MANAGING LANGUAGE

Language is the bridge between material fact and mental abstraction.  Management guru Peter Senge has written, “the alternative to seeing language as describing an independent reality is to recognize the power of language. . .to bring forth new realities.”

In fact, reality shows up in language before it shows up anywhere else.  By the mid-1980s, Japanese car manufacturers had captured a big chunk of the American car market.  Why?  Because they built cars of superior quality.  Time Magazine reported that the Japanese had fundamentally redefined and expanded the concept of quality.  In Japanese atarimae no hinshitsu means ordinary quality, quality of a type that is “taken for granted.”  The new, expanded concept, called miryokuteki na hinshitsu, translates into “things gone right,” indicating a breadth and depth of quality beyond what the consumer expects or can even imagine.  One of the reasons Japan produced cars of superior quality has to do with language.  For the Japanese miryokuteki na hinshitsu constituted reality, and it became embodied in their cars.

Most of us are comfortable with the thought that language is a means of communication, but we are less aware that language is our primary tool for representing reality to ourselves and to others.  It enables us to suspend our thoughts in air or capture them on paper or computer screen so that our thinking can be seen, examined, and modified.  In a very real sense, language is business.  Business is analyzed and talked about in language, business takes place in language, and virtually all breakdowns in business are either breakdowns in communication or are accompanied by breakdowns in communication.  Knowing this is important because it enables a different conversation about business and business problems: one that allows us to see that the language we use can profoundly influence outcomes.

There are times when articulating a single apt phrase can produce dramatic results.  When John Reed first arrived at what was then First National City Bank, the Operating Group, one of six divisions of the bank as it then exited, was experiencing breakdowns of a magnitude that threatened the bank as a whole.  At the time, the Operating Group was viewed simply as a mechanical support function for the customer contact offices.

Reed was not the first to view the Operating Group as an independent, high-volume production operation, but he was the first to insist on calling it a “factory--which designed and controlled its own processes and products in the style of a manufacturing organization,” and this ‘naming’ allowed something quite remarkable to happen.  Once that fundamental shift in perception took place, appropriate personnel were found--professional production management--and the systemic difficulties that had plagued the Operating Group were quickly resolved.  The point here is that the importance of language in business goes beyond good communication skills.  It goes to the heart of understanding your business and what makes it work.

Using language as an effective business tool is complicated by the fact that words are not like Morse Code, where there is a fixed meaning for each symbol.  In fact, words do not contain meaning at all; words have meaning attributed to them by people.  Successful business leaders have an intuitive understanding that one of the most important things they manage is meaning.  Part of Jan Carlzon’s success in turning around SAS was his emphasis on front-line workers--those who keep business customers happy.  Early on he declared that henceforth they would be known as managers: “It may seem like a mere word game but I use the term to remind my staff--and perhaps most those at upper levels of the old pyramid--that their roles have undergone a fundamental change.”  Similarly, GE’s Jack Welch coined the phrase “boundaryless corporation” to help legitimize what he saw as the essential egalitarian nature of organizational success.

Because our core vocabulary has multiple meanings, there is always a certain amount of slippage between how we perceive things and represent them to ourselves, and how we are able to describe those things to others.  Thoughtful, intelligent employees can be communicating at their best, but the company is still losing market share.  Why?  Part of the reason is found in the slippage I am talking about.

Consider one of the most frequently used terms in business: problem.  The process of identifying problems may sound simple, but as every business person knows, gaining consensus about exactly what constitutes a problem--or ‘the’ problem--can be a challenging undertaking.  We can point to, see, and sit on a chair, and even when chairs are not physically present we have no difficulty communicating about them.  But we normally cannot ‘see’ a problem.  A problem is an abstraction from the outset, and therein lies part of the difficulty.  In fact, ‘problem definition’ has become an industry.  Consulting firms make millions by taking on this process for client companies.  At a time when many industries are undergoing profound change and new industries are developing willy-nilly, the ‘sense-making’ ability of managers is all the more critical.

The other major barrier limiting our ability to use language effectively to achieve business goals is the tendency to believe that our perceptions are a description of what reality actually is.  Indeed, the trick to communicating effectively is to distinguish what we are getting from outside versus what we are getting from inside our heads.  This is a prerequisite for then being able to put into words the ‘meaning’ of what is going on externally, in front of our eyes.  To be sure, this process is among the most complex and least understood of all human activities.  But by becoming aware of the tool-like nature of language, we can become more aware of our capacity to create meaning and to leverage our ability to manage effectively as well.

If you are interested in additional material having to do with communication and management, below are additional links:

• Background Concepts
• Language as Business Tool
• Management Communication Concept Mobile