A former student of mine is CEO of a large company. She’s a visionary leader and wants to inspire her colleagues to band together to accomplish great things.
She set a clear goal for the business: “Our goal is to grow. To grow profitably. To grow sustainably.”
Simple words. Everyone understands the words. So, everyone is moving in lockstep to that goal, right? Not so much.
Let’s be clear. Her team are great; high performers. They want to do the right thing. But they all have their own ways of interpreting the goal statement. Some interpretations conflict with others. Good people, using the same words, going different places. What’s going on?
Let me take a step back and tell a joke on myself. This morning I was working on a book. One sub-theme in the book is how the elite and “high society” gravitate to prosperous businesses and regions.
The word that came to mind for that echelon was “demimonde.” French can make almost anything sound cool. And, in the French and Russian novels I read in college it seemed that beautiful women of the demimonde often played a key role. My French is very poor and I wasn’t sure how to spell it: demi-mond, demi-monde, demimond, demimonde?
So I googled it and…
You can imagine my surprise when I learned what it means!*
The question is, How did the mistake occur?
Simple. I’d seen the word in the context of “glamorous” or “sophisticated” novels and made an assumption about the meaning. I projected my own definition every time I saw it thereafter. I never checked the dictionary.
This mistake would, at most, have raised eyebrows and caused minor confusion among my readers.
Unfortunately, in companies misunderstanding and faulty interpretation like this happens every day. It can be disastrous.
Yes, it’s important to choose the right words.
It’s even more important that everyone defines those words in the same way.
Let’s go back to my friend. “Our goal is to grow. To grow profitably. To grow sustainably.” Those words are clear and easy to understand for anyone in her business.
But here’s the problem.
As leader, you think about your goals and strategies all day long. You know exactly what you mean.
Your colleagues are thinking about other things. When they hear your words, even your commands, they will unconsciously project their own definition onto them. They will interpret them in terms of their background, function, self-interest. That may or may not result in interpreting the words in the way you want.
How confident are you that your team understand the goal the same way you intend? What can you do to ensure a common understanding?
*If you, like me, are not a francophone, here’s the Wikipedia link to demimonde.
She set a clear goal for the business: “Our goal is to grow. To grow profitably. To grow sustainably.”
Simple words. Everyone understands the words. So, everyone is moving in lockstep to that goal, right? Not so much.
Let’s be clear. Her team are great; high performers. They want to do the right thing. But they all have their own ways of interpreting the goal statement. Some interpretations conflict with others. Good people, using the same words, going different places. What’s going on?
Let me take a step back and tell a joke on myself. This morning I was working on a book. One sub-theme in the book is how the elite and “high society” gravitate to prosperous businesses and regions.
The word that came to mind for that echelon was “demimonde.” French can make almost anything sound cool. And, in the French and Russian novels I read in college it seemed that beautiful women of the demimonde often played a key role. My French is very poor and I wasn’t sure how to spell it: demi-mond, demi-monde, demimond, demimonde?
So I googled it and…
You can imagine my surprise when I learned what it means!*
The question is, How did the mistake occur?
Simple. I’d seen the word in the context of “glamorous” or “sophisticated” novels and made an assumption about the meaning. I projected my own definition every time I saw it thereafter. I never checked the dictionary.
This mistake would, at most, have raised eyebrows and caused minor confusion among my readers.
Unfortunately, in companies misunderstanding and faulty interpretation like this happens every day. It can be disastrous.
Yes, it’s important to choose the right words.
It’s even more important that everyone defines those words in the same way.
Let’s go back to my friend. “Our goal is to grow. To grow profitably. To grow sustainably.” Those words are clear and easy to understand for anyone in her business.
But here’s the problem.
As leader, you think about your goals and strategies all day long. You know exactly what you mean.
Your colleagues are thinking about other things. When they hear your words, even your commands, they will unconsciously project their own definition onto them. They will interpret them in terms of their background, function, self-interest. That may or may not result in interpreting the words in the way you want.
How confident are you that your team understand the goal the same way you intend? What can you do to ensure a common understanding?
*If you, like me, are not a francophone, here’s the Wikipedia link to demimonde.