Needed: A New Lexicon of Management

In their quest for performance improvement, businesses across America have used a wide variety of change management tools and approaches, such as TQM. But, all too often, they overlook the most basic and powerful tool of all: language. And their failure to use language to best advantage is a key cause behind the widespread—and well publicized—shortfall of these change management tools.

The power of language can't be understated. Used effectively, words can uplift and inspire employees, articulate a company's vision, define performance standards—in short, the right words can shape corporate destinies. But the imprecise use of words can lead to misunderstanding and misdirection, short-circuit performance improvement plans, and lead to senior management delusion and complacency.

Many companies have partially acknowledged the importance of language by articulating their intentions through vision, mission, and values statements—often at the investment of enormous amounts of time and energy. Considerably less precision and energy, however, have been applied to precisely defining the tools and techniques of management—which are vehicles for achieving these intentions. Definitions for terms such as "quality," "reengineering," "benchmarking," and "empowerment" vary greatly, not only among companies, but among departments within companies—and even among managers and employees within a single department.

Why is it so important to agree on the meaning of words like "quality"? Because these words define management's expectations within the business. A company's definitions of "quality" and "empowerment" reflect how it perceives itself—and they also reflect performance standards within the organization.

In my experience, some companies have very high standards of performance for the meanings of management tools, while others have low standards. One company may view "TQM" as a low-priority program, managed by the Human Resources Department, in which employee teams suggest minor process improvement ideas to management. Another may define "TQM" as a high-priority, enterprise-wide initiative for achieving outstanding customer satisfaction.

"Teamwork" may be the most abused term of all. In some organizations, the word describes periodic gatherings of employees where they vent their frustrations to one another, with no attempt to connect the discussion to resolving the top-priority strategic issues of the organization. The result is low-value solutions which represent the team's "lowest common denominator"—the solutions members can all agree on—instead of its highest potential innovation, or the solutions demanded by the marketplace.

At the higher end of the scale, "teamwork" describes "a way of life within the organization," as one Titleist executive put it, in which participants engage in cross-functional decision making, with a high level of instinctive trust among team members—resulting in open debate, constructive conflict, risk taking, and innovative solutions driven by the team's "highest common denominator."

For today's most popular change management tools, there are a wide range of definitions in use—as well as a huge discrepancy between the "highest-impact" and "lowest-impact" definitions of these terms.

Executives can't expect to use management tools effectively until they agree on what the most effective, highest-impact meaning of these tools is—and then maintain that definition as a benchmark as if their lives depended on it. That highest-impact definition—the only valid benchmark—must be their goal, and they can't say they're implementing total quality, empowerment, or the like unless they're working toward that full-scale, highest performance standard. To do otherwise is to delude themselves—because they're not using the standards of the "best."

In fact, delusion—and management denial—is the chief danger of complacently accepting the hodgepodge, mishmash management vocabulary that currently exists in much of corporate America.

It's easy for top managers to console themselves with the thought that they have a "benchmarking initiative" in place, just because they spent 45 minutes touring Company Z's customer service center last January. And, as long as they have no strict way of defining "benchmarking," who's to say their effort isn't the real thing?

The problem is, their closest competitor's "benchmarking initiative" may include visiting—and studying in detail—the customer service operations of nine best-in-field companies in three different countries, then comparing quantitative performance indicators in 15 different areas of their business.

If the executives in the first company are convinced that they're doing real "benchmarking" at home, they'll continue to follow the same low-impact course—and never realize that, because of a fundamental difference in language, they're about to lose ground in the marketplace.

If management teams could achieve agreement on a new, more precisely defined management lexicon, we'd quickly see a real difference in corporate change initiatives. Management denial would be replaced by a candid view of reality, and a far more vigorous commitment to make real progress toward the highest-impact definitions. And companies could discuss their victories, setbacks, and vision for the future in more meaningful and actionable ways.

Most importantly, we'd all see more meaningful change that would more rapidly transform American business—all because we were finally speaking the same language.