Common Words – Contrary Meanings

Common Words – Contrary Meanings

Communicating across disciplines is a challenge…..we like to borrow terminology but adapt the meaning.  I have been particularly intrigued by the contrast of meanings for common terms used within the disciplines of Human Resources & IT.  It demonstrates the criticality of context.  Let’s consider the word “redundancy”.  Within an IT environment, building in redundancies can be a positive measure to ensure fail-safe operations – uptime of 99.999%.  From an HR perspective, dealing with redundancies is not a desirable task; the outcome is normally job loss for at least some employees.  Whereas the term legacy which has a positive, future-oriented connotation for HR; has a negative, past-orientation for IT.  HR strategies for leadership development focus on inspiring leaders to create a legacy beyond their current tenure.  IT faces the challenges of dealing with legacy systems that are stand-alone, cumbersome and detract from creating seamless operations. 

Understand the context to understand the intended meaning of words….