 Diads? Are you kidding me? I never want to have someone ask me what those words mean – I’d be ashamed to admit it means 2-people and 3-people… like I couldn’t have just said that.
The Language of the Business
Alright, so that’s a quick and dirty, explanation of why we shouldn’t use L&D jargon and expressions in our business environments. But, what’s more important for L&D team members is to speak the language of the business.
Businesses use certain words in very specific ways – look at the word “efficiencies.” In some organizations, efficiency gains are part of a specific organizational program like Lean or Six Sigma. In these cases, efficiency might be used to explain process improvements, or refer specifically to employee behaviours and actions. Other organizations will use the term more loosely and could mean a variety of things in different situations and contexts.
Another example occurs when businesses use very specific words instead of others. Take these three terms for example:
- Action item
- And, To-do
Do each of these mean the same thing? Or, are they each something different from each other? Depending on your organization, it could be either.
Finally, some organizations – or industries entirely – just make up words. Trucking companies often refer to late deliveries as “lates,” even though it’s not a real word, because it’s 1 syllable instead of 5. Airlines on the other hand use D15 and A5 to express their on-time performance, because saying Departed within 15 minutes of the scheduled departure time… well, that just takes too long.
How Business Language Impacts L&D
So, how does all this affect L&D? Let’s go back to the travelling example from earlier. When you’re not from a country, even if you speak their language and without an accent, the words you choose, how you construct sentences, your idioms, colloquialisms, and terms, will quickly give you away. If someone is in doubt about your “localness” because of your attire or your sense of space, it’s the language you use that will give you away for sure. You don’t fit in.
L&D – and HR on the whole – often isn’t exposed as frequently to the language norms within the organization. And subsequently, don’t “pick-up” the language.
Now, lets bring that into our context. L&D often lives under the corporate HR umbrella. Which is a whole other topic all together… But, the point is, we’re often hidden in our own part of the building and separated from the rest of the business, especially “the operation.” As result, L&D – and HR on the whole – often isn’t exposed as frequently to the language norms within the organization. And subsequently, don’t “pick-up” the language.
The fall-out of this under exposure is that we don’t sound like the rest of the business when we’re presenting ideas or participating in conversations. We sound like a foreigner.
This quickly damages our credibility because we’re seen as an “outsider” or as simply not “in tune” with the organization. This creates skepticism about our ability to impact the business in a meaningful way. If we then pull-out our L&D jargon, we just compound the issue.
Switch to Lead and Lag Measures
While it certainly won’t solve the entire problem, learning the language of your business will help you fit in. When you fit in, people are more likely to listen to you. And, when they listen, you can start to influence them. Let’s take a look at a specific example – Level 3 and Level 4 Evaluations.
We don’t sound like the rest of the business when we’re presenting ideas or participating in conversations. We sound like a foreigner.
Level 3 Evaluations track changes in learner behaviours, while Level 4 Evaluations track changes in performance results. These are the measures that allow L&D to demonstrate their worth to the organization. There’s just one problem – your business leaders don’t understand them. And, it’s no good if you need to spend 30 minutes explaining them at the start of every project. So, what can we do instead?
Each organization will be different, but if you worked in manufacturing or any other heavily data driven