VERTICAL COMMUNICATION

LANGUAGE IS CRITICAL TO COORDINATING ACTION.

As any of our students can attest to, language is at the foundation of our approach to achieving prosperity.

Now let’s relate that to technology and its role in our ability to coordinate action.

A colleague who worked in fundraising at an elite boarding school told me, a number of years ago, that the students considered e-mail ” … something for old people.” Well today, it seems we’re finally coming around to accepting that.

You probably read about the company in Europe who is now eschewing company e-mail in exchange for project-driven communication tools. So, whereas e-mails all arrive in the same place (your inbox) but pertain to any number of subjects, ranging from promises you need to keep to your daughter’s fencing team try-out, project-based communications all relate to a specific type of action. Thus, you automatically know what a particular message is about; your interaction becomes vertical, entrenched in a silo of like subject matter.

Companies are beginning to adopt these practices in the cloud because Web-based project management tools are becoming ubiquitous. You log in to a “project” instead of logging into a big pile of messages and sorting through to find the needles that pertain to the project.

This shift in thinking relates very well to the language of Market Force, as it embraces the idea that every message is “performative.” In other words, it creates action on the project to which it relates and contributes to your ability to generate Market Force. Instead of sorting through an inbox full of judgmental and non-specific messaging, consider improving your ability to coordinate action with a new approach to workplace communications.