Building on our previous post ‘How Each Social Group Has Its Own Vernacular Tongue‘, it is astounding how groups can quickly create language barriers with the outside world. It creates a sense of identity. In her post ‘You say Tomato, I say Tomato… When Language is the Enemy‘, Valeria Maltoni explains how that can create difficult situations.
The solution is to make sure people agree on the meaning of words and acronyms, and try to get the group to explain its activities to an outsider, preferably a client. “Lack of a common language impacts a common understanding of values and culture. When nobody is on the same page, the context shifts based on where you are.”
“A common language is key to creating the environment that delivers consistent experiences“. Creating this common language is often the first task of a consulting project, or an entity integration project. Let’s not be impressed by the language barrier, we all know how to learn foreign languages. It comes quickly!
