Is that Assumption you’re speaking?
February 10th, 2009
Life would be hard without assumptions. We assume people can understand us when we speak. Otherwise, we’d have to get painful verification one….word….at….a….time. We assume if that engine light doesn’t come on our car is running OK. We assume we’ll be allowed a certain amount of behaviorial leeway from friends.
Sometimes within companies, however, we can assume too much, especially when it comes to our internal language. The same lingo that greases the skids inside our companies might bring communication to a screeching halt in the outside world. I was speaking to a phone rep today and he was telling me that I would need to call back when “my order was provisioned.” Huh?
This style of tribal language runs rampant within technology companies. A suggestion: Anytime you are communicating something to the outside world, run it by a few friends or customers to see if it makes sense. Doesn’t take much time, and it could prevent a big assumption gap.
Great blog so far, Bob!
As for your advice about assumptions, it goes double for using acronyms. I remember starting a new job where everyone had an acronym for a title, and I had no idea what many of them did for the longest time.
I was on the phone yesterday with a person at a Barclay’s Bank in England yesterday. We’d managed to overdraw our account and they had mailed us a letter informing us of this fact, rather than call or e-mail. Of course, it took a week to get here and we’d racked up another fee. In a flurry of lingo, the bank representative rattled off what would happen next and what we could do to fix the account. I finally had to ask: “And what does that mean?”
Thanks, Alice. Yes, acronyms are lethal and wielded far too frequently.
Hope you got your banking straightened out John. My order was provisioned today.