Complexity LO10458

JC Howell (orgpsych@csra.net)
Sat, 12 Oct 1996 16:38:58 -0400

Replying to LO10433 --

My apologies for coming across as being so judgemental. The use of jargon
to facilitate more efficient communication is certainly a positive. Most
people, I believe, do not consciously try to exclude others/outsiders by
their use of jargon.

The flip side, though, is the instance when this is exactly what happens.
For the most part my experience with this phenomenon is with organizations
in which the people feel very underappreciated and basically hate their
jobs and, by extension, themselves for being in those jobs. This lack of
self esteem seems to give rise, more often than not, to actions designed
to provide differentiation between the in-group and out-groups. The
situation I described is often one such set of actions.

Not all organizations do this. In most cases, I believe, they do not.
Your example of a family code certainly illustrates this point well.

I have, though, found a similar effect in organizations which are growing
and learning. A new idea is generated and given a unique name that
differentiates this idea from all others that might appear similar. This
new name is reduced to a TLA (three-letter-acronym). This TLA is suddenly
the rage for those who are closest to the action, quickly picked up by
those who want to be close to the action, adopted for general use by the
population at large, and discarded in favor of a new TLA by those closest
to the action. This can easily provide an impression of elitism and
exclusion.

In the end, it is the perception of the people that will drive what the
organization does or is allowed to do. Hence, the perception of elitism
and exclusion, however based on "inappropriate" insecurity on the part of
others, becomes a definite reality for that organization.

This isn't intended as a defense of a position or statement, merely an
explanation.

--

Clyde Howell orgpsych@csra.net

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>