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….

Building Networks – HR & IT

Both HR and IT seem to be quick to call upon the need for culture change for a new initiative to be successful – whether that is to adopt new technology or to have people work more collaboratively in an open environment.  To effect and sustain a cultural change is an enormous investment in energy and resources.  Unless there is a compelling need for a radical change, let’s build on the concept of reverse engineering focusing on our existing systems, both organizational and technology ones, as assets that need to be renewed to operate in a networked organization.   Both disciplines have had difficulty transforming from support to strategic roles within an organization.  Their challenges sound very similar.  HR has focused on the people; IT on the technology.  Together we need to focus on the processes to align people and technology strategies to deliver business results.