The League of Uniform Nomenclature

All organizations, companies, associations, teams, and even groups of friends have a shared language, terminology, and ways of describing, defining, classifying, and organizing their worlds.

American football teams and coaches are notorious for their own unique and often complex sets of terminology used to describe standard formations and plays.  A recent article in Sports Illustrated about the progress of Denver Broncos rookie quarterback Tim Tebow's adjustment to professional football emphasizes the complex terminology in the team's offensive schemes. The article notes that even an experienced player coming from a different team has to undergo a process of 're-learning' the new terms and language of the new team.

This is certainly important, the shared language has to be understood by all eleven members of the team, as the success of a given play is largely incumbent upon each player understanding not only their responsibilities on the play, but also awareness of the other ten player's assignments. In an environment like football, where a premium is placed on consistent and reliable execution of actions and reaction, the shared language is essential.  New players to the team, be they rookies like Tebow, or experienced veterans simply must adopt the language, the 'uniform nomenclature' if you will.

All workplaces have their shared languages as well.  Anyone who joins a new organization has to spend the first days/weeks/months learning the lingo - terms, definitions, acronyms, etc. Larger organizations may even have an entire manual dedicated to housing all the 'official' definitions and acronyms.  Most onboarding programs spend at least some time making sure that new employees start coming up to speed with the language, as certainly an important influencer of time to productivity is the ability to communicate inside the organization in ways that the organization understands.

But I wonder if in the rush to explain, to inform, even to indoctrinate people into the organization's shared language that it is easy to go a bit too far, too focus almost entirely on our system, our rules, our process, our methods, and our language.  Sure, it is important that the essential information about the organization structure and essential bits of terminology are shared and understood, but 

New employees come into the organization with an entire history of their own, and if you lived up to your stated (you know you have stated this somewhere) goals of hiring the best and brightest, then there stands a pretty good chance that there are element of process, organization, and yes even basic nomenclature that are better/faster/smarter than what you have been using all along.

So perhaps instead of taking the new rookie on the team and handing them the 527 page playbook to memorize before they get a chance to take the field, give them the essentials, and then give them some room, time, and encouragement to contribute to and improve upon the 'uniform nomenclature'. Because if all that was really needed to sustain organizational success was the need to 'learn the language', then you really wouldn't need to hire the best, just the best at memorizing. 

Missing Lost

The season finale of the TV series 'Lost' was aired last evening.  Long time fans of the show, and there seemed to be more and more of them in this the final season, would finally learn the secrets of the mysterious island where the survivors of an air crash had been stranded.Lost - ABC.com

I hope that description was more or less accurate, as I admit I have never seen the show, and the last episode did not seem like a good starting point.  

I am certainly not alone in never having seen 'Lost', I took notice of numerous Facebook updates and Tweets yesterday along the lines of 'I have never seen Lost and I am not sorry about that' or 'I can't wait until Lost is over so I don't have to see so many irritating Tweets'.

But just as many smart folks that I admire and respect were almost gloating with a kind of smug superiority that they never watched the show, I also noticed equal numbers of intelligent and successful folks that were clearly and fully immersed in the show, and in the kind of collective experience that social networks can provide as any popular or important event unfolds.  Last night some occasional checks of my Twitter stream revealed the anticipation, excitement, and temporary bonding as they watched and tweeted as the program played out in their living rooms.

So as I said, I did not watch the final episode of 'Lost', I never watched any episode in the series, and I am not at all happy about that.  I certainly don't feel any kind of superiority to any of the show's dedicated fans.  As I write this I am also wasting yet another three hours of my life watching a bunch of millionaires run about trying to put a ball through a hoop. So my tastes in pop culture certainly can be questioned.

Sports, TV, movies, music - they are all parts of our culture, the culture that we live in, that we help create, that our friends and colleagues participate in shaping, and that our companies have to navigate in order to survive and succeed. I know not all 'culture' carries the same weight, or relative importance, but when I see people getting so openly dismissive of one type of culture, be it a TV show, a band or style of music, or whatever I can't help but wonder why they would care enough to publicly denigrate it, and by extension the other people that are its passionate fans.

Melodramatic TV shows, boy bands, 80s hair band reunion tours, American Idol, Karate Kid remakes, Stephen King's 163rd book, or even the NBA, what makes any of these better or inherently more interesting that any other art form or supposedly higher culture?

I wish that I had seen some of 'Lost'.  I wish that I had the time to stay on top of all the interesting books, movies, and music that passes by every day. I am curious. I think by having some appreciation and understanding of a phenomenon like 'Lost', we can develop a better appreciation of understanding of the people in our lives, organizations, and communities.  

Being interested in 'Lost' is not really about caring whether or not the marooned passengers ever get off of the island, it is much more about understanding and empathizing with the millions of people that collectively do care about that island and who tomorrow will be at work, school, and in shops and restaurants. I may not have thought the show was interesting enough to ever watch it, but I know those people are interesting enough, all in their unique way.

I missed 'Lost' last night, and that was indeed my loss.