What's in a Word?

I’m reading a book called “Transformed” by Marty Cagan. In one part of the book, the author shares his belief that the word “collaboration” has nearly lost all meaning due to overuse. The author tries to solidify the definition of the word for the purpose of the book. He shares what he believes collaboration is and what it is not.

This reminded me of a former mentor that used the word “intentional” often. She would say, “Let’s be intentional about <insert effort here>.”

With a reorganization event going on at my company, some of the newly formed agile teams are going back to using sprint objectives in attempt to generate collective focus for the forming teams. (Previous teams often didn’t need a formal objective; they knew what they were working on and why.)

Around the same time, I happened to have a regular meeting with HR. We were discussing the company reorganization effort. We noticed a theme among the challenges and, half joking, we settled on a “word of the week”. (I don’t recall the word, sorry!)

A word (or phrase) of the week/month/quarter could be a useful tool to rally your team around. Some phrases or words could be:

• “Flexibility”

• “Focus”

• “Quality First”

As a leader, you can start and end your meetings with a reminder of your word or phrase of the week to guide the team on what they should be focusing on for the given time period.

I’m going to give this idea a shot this week. The re-org has been quite the challenge for my new team. Now, I just need to figure out what word or phrase to choose…

Cheers!

Link to Book (Amazon):

Transformed: Moving to the Product Operating Model https://a.co/d/0sAL8fn