The Language of Change

Dipping into The Intelligence Advantage - Organizing for Complexity by Michael D McMaster a gem of a book, I came across this section, which seems particularly pertinent to our situation in Ireland.

Organisations first appear in Language

Language is at the center of society, cooperation and the coordination of action. All social organization occurs in language. Community is a function of language. How we distinguish those who "belong" from those who do not is by the way they speak. Even when the distinction is based on common practices, these practices emerge from a society where language was the fundamental organizing medium.

A corporation, like a community, is held together by it's language, given meaning by its language, and is distinguished from other corporations by its language. IBM, Apple and NEC (that dates it!) all have unique language, unique stories and unique ways of speaking. Equally important, their unique ways of understanding things and listening. These ways of speaking, listening and understanding not only constitute the culture of a company, but they also constitute a company's unique way of organizing, managing and relating to the marketplace....

and further on...

If there is no change in the way that problems are described, the way challenges are spoken about, or the way values are stated, then it is very unlikely that any major change is occurring in that corporation.

I think there is a groundswell of opinion in Ireland that significant change is required in the culture of our public organisations. We will know that our decision makers and politicians also want change when we here a change in the language they use to describe our problems and how they talk about the future.

Survival of the Fittest?

This blog post was inspired by Trevor Sargent's speech in Clonakilty today at the talk on the Climate Neutral Network. His mention of the phrase "Survival of the Fittest" reminded me of when I had been picked up for attributing this to Darwin. The phrase does not appear in On the Origin of Species and his theory has much more to do with survival of the Fitting.

It seems to me our western competitive, dog eat dog world (do dog's eat dog's?) is, in part, justified by this famous phrase. It's the natural way of things, survival of the fittest and yet I think that has only ever been true in the minds of those who wrote the history books, the victors who passed down stories of chief's slaying other chief's to become the mightiest chief in the world. Everyone else was busy surviving by fitting into their environment or trying to change their environment to fit their needs.

I am encouraged by the change in language I hear from many of those taking a positive attitude to the future. From Obama's "We can do it" to the haven of positivity which is our local Open Coffee group in Cork. I hope the war metaphors of "combat ting climate change", "a war on poverty", "fighting drugs" will give way to a more fitting language of cooperation and alliances. The kind of culture that is emerging from the Internet worlds of open source development and from the gaming world where hierarchies are leveled and mutual benefits are sought.

(Having googled Survival of the Fittest before publishing this I find that Darwin did in fact add the phrase in his 5th edition, but that it was intended as a metaphore not to be take literally! - see Wikipedia entry for why it is incomplete and misleading).

Geeks are great language users

There is surely a better title for this post, but it's late... I wanted to celebrate the wonderful language that geeks come up with. For those not in the know who think that geeks are all pasty faced young men who can barely articulate a sentance, you would be completely wrong - on the last count at least. No TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms), that is the province of middle management. I'm going to start listing my favorite phrases here as I come across them, are all wonderfully visual and usually give a sense of their meaning, even to the uninitiated.

A bug - probably the first geek term. The urban myth says and early valve computer when wrong when an insect cause a connection to blow.
Easter Egg feature - a hidden feature only accessible to those in the know.
A pigeon/pidgin language - heard it in an otherwise impenetrable podcast on computing.
Meercating - as in your in an open plan office with shoulder level partitions and you hear a comotion. Everyone started meercating.

Do contribute your own...

We've got to fight dangerous climate change - Not

"We've got to fight dangerous climate change". A little sound bite from Hilary Benn, Secretary of Status in the UK on the TV programme Dispatches tonight when asked whether incentives for biofuel production was a good idea given rising food prices. Who are we fighting exactly? It takes two to start a war and I don't think the climate gives a toss about us. But clearly climate is 'dangerous' and what we do when things are dangerous? We fight!! This piece of misdirection avoids laying any blame and implies there is an enemy somewhere to be afraid of but this government is on our side and we are going to fight together. Hurrah!

I see no reason to use such emotive language. Climate change is a massive problem that requires us all to engage and find out how it affects each of us. What does it mean for me and my family? What can I do, individually and collectively? The qualities that will see us through this are ingenuity, leadership, creativity and collaboration. Qualities not inspired by fearful citizens ready to fight off the invaders, which is the image that comes to my mind by this sound bite.