20th September 2017
Buzzwords
A buzzword is a word or phrase that becomes very popular for a period of time. Buzzwords often derive from technical terms yet often have much of the original technical meaning removed, being simply used to impress others. They started to appear in the 1960’s.
‘Learnings’ is a buzzword, it has become very popular in the world of accountability, liability and in particular regulation.
There are some excellent examples of the use of this particular buzzword. It will often be found in sentence constructions from governmental organisations and official public bodies. For example, ‘there are key learnings to be had’, an ‘enquiry is needed to discover what learnings can be made’, or ‘we will apply these learnings immediately’.
The definition of what it implies and what the ‘outcome’, another buzzword meaning ‘the way a thing turns out; a consequence’, are actually two different things.
We hear that word ‘learnings’ a lot at the moment. It can be heard in relation to regulation (as a catch all industry in its own right) law and order, healthcare, disasters, failures of …well anything in general really that involves collective responsibility or blame when the reality is that no person ever ends up being fingered for blame.
‘Learning’s’ and ‘outcomes’ are often linked to the word ‘vulnerable’, meaning to be exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally creating a verbal triptych’.
So when you hear these three words in the same sentence (they often form part of a BBC interpretation rather than a factual report of a news event) give it a little thought and a wry smile.
Why?
Because ‘learnings’ never ever happen. If they did we would not hear the mantra being chanted every time something goes wrong, as a form of absolution, as in it is not my fault.
Outcomes should lead to a learning; again they never do for the same reason.
They do not even lead to an intervention, more of that word another time.
And the ‘vulnerable’ are a growing collective in society. The word is overused, miss-applied and has become meaningless as we have become anaesthatised by hearing it so much, the vulnerable’ of the world must now outnumber those that are not.
In the world of financial services regulation, not a day will pass without reading, seeing, hearing all these words, individually, in pairs or a full blown broadside of them.
And with such overuse, they have no meaning, no empathy, no humility and no sincerity any more. Next on the radar is ‘our thoughts and prayers go to’!
Comments (1)
"Lessons have been learnt" = "We absolutely refuse to apologise for our stupidity and maladministration" - usually from a public service or a large company/charity.
Whilst we're at it, let's do nothing, other than salve our consciences by wasting money at a florists and throwing the purchase in the streets, or on the steps of some tragedy. Then let's look for scapegoats, instead of asking what effective things we can do to effect change.
If we can't be bothered to do even that, let's ask everyone on social media to stop posting for one minute for each person killed, or send some meaningless cute and pukey .GIFs to all our friends on that medium, asking them to forward it to all their friends and so on, ad inf. in support of some puerile cause.
Finally, when we see an opinion we don't like, instead of using reasoned argument, let's brand it either racist or fascist!
How did a nation that survived the blitz and Lord knows what other misfortunes sink to this?
Richard Brown 22/09/2017 09:48
You need to be logged in to comment on this article