Definition Defined

This post was inspired by https://www.forbes.com/sites/roncarucci/2018/08/20/extending-peter-druckers-legacy-through-a-powerful-movement-of-human-centered-management/#77005ba71247.

What continues to strike me is how divisive language can potentially be in the absence of clarity and/or context.  We each have deeply personal experiences with words and our definitions of them. I believe (in my heart) that people want to communicate; we want to share, we want to experience the joy of the exponential impact of connecting together. An organizational wisdom that can foster this innate desire by valuing the raw, unedited thoughts and ideas of its people is one that does not allow itself to be threatened by uncertainty and instead, enables the permission for its participants to be curious and exploratory. To me, this is an organization that embraces curiosity and propagates a zone of unfiltered opportunities where people can feel safe to play in what they experience as a truly respectful environment that is free from assumption and presumption. This cultivates the ‘unleashing of power’ because it removes the feeling of risk. If language, as our medium, in all its forms (yes, non-verbal as often as verbal!) is the conduit through which people share and understand one another, it behaves as any other art form does – music, painting, clothing. Our experience of it is subjective. And because communication within the organization depends on language, our interpretations have to convene and become one such that making the search for the common denominator underlying the interpretation of the same word (how we understand the sentiment implied), becomes crucial. Therefore, by allowing this sense of freedom in language to flourish, by truly grasping how we each define things, so that it becomes the new organizational normal, peoples’ imaginations are stimulated as are their willingness to grow those whispers of leadership within them by being inspired to experiment without judgement and homogenizing language.   If we embed and nurture these ‘cohesive’ values, those that respect one anothers’ unique experiences and perceptions, then I posit that we are indeed cultivating the stitching of the mosaic quilt that is greater than the sum of the organization’s parts.