{"id":2515,"date":"2023-03-22T20:25:55","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T20:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/?p=2515"},"modified":"2023-03-22T21:38:50","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T21:38:50","slug":"thats-just-semantics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/thats-just-semantics\/","title":{"rendered":"That\u2019s just semantics\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s just semantics\u2026.\u201d Said scornfully, the remark implies that time spent understanding the meaning of words is wasted.<\/p>\n

In fact, words are extremely important. Clear language is not only essential to communications. It\u2019s the basis for clear thinking.<\/p>\n

The importance of clarity in communications is readily apparent. Too often, leaders make a request, and by the time it filters through layers of management to the people who ultimately fulfill it, its meaning has changed dramatically and results are unsatisfying.<\/p>\n

Even in one-on-one discussions, clear language is essential. A leadership team disagrees about the need for team-building. He thinks people work well together, and team-building would be a waste of time. She complains that teamwork just isn\u2019t working, and something needs to be done to improve it. He says \u201cteam\u201d and means the people who report to him. She says \u201cteam\u201d and means the people from throughout the organization who are working together on a project. It\u2019s no wonder these two leaders disagree!<\/p>\n

Similarly, people in organizations make commitments to one another; but when one requests this and the other promises that, their agreement is meaningless and disappointment is inevitable.<\/p>\n

Beyond communications, precise language is also essential to clear thinking. People think by manipulating symbols \u2014 words and numbers \u2014 in their minds and in writing. If those symbols don\u2019t distinguish differing concepts, the differences are likely to be lost.<\/p>\n

Phillipinos have at least 22 words for \u201crice,\u201d and perceive the differences. Eskimos have at least 20 words for \u201csnow,\u201d and perceive the differences. On the other hand, as an American, I know only a handful of words for \u201crice\u201d and \u201csnow,\u201d and do not appreciate the subtle differences. It\u2019s not that my eyes cannot see what Phillipinos and Eskimos see. Without the right words, it\u2019s hard to even think about a concept.<\/p>\n

You have a \u201cbudget\u201d for 15 people, and all are quite busy with current commitments. A customer approaches you and requests another project \u2014 requiring that you hire an addition person \u2014 and is willing to cover all costs. Do you take her money and hire the person, or turn her away for lack of \u201cbudget?\u201d<\/p>\n

That depends\u2026. If \u201cbudget\u201d means \u201cspending power\u201d (like a checkbook), then your checkbook may be empty; but you\u2019re happy to take on the work (and the additional headcount) as long as the customer pays all costs. On the other hand, if \u201cbudget\u201d means a \u201ccap\u201d on your headcount, you cannot take on the project without risking a poor performance appraisal. The difference between spending power and caps is significant; it\u2019s crucial not to use the same word for both concepts.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, business slang leads people to serious misunderstandings. For example, in business, people have come to use the word \u201cown\u201d synonymously with the word \u201cproduce.\u201d Managers might be heard to say, \u201cI own this product line,\u201d when in fact they mean to say that they produce it. When staff within an organization use language in this way, they often come to believe that they have the right to decide what products and services they produce. This misconception undermines a culture of customer focus, and often squanders the organization\u2019s scarce resources on products for which the corporation has little use.<\/p>\n

Another common example of semantic sloppiness in organizations is using the word \u201ccustomer\u201d synonymously with the word \u201cclient.\u201d Let\u2019s presume that the word \u201cclient\u201d refers to people outside the organization who benefit from its work. If we take the word \u201ccustomer\u201d to mean the same thing, then clearly one\u2019s peers within the organization are not customers.<\/p>\n

However, high-performance teamwork depends on internal customer-supplier relationships where, for every project, a prime contractor is accountable for all its deliverables and forms teams by \u201cbuying\u201d help from peers. With this paradigm, teams form quickly, involving just the right people at just the right time. Furthermore, everyone on each team understands his or her individual accountabilities, and the chain of authority within the team is clear.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if the concept of \u201ccustomer\u201d is limited to clients (outside the organization), it\u2019s easy for people to abandon commitments to peers in favor of clients\u2019 requests. In such an environment, it\u2019s difficult to trust one\u2019s peers and teamwork disintegrates. Results include dissatisfied peers and clients, political strife, and reduced organizational performance.<\/p>\n

Clients are people outside the organization. Clients are generally customers, but peers within the organization can be customers as well. Occasionally, clients serve as suppliers, as do peers. In fact, a peer may be your customer on one project, and your supplier on another. \u201cCustomer\u201d and \u201csupplier\u201d refer to relationships, not a set of people. To think clearly about one\u2019s accountabilities, it\u2019s essential to use different words for these very different concepts.<\/p>\n

In most business discussion, definitions found in conventional dictionaries suffice. But there are some situations where distinctions are critical and common semantics are ambiguous. In my experience, leadership and organizational design are particularly sensitive to misunderstandings. Where this has proven the case, we\u2019ve been pressed to define terms very carefully.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not important that others adopt our words. It is important that people within an organization agree on a single meaning for each word.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wadeyounger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}