The power of acronyms

I’ve always thought that once we moved from typing on machines the days of the acronym would be over.  Why do we need them?  We don’t need to push keys up and down to type in the same words over and over.  We can search and replace in one stroke.

I was so wrong. Acronyms are alive and thriving in every organization I work with.

Acronyms are short form.  They’re code.  They’re kind of cool – you can make them spell catchy words like DEVIL [development in logistics – thanks to my dad who loved creating sticky acronyms for projects he led]. They’re the part of the language that proves you’re part of the ‘in’ group – the ones that know what the acronyms mean.  Until you don’t.

I remember joining a large global company about a decade ago.  Engineering was key to this business and so were engineers.  And engineers love acronyms [an unproven theory].  Anyway, I went to meeting after meeting in those early days just trying to wade through the acronyms.

There was one meeting that stands out.  Somewhere about 5 minutes into the meeting someone referred to “XMNP” [acronym disguised to protect the innocent].  The discussion got incredibly animated and built to a crescendo when about an hour in I realized that there were two groups in the room.  They both used “XMNP” acronym.  And they both used it in different ways.  They were fighting about different things.  No one had really thought about what the initials meant since they’d made them up and except for the new person in the room who asked they might not have.

And that’s when I realized the real power of acronyms is to obscure and confuse.  If you’re not in favour of obscuring and confusing then I think you know what you have to do.

Tags: Communications, Cultural norms, Culture change, Employee communication, Transparency