What Does Your Communication Reveal?

Your “lexicon” is like your fingerprints.

Everyone has a “lexicon.” It is simply the set of words (and thus concepts} regularly used. It labels the quality and the workings of your mind. It labels your predispositions, your beliefs, and your prejudices.

Just as you select certain clothes and not others, you select certain terms for your lexicon and not others.

So a “lexicon” is important stuff. It’s a part of your everyday vitals.  It tells the world who you are.

Some examples could be useful.

Leaders avoid phrases like “should have,” or “ought to have.” Those expressions put the focus on the past. The past is over. Unless you are a historian, it’s enough to have the important details about what was accomplished – or not. Talk about it adds little or nothing.

In the film Star Wars, Yoda reacts sharply to young Luke Skywalker’s use of TRY: “There is no TRY! There is only DO!” Replace “try” with “do.”

Clean up your act first. Your communication – inbound or outbound – reveals your mind. Get that right first. The rest will follow.

-Lee Thayer, Thought-Leader