Jargon and acronyms can hinder learning

Have you ever struggled to read a document and found yourself lost in the jargon?

Every industry develops its own jargon and acronyms to speed up communication, but often jargon and uncommon words act as gatekeepers to new knowledge. They are used to prove the writer or speaker belongs to an elite group and to exclude others from that group. This is counter-productive to clear communication and cost-effective solutions.

At one course where I was part of the delivery team, the term: ROI came up. I immediately explained that ROI meant return on investment and basically was a calculation to find out if something was worth doing. The course was a pilot and aimed at floor staff who were not usually involved in calculating ROI but we felt that including it was really important because understanding ROI gave meaning to many of the decisions made by management.

An observer-participant from middle management commented that he’d wished someone had given him such an explanation years ago when he was first promoted to a position where he attended management meetings. He admitted that he had no idea what they were talking about but just nodded his head and agreed. He was too scared to ask because he didn’t want to face the shame of not knowing, or risk having other managers think he wasn’t able to cope with the promotion.

The course continued with both observer participants and regular participants working towards an investigation of a production issue. The aim was to carry out a team investigation and report on their findings. Solving the problem was NOT the goal, but most of them, with the help of their on-site teams, did come up with a cost-effective solution. ROI featured in their significant savings calculations that reached into millions of dollars each year.

Those participants would have paid back their course fees many times over! They will also share with others on the floor the importance of ROI.