L1: Language matters

The most important learning on my LEAN journey is not about the LEAN at all. 

When I started to discover the real business world - just after University- I attended one Leadership training. It was that kind of „tasting” training, which consulting companies do to attract people. I guess companies do it hoping people will buy a complete training. So, I did not expect much from it - and as you might guess - I also did not want to buy the training afterward. However, there is one learning that stuck with me for all those years. The learning worth more than the learnings I gather from many complete trainings I paid for.

The trainer at one point said that the most essential tool of a successful leader is a dictionary. Not a translation dictionary, but a dictionary in one’s language. Weird, right? It seemed to me be weird at that time. Oddly, I kept reminding myself year after year without understanding why it was so crucial. Recently, I found out why.

The paradox is that I realized that at another training. The trainer was bad. She did not know what she was speaking about. She was repeating memorized sentences. Yes, the sentences sounded professional and exciting but with no meaning. In one sentence, she was able to refer to culture, strategy, vision as the same thing, replacing one word for another. That caught my attention. Because I realized I did it myself.

For several years I used words; I thought I understood them. In theory, but when it came to applying them into practice. I failed. I got the assignment to create a strategy, coach people, prepare a development plan, apply LEAN thinking, develop a sustainable culture of continuous improvement… But what do those words really mean? Strategy, coaching, plan, LEAN, sustainability, culture, continuous improvement. We use those words daily; we use them with the confidence of describing the fruit we eat. We speak about the LEAN like a lemon, assuming that everyone sees LEAN as a lemon.

Therefore, my first learning is that language matter. I need to be sure that I know what I speak about and that the people I speak with have the same understanding.

We need to be critics to see things clearly. The dictionary is a meaningful starting point - to get confidence in our criticism.


Marek.

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