Speaking Our Own Language<\/h2>\n

Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways? Credit goes to the comedian Steven Wright for that one. Seems silly, doesn\u2019t it? It makes absolutely no<\/em> sense. And it must have been that way since the beginning of time (or at least, since the creation of roads).<\/p>\n

But no one took the time to change it when it was possible<\/em> to be changed. Now that the terms are ingrained in our everyday language, they are here to stay. And they will forever accompany many other entries on the list of nomenclature that causes unnecessary confusion<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s on that list for your organization? It probably consists of:<\/h4>\n

\n
• Obscure acronyms<\/li>\n
• Poorly applied industry terminology<\/li>\n
• Buzzwords<\/a> that once were all the rage<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  As the list becomes longer:<\/h4>\n

  \n
  • New employees will feel like outsiders. Is there anything that makes you feel like you don\u2019t belong any more than a language barrier?<\/li>\n
  • Operational confusion will increase. Over time the context for selecting the name in the first place will fade.<\/li>\n
  • You\u2019ll need to hire a company historian to keep it all straight. Seriously, it\u2019s not uncommon for companies to have a glossary of terms\u2026..and someone needs to maintain that!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    What should you do? It\u2019s very difficult to eliminate the list. Maybe you can shorten it. You can certainly stop adding<\/em> to the list. Make a new rule \u2013 no more TLAs. Oh, for you outsiders – that stands for t<\/em>hree l<\/em>etter a<\/em>cronyms.<\/p>\n

    Get more tips on simplifying communication in our previous post Trade Buzzwords<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Speaking Our Own Language Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways? Credit goes to the comedian Steven Wright for that one. Seems silly, doesn\u2019t it? It makes absolutely no sense. And it must have been that way since the beginning of time (or at least, since the creation of roads). But no …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[100,15,16,96],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868\/revisions\/871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}