In my role as a Coach, I spend a lot of time listening. What I hear people say they want and the language they use seem to be at odds, let me explain…

Language is often something I find people either don’t focus enough on or don’t understand in terms of its true power. Language is such a big part of shaping behavior, culture and interconnection across an organisation. If we are going to use certain language across an organisation or community let’s remember its power and…

I would like to explore some specific examples of language often used within many organisations and to ask the following questions…

Lets Dive into Language..

The first one I would like to explore is one that is used a lot in many organisations today as its common in a lot of Agile Frameworks; the word ‘Review’. The organisations I have worked in have all said that they want to build a culture and environment of openness, trust, safety etc. So I want to now explore this word to see where it may take us….

I hope the above illustrates my thinking around this as the word review, especially how it has been used in organisations previously, has a lot of negative layers underneath that can drive the opposite behavior from what we say we want. It would be my suggestion to use the word ‘Reflection’ instead as I believe this word would take us to this place….

As you can see from my illustration above I believe the word reflection takes us to a much more positive space and encourages behaviors that promote learning, sharing and interconnection.

Another Language Focus Area…

The other word I would like to explore that I hear a lot in organisations is “Pace” or “Speed” or “Fast”. This again is often closely linked to Agile frameworks through either what they, or the coach implementing them is trying to sell the organisation. I must add it can also be born from a lack of understanding of the frameworks as well. Again I would like to explore this word a little more to show where it might take us….

Looking at the words above the first thing that came up for me was the pressure to continuously increase the speed/pace of what I was doing. From this I then began to think how this would draw most of my focus and leave little for focusing on what is important.

I also began to think about what this would mean in terms of the people around me and how my pace would be compared to theirs, thus increasing the pressure which could cause me to game the system to reduce that pressure. Finally I actually felt this would reduce the overall quality of what I was delivering and not allow me to do the right thing.

It would be my suggestion here depending on what the organisation is looking to achieve that responsive/responsiveness would be more appropriate. However to be sure lets take a look at where using this work in our language may take us…

When exploring this the first place I found myself going to was a space of understanding in order to be able to respond. I felt that by understanding I needed to build a deep level of intimacy and that would provide me with the ability to focus on whats important. Finally providing satisfaction.

Concluding Language…

I could keep exploring language and the words we use for a long time, however I just wanted to encourage us all to stop and think about the potential impact of how we shape the language we use, whether that be at home, in work, with friends or just out in the world and try to take into account the behaviors your language may drive.

I truly believe people use language with the best of intentions most of the time, however rarely take a step back and think about what the cause and effect may be. Understanding you may not see it immediately…

As always it would be great to hear your thoughts on this, as mine is just one viewpoint in the sea of potential viewpoints we have out there.

Thanks for reading and check out our other post on ‘Facilitating in the Moment’