We had an old dictionary in our kitchen, which we used for crossword puzzles, scrabble and solving arguments. One of us bought it for pennies from a second-hand shop. It had an ex-bright red leather binding, yellowing pages and minuscule type.
And it was full of curiosities.
For instance, did you know the original meaning (or, at any rate, the meaning according to our dictionary) of 'parboil' was to 'cook thoroughly'? Whats a great example of we-the-people ignoring the instructions. Anybody involved in helping people learn will recognise this as one of humanity's most fundamental behaviour patterns.
But my favourite was the definition for 'horse':
"It is self-evident what a horse is."I wear this breath-takingly arrogant definition like a talisman. We all say things like this all the time.
Mission Statements are often ridiculed, with good reason. As the criticism goes, if you rendered them plain text, jumbled them up in a bag and then randomly assigned each company a new one, nobody would be any the wiser. Including the employees.
But they don't have to be so awful. And sometimes they can be good.*
Ill-disguised contempt for Mission Statement
I once asked a staff team to work on a Mission Statement as part of the introduction to a workshop. Big Mistake. The resultant sarcasm and the ill-disguised contempt took me back to my teenage years. And, worse still, it was my mistake. It is self-evident what a horse is. I hadn't taken the trouble to explain anything. I knew what I was doing and why. The thought I was killing time.
I asked the staff team to write down on slips of paper what their job was in fewer than fifteen words. And then, picking somebody at random to read out what they'd written. He said:
"I make sure customers feel secure and understand their rights."Half of the group stifled giggles and smirks convinced he was not-so-subtly mocking me by parodying my corporate-babble. Unexpectedly, he took umbrage, demanding to hear what the others had written.
"We go through all the paperwork and check it's done right."The group, it turns out, were divided neatly down the middle along these lines:
- I help customers
- I follow procedures
Who's right? Ultimately, they both were. They both did the same job, after all. But only one of them manages to avoid the problem of the self-evident horse.
The thing about assumptions is that they're difficult to spot. This is because they're assumptions. We don't talk about assumptions because we accept them with few questions - they're hidden from us. I'm not sure about the laundry list of learning objectives for learning that trainers are so keen on.
But Mission Statements I like.
*Just in case you were wondering, here's an example of a pretty good Mission Statement from - shock, horror - a government department. Even more surprisingly, it's from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. Yes, the taxman has values. (HT @DavidGurteen on Twitter for the image. David has a fantastic website and leads a community of people interested in Knowledge Management - which he manages to make far less scary than the term, with its daunting Capital Letters, might sound.)
Image: sskennel/Flickr
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1 comments:
Best. Dictionary. EVER.
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