I loved this TED talk for the exact fact that
it was about the meaning of words. I have a tween daughter….tween. Who made up
that word? Not a little kid anymore but not yet a teen: tween. She and her
friends are discovering a whole new world of words, changing the meaning of
those words as we know them. Take the word ship.
You and I know this word as a water vessel, something that floats on water. To
her and her friends, it means relationship harmony (two people you want to see
together) so they would say, “I ship you and Brad.” Triggered, shook, quaking,
etc., these are all words that have other meanings from what you and I know.
These words describe feelings for her and her friends. It is a way for her to
express herself, anger, joy, happiness it falls into these words and phrases.
Now onto the workplace. I work in financial
aid and the list of commonly used jargon that we use is endless. Anyone outside
of financial aid would have no clue as to what we were talking about. A typical
conversation goes like this, “Anna, can you look at the EFC for this student?
The FAFSA shows one thing but the awards are wonky. The COA is correct as
well.” Umm what? EFC stands for estimated cost of attendance, FAFSA stands for
Free Application for Federal Student Aid and lastly COA stands for Cost of
Attendance. We throw out this jargon like it is hello and goodbye. Walk into
any university financial aid office and you will hear the same words spoken. Koenig
talks about how a word can give one a key to into the brain. Is the word worth
knowing and understanding if it only gets us into one brain. But if it gets you
into millions of brains, well then you hit the jackpot! So in financial aid,
these words are our cultural norm, we understand and use them on a daily basis.
It is what helps us communicate with each other.
Chapter
two talks about how we use communication for multiple purposes. We can use the
same language with completely different objectives in mind. Effective
communicators will motivate, teach, clarify, inform, and persuade depending on
the audience. This is done with words like good job, you are doing great, this
is what you need to do next, help to communicate our needs and desires inside
and out of the work place.
To
close this out I wanted to go back to the video and the word that Koenig
defined…sonder being the idea that we all think of ourselves as the main
characters and everyone is just extras. I find this happens in the work place. For
example, in financial aid we feel we sonder, we are the main characters and the
other departments are the extras. This is not to diminish the other departments
at all, it is means that we deal with so many students, campuses and advisors
that we speak our own language. When we talk to the “extras” we have to make
sure that we speak in a way that they can understand. It applies to management
as well. We need to make sure that we are speaking the language by being active
listeners, asking questions, communicating in various manners so that the
message is easily understood.
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