One of the great challenges in most professions is this: to master jargon. Terms, phrases and acronyms used between two knowledgeable practitioners within a profession are not only understood, they are reliably meaningful. But if one of the parties is ill-equipped—perhaps because they are not a member of the profession, communication is likely to be impaired. The more polite amongst us may well continue to listen or read, in the hope of detecting a clue to signal the meaning of the term or phrase just-used. Others will interject, with something along the lines of, "What do you mean?" Regardless, the message is often lost.
While I try to minimise my usage of jargon and related verbosity, I am far from immune—and this has been brought home during the past few weeks. Since the first week of January, at least six people have asked about my usage of "boardcraft", a term I coined almost a decade ago. In each interaction, I have tried to respond, and, on most occasions, the other party has been gracious enough to say they understood.
Yesterday, a colleague based in sub-Saharan Africa posed a challenge, to pre-empt future requests: "Why don't you create a little video and post it?" I am not one to record video clips, but the wisdom inherent in the challenge demanded my consideration. Why would I not consider the suggestion? And so I acted.
Hopefully, this 75-second clip goes some way to describing what I mean by boardcraft. If you'd like to know more, look for a new paper, entitled Boardcraft: The essence of high-performing boards, which should be available here in February.
As always, if you have any questions, or want to explore how the Boardcraft mindset might help your board govern more effectively, feel free to contact me directly.
(*) To understand all is to forgive all. (I make no claims to understanding all—far from it. Instead, I offer this title as an apology for when I use jargon inappropriately.)
