Behind the words

One of the benefits of working in five different units inside one organization for over twenty-five years was the many experiences I had to help me learn how to communicate with others fairly well. It wasn’t always perfect, trust me!

When I started working as an employee, rather than as a student, I had to quickly learn the acronyms in play. Everything seemed to have an acronym! The offices and departments. The buildings and rooms. The systems. The committees. If it didn’t have an acronym, it had a pet name.

For example, I was part of the FR team which was part of the VPAC in the OAB. We used HRMS and FMS. I supported SAC and gave out information about CIC, HRDC and worked closely with the FA. We sometimes had lunch at the SUB or Koerner’s. One of the teams worked in the sunken gardens.

It was like learning another language! I started making acronym glossaries every time I moved to help myself and others learn how to communicate more effectively.

As I moved through the different units, I quickly realized how there were “universal” acronyms and then there were the unit-specific acronyms and pet names. Units would rename a central process in order to make sense of it for their members. Conversations between unit members and central staff were often constrained because no one would realize they were talking about the same thing!

This would not be surprising to someone like Anne Wierzbicka, a Polish linguist, who researched two levels of verbal communication: universal and culture-specific. In an article of the same name, she shared the 65 semantic primes which have been identified as existing in every language – like the universal acronyms at my organization. What she found was there were “culture-specific words” whose “meanings are complex and shaped by a particular culture” and don’t have any reference outside of that culture.

If there are only 65 semantic primes, that means we need to learn and understand the acronyms, pet names and other words used within the group we are working with.

Did you know you can also learn about the culture from the words being used?

This really hit me when reading Ikigai-Kan: Feel a Life Worth Living by Nicholas Kemp. Kemp referred to many Japanese words and phrases which were unique from his perspective. As my focus is making every workplace better, I was drawn to one particular section about “ikigai” and “yutori”. For reference, he suggests ikigai could be defined as “the feeling that life is worth living” and yutori as “a psychological state in which one feels a sense of wellbeing and life satisfaction”.

The following quote jumped out at me:

“Ironically, even though the Japanese value yutori and ikigai and have tools that are useful for identifying and promoting both, the country still suffers greatly from a lack of yutori – especially in the workplace, with hundreds of workers literally working themselves to death every year. The problem is so common that the Japanese language has a word to describe this tragic occurrence: karōshi, meaning ‘overwork’ and shi meaning ‘death’ – death from overwork. Suicide induced by work stress is also a problem in Japan; this is known as karōshi-jisatsu, with jisatsu meaning suicide.”

You would think that would be a good enough reason to change the work culture in Japan! Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Kemp wrote about Japanese culture and language as an outsider married to a Japanese woman. It might be easier to see culture in language when looking from the outside. It makes me wonder what others see when they look at my words. The ones I speak. The ones I write in messages, and might put into policies, procedures, and laws (if I was a lawmaker!).

It would be an interesting exercise to identify the words often used inside your workplace, to explore what is shared understanding and what that reveals about your workplace culture.

Do your words portray compassion and trust? Or do your words command compliance and portray mistrust? Do your words inspire vision and innovation? Or do your words dampen spirits and maintain the status quo?

Aren’t you curious now? I know I am!

Resources

Kemp, Nicholas. 2022. Ikigai-Kan: Feel a Life Worth Living. Melbourne, Australia: Nicholas Kemp C/-Intertype Publish and Print.

Image: Tammy Brimner