makes sense to have everyone communicating with the same words, careful attention needs to be paid to the meanings of these words. The bottom line is that it makes financial sense to guarantee that your employees are not only on the same page but are interpreting the words on that page in same way.