Dirty Words – What Not to Say to Executives, by Jay Cross
(Reprinted and paraphrased in part from Chief Learning Officer Magazine, February 2010)
Jay Cross is CEO of Internet Time Group and a thought leader in informal learning and organizational performance. These excerpts are taken from his views published earlier this month. “Top executives have little time, so it’s important to have a one-minute elevator pitch ready for chance encounters with them. We all know that you shouldn’t use training jargon when talking to executives. We should also purge other common words from our vocabularies because they trigger negative thoughts among decision makers. “Learning” is a dirty word because executives have a hard time hearing it. You think of improving skills and increasing knowledge. They think of classes, teachers and school. Learning taints the conversations. Better to speak of collaboration or Boosting Brain Power or Work Smarter. “Learner” is banned because no one but the training community uses the term. “Social Learning” maybe the hottest thing; however, when executives hear the word “social” they see scenes of Woodstock and other non-business activities. Likewise, executives hear the word “informal” and take it to mean haphazard. Better call it collaboration if you want to sell it.
You probably stopped using the word “training,” but just in case, let’s review why it’s inappropriate. Training is something you do to someone. Learning is something people do for themselves. You hope that people learn from training, for that’s the objective. Talking about training can blink you to alternative means of learning.
Early failures at eLearning still taint current evident that eLearning can produce superior results compared to the classroom. It’s better to talk about cost-benefit analysis or meeting specific goals than to use the dreaded ROI term. Accounting terms are increasingly the wrong yardstick.
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