I’ve been working long enough to remember when a supervisor was just…a supervisor. Then we became leaders. Okay. I can get behind that. Sounds inspirational. Maybe I should get a cape. But somewhere along the way, we became People Leaders. As opposed to what? Were some of us previously leading livestock? Office furniture? A small colony of woodland creatures?

Every few years, the workplace decides perfectly functional words have expired, and suddenly we all need to learn an entirely new vocabulary to describe the exact same things we've been doing for years.

Wait...Was the Old Word Broken?

It’s not just supervisors. Employees became team members and then talent. Personnel became Human Resources, which became People & Culture. Training became Learning & Development. Problems became challenges, which eventually became opportunities. And apparently nobody gets fired anymore. They're separated. Which sounds significantly more pleasant than what is actually happening.

"Unfortunately, we're going to have to separate."

Are we breaking up? Should I give you back your hoodie?

At some point, you find yourself in a meeting desperately trying to remember which perfectly normal workplace word we're no longer supposed to say.

"Our supervisors—sorry, our People Leaders—will be responsible for..."

Nailed it.

Culture transformed.

Same Job. New Vocabulary.

Here's what fascinates me: we roll out these new terms like we've fundamentally changed the workplace. Yesterday you had employees. Today you have talent. They're the same people.

Steve still hasn't finished his documentation.

Renaming things can make us feel like we're making progress without requiring us to actually change anything. We can rename supervisors People Leaders, managers Coaches, meetings Huddles and problems Opportunities. But if the meeting is still two hours long and could've been an email, I'm not sure calling it a "collaborative huddle" has improved anyone's life.

Can We Just Talk Like Humans?

To be fair, language matters. Sometimes changing the words we use reflects a genuine shift in how we think about people, leadership and work. That's a good thing. But the new terminology has to mean something. Calling someone a People Leader doesn't automatically make them better at leading people. Calling employees talent doesn't make them feel valued. And calling a problem an opportunity doesn't make me any happier that I have to deal with it. Culture isn't created by vocabulary. It's created by how we actually treat each other.

The Bottom Line

Language evolves. I'll adapt. I'll learn the new terminology. I'll correct myself in meetings, well sometimes. I'll even update the email or the presentation. But when the next email arrives announcing that we're no longer calling something by the name we've used for the past ten years, I reserve the right to stare at my screen for a moment and whisper:

"What are we calling it now?!"

And somewhere deep inside...

I'm probably still going to call them supervisors.

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