Re: Jargon... LO3281

John Woods (jwoods@execpc.com)
Thu, 19 Oct 1995 08:08:07 -0500 (CDT)

Replying to LO3260 --

With regard to Alice, Humpty, and Words:

It is true that our words mean what we think they mean. We show what we
take them to mean by our behavior. If we preach teamwork but behave
hierarchically, this indicates that teamwork for us means "behave
hierarchically." A lot of the problems and misunderstanding in the world
come directly from parties having different ideas about what the same
words mean in terms of their individual behavior.

In a manner of speaking we all "walk our talk," because we always act in
ways that our consistent with our personal, subjective understanding of
our words. Because this has the potential for so much misunderstanding,
it's really useful for us to know this about ourselves. We can then
discuss (and maybe even dialogue) about what each of us means we say
"teamwork" or "open communication" or "..." and maybe even come up with a
shared sense of what these words mean in terms of behavior. Of course,
this meaning would still be subjective; it would just be shared
subjectivity. That's really what a corporate culture is: a shared sense
of what words means and what behaviors are expected.

--
John Woods
jwoods@execpc.com
"The world is exactly like we think it is, and that's why."

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