Get Lost

Last Wednesday, October 14th, H.R. 946, or in plain English, the Plain Writing Act of 2010 was signed into law. It’s a refreshing intent to align the language of government with the language and understanding of the people governed. For centuries, our law has been written in codes that require specialists to interpret and often serve as combatants in a system wherein the consequences are typically borne by others. Granted, it does not address doublespeak in contracts and service agreements, but it is a good directional beginning. Specifically, “plain writing” in the new law is defined as writing that is “clear, concise, well-organized and follows other best practices.” Perhaps now the governance battle moves to decide what best practices are.
Best practices are an interesting term, particularly in the management of enterprises. It has taken on very different meanings, ranging from very good to disastrous. Best practices can mean:
• How the best in our organization get something done, or how well they are doing in relation to the rest. Often this is used as a means to get multiple groups within an entity to agree upon a methodology. This has become increasingly dangerous, particularly in poorly performing entities. The result could become the application of the best of the worst, or emulating the cream of the crap.
• How the best among organizations in the same industry or providing competing products or services execute. This broadening of the perspective improves the subsequent DNA of the resulting process or practice. However, if the gene pool for benchmarking is the same industry, like the subprime mortgage industry, the results may resemble sheep following blind shepherds over a cliff.
• How the best among organizations executing the same activity or process across all industries or organizations get it done. This approach increases the odds of identifying better methodologies. However, it gets us only so far, and that may not be enough if the best of the best are improving quicker than we can catch up.
But, alas, the government has recognized that language matters a lot, and it is an essential factor in the effectiveness (quality) and efficiency (time and cost) of the execution of communications. Within organizations, the same holds true. Unfortunately, many of our organizations have enough functions, job descriptions, organizational structures, technologies, and cultures to create a Tower of Babel. The languages of sales, engineering, customer service, accounting, technology, design, finance, … et al are very different and often unintelligible to other “tribes” within the shop. Add to that the added complexities of our multipolar world, and the odds for misunderstanding are very high. When we use narrative, spoken or written, as the means of communication, someone will get it wrong.
Universal as this challenge might be, there is a best practice that can go a long way to bridge the language chasms among us. It is no different than getting a good map for travelling from here to there. When travelling, we’ll use all kinds of maps; road maps, street maps, airport maps, seating charts, shopping mall maps, grocery store maps, piping and wiring diagrams, fire exit maps, lots of maps.
What happens when we don’t use maps? What happens when we take a wrong turn or get lost?
How about within our organizations?