A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how aligning on what we call things better enables teams and Leadership to enact change. The upshot was that organizational change can be accelerated (and reinforced) by changing the literal words we use to communicate with one another.
If the words we use when talking to each other matter the most, a close second are the words we use in our documentation and tools. That said, in my last post, I sort of glossed over that:
The team of coaches planning this transition (of which I am one) spoke a lot about tools, processes, documentation, and other very practical things the organization needed to ensure our efforts were compliant with regulatory and operational requirements. There was a lot of conversation about which teams we’d work with, what product lines we’d focus on. We talked a lot about the frameworks we’d be implementing and trainings we’d create to support it.
Feels like there’s a bit of hand-waving there, so let’s be clear: Updating documentation to reflect how we talk about work helps stave off the entropy change presents. Taking the time to change the literal text in the tools we use has a huge impact: It reinforces how we talk and think about transformation and ensures that all entry-points to learning about how we work are put in the context of the wider transformation effort.
A warning about not laying this groundwork: When such efforts are de-prioritized or ignored, inconsistent messaging and duplicitous behavior sometimes follow. Entropy remains high, and the buying into the transformation continues to feel risky, like it’s not “official” or “real.”
The specific language we challenge ourselves to use during a transformation should be applied to all artifacts and tools we’ll use as well. Change doesn’t need to happen everywhere, all at once (we want to remain agile, after all), but it should occur evenly. The more even the shift, the less entropy we’ll have along the way.
Goscin.ski 