A few weeks ago I was in Rhode Island working with a client and his team on building out core values. I love presenting this workshop because the journey to the values for any team is arguably more important then landing on the values themselves. There’s so much rich dialogue debating this value over that value and why. It also requires some really hard decisions so that the team arrives at around 5 really important values, give or take, that they want to incorporate into their everyday practices internally and externally.

In this particular workshop, we really perseverated on the word/value, “inclusion.” There was only one woman at the table, btw. When we work on values, it’s really important to recognize that not everyone understands and defines a word like we do—and this was certainly the case with inclusion. Everyone had a chance to define inclusion as they saw it and they saw it differently, for sure. Nothing bad, just different.

Inclusion isn’t really an off-the-wall word. One would think we would all be in agreement on what this means in the workplace. Words mean different things to different people, so we can’t assume everyone sees it like we do. Asking people to define what they mean is really important. We may think we are on the same page because we used the same word, but are we? And especially with the excessive use of buzzwords or corporate jargon, it’s arguably even worse. According to research, poor communication is responsible for 70% of corporate errors. 70% is a lot. It’s something to think about, for sure.

Let’s GO! WE GOT THIS!

Beth

P.S. Here is an article I wrote for Forbes that was recently published about corporate buzz words: https://www.forbes.com/…/beyond-buzzwords-how-to…/amp/