Episode 235: Cutting Through the Buzzwords and Bringing Clarity to Leadership Language

Darrin Peppard (00:00.942)

All right, everybody, welcome back into the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. This is episode 235. This is a special midweek release and I am flying solo today. I really want to dig in in this episode into something that I know we all deal with. It's the words that we use. It's the words that we choose to use.

You know, we know that our words will shape how our teams operate, how organizations move forward, how people understand their work. Yeah, the guy who stands on stage, who stands in front of small groups, medium sized groups and large groups, the keynote speaker, the workshop presenter is telling you, yes, our words matter. But the catch is, so often we use words that might sound real powerful.

but they're left wide open for interpretation. Now I'll tell you that this particular episode is honestly inspired by an episode of the show that will release at a later date where I sat down with Casey Watts from Catching Up with Casey and we had a conversation about clarity. I know, big surprise, a conversation about clarity with me. But Casey and I share very much a similar brain when it comes to the importance of clarity.

And we were talking about certain words and how when we don't really gain clarity, both for ourselves and for the people that we lead around those words, we run into trouble. You know the words, it's words like collaboration, accountability, engagement. They're the words that everyone knows as buzzwords. You know, we wanna be

Buzzword compliant, let's make sure we get all of them into this one sentence. when we don't define those buzzwords, what happens is things get really confusing instead of being clear. So in this episode, I'm gonna walk through 10 of those words. Now I could have chosen, I actually generated a list of about 75, but I narrowed it down to a total of 10 words.

Darrin Peppard (02:25.018)

for this particular episode. And these are words that I have heard in schools, I've heard them in corporate spaces, they are words that I am guilty of using without giving the clarity that is necessary. But in this episode, we're going to talk about what do those words actually mean? How do they get misunderstood? And how can leaders do what is necessary to bring clarity to them? So,

I think this is going to be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to this and we're going to get right to it right after this. All right. So as leaders, we really have this tendency to throw around buzzwords because man, they really sound sharp. Don't they? They make us sound really intelligent. Maybe we just use them because we've heard other people say them, right? Maybe we think they signal progress or there's some type of a shorthand, but the truth is without definition, those words just simply lose all their meaning.

Even worse, they might even just create some mixed signals. So think about this. Like if I tell my team, hey, we need to see more collaboration among our team, but I never tell them what that actually looked like. Well, I should not be shocked when they're not doing what it is that I expected them to do because I didn't tell them what I wanted. I wasn't crystal clear about what that word meant. And unfortunately, that leads to them

I'm feeling a little frustrated. And honestly, I feel a little frustrated. I mean, just using this word, and I'm gonna get to this word actually in just a couple of minutes anyway, but I had several PLCs when I was a high school principal that we would tell them, really want you collaborating. But the reality was we didn't tell them what that really meant. You know, we failed to truly model what that meant. And because we failed, yeah.

They failed too, because they didn't really know what we specifically meant by that terminology. So when we would go into their meetings, we would get frustrated. Oftentimes they were frustrated and didn't even want to have their meetings because they didn't know what they were supposed to really be doing. Folks, clarity in our words really matters. And it's our job as leaders to make sure that that clarity exists. So.

Darrin Peppard (04:48.824)

Let's have a little fun with this. Let's dive in 10 words. I'm going to do this as quickly as I can. And we're going to start with collaboration. I've already touched on that one. So here we go. Number one, collaboration. According to Webster's collaboration is to work jointly together with others, especially in an intellectual endeavor. What does that often get reduced to sit in the same meeting? Not

actual co-creation. In education, we know that PLCs or grade level team meetings or cross-departmental work tend to devolve without collaboration if we're not really crystal clear what we want them to be doing. What does collaboration really look like? In that educational setting, I would think that what we're really looking for are people to co-plan.

to co-create their assessments, to evaluate data together, and to make suggestions of how collectively the team can improve the performance outside of that PLC meeting. That's what I would assume. But see, we know what assumptions do. And if as a leader, you're making that same assumption and you haven't clearly defined it,

Odds are you go into your PLC meetings and you don't see what it is that you think you want to see. In the corporate space, it could easily be true in project teams or in some type of cross-functional initiative. You know, maybe it's, our tech department and our marketing department really need to collaborate on this project. Well, if you didn't explain to them what that collaboration should look like, you may very well get what a lot of these kids did when they were in high school.

one kid does all the work, everybody else gets the same grade. That's not what you're looking for. You've got to be crystal clear. What does that genuinely mean? So the leadership takeaway here, define what collaboration looks like in practice. Is it joint planning? Is it joint co-creation? Whatever it is, shared accountability, collective responsibility, whatever.

Darrin Peppard (07:12.193)

whatever you want it to be, don't leave the meeting where you're sharing whatever it is that you expect them to collaborate on without clearly defining what collaboration means. Man, this is a lot of fun. Let's keep rolling. Here we go. Number two is accountability. I love this one. Accountability. According to Webster's, it is the quality or state of being accountable. It is...

an obligation, it is a willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions. Well, regardless the space, education or corporate, let's be honest, this typically gets equated with punishment or with blame. If we hear it all the time, someone needs to be held accountable. Translation, somebody needs to get fired. That shouldn't be what accountability is all about.

Now, yes, you need to be accountable to the team. You need to be accountable for your work, but accountability should not directly equate to punishment. So if you're going to use that terminology, make sure you clearly define it. In schools, we know that that's often accountability is tied to test scores or it's tied to some type of compliance, whether that is compliance with law or compliance with some type of an evaluation instrument.

If accountability means I want my team to take ownership, then we need to really talk about that. Be very intentional. In the corporate space, accountability is really most often connected to either performance reviews or key performance indicators. Now, again, if you want accountability to be ownership, then you need to talk about that. If you want accountability to be support,

rather than punishment, you need to talk about that. A great way to look at that in both spaces here folks is to make it about growth. If you want accountability to be, hey, we take ownership collectively as individuals, I know what my responsibility is in order for us to achieve the goals that we have as an organization, make it about growth. Whether that's growth in terms of assessment.

Darrin Peppard (09:34.088)

in terms of student outcomes or in terms of the key performance indicators that you are looking at in your business, make it about growth. That's a great way to flip accountability from punishment to gain compliance into, hey, we've taken some ownership and we're going to support each other so we can achieve our goals. All right, powerful stuff right there. Number three, number three, I love this one, engagement.

According to Webster's engagement is an emotional involvement or commitment. It's the state of really being in gear. Man, that's a cool definition, isn't it? How does it get misused? Man, in the education space, means sometimes students are quiet or students are looking at a screen. That doesn't necessarily mean they're engaged. Sometimes excitement gets misinterpreted as engagement.

you know, this is hands on, you know, their eyes are bright, but does that mean they're engaged? In the corporate space, engagement often gets connected to employee service. Maybe it's about participation rates or something to do with productivity. The thing about engagement is, back to that definition, is the emotional involvement in the education space.

Engaged students are taking ownership of their learning. Engaged students are curious. Engaged students can tell you what they're learning, why they're learning, and how they can eventually take or talk about or transfer that knowledge into something else. That to me is what true engagement's about. Engagement is one of those terms quite frequently in the education space with the work that I do.

that we have to stop and make sure we have a clear definition. Because so often we just say, hey, we wanna see better engagement. Okay, what does that mean? Again, in the corporate space, you gotta be clear, what do you mean by engagement? Obviously, it's a different terminology than it is in the education space, but if you want employees who are genuinely engaged, does that mean you want employees that are invested in the success of the organization?

Darrin Peppard (12:02.623)

And if so, how do you know? Surveys certainly are a part of it, but I don't think that's the only way for you to measure engagement with an employee. Big leadership takeaway here. Focus on active investment. Focus on enthusiasm. Focus on attention. Focus on how people genuinely feel about their ownership of what they're doing. All right, here we go.

Number four is a little bit more of an educational space, but certainly this one fits into the corporate world and this one is curriculum. I gotta be careful here because this is one I could talk about for hours and I'm probably going to get a lot of pushback from educators on this one. according to Webster, curriculum are the courses offered by an educational institution. It's kind of a watery definition.

In education, oftentimes it's misused as it's what the textbook is. We're buying new curriculum. Are you? Are you buying new textbooks? Is that genuinely your curriculum? Sometimes we're building pacing guides. That's our curriculum. Okay. For some people, the standards, that is your curriculum. Other people say, no, our learning experiences are.

I would argue that it's everything put together. Your standards drive your curriculum and all those other pieces are resources that you use collectively to be the curriculum, the course that you are offering. Maybe that's chemistry, maybe that's reading, maybe that's physical education. I don't know, fill in blank. But whatever the topic is, your curriculum in my eyes is not just

textbook. It's driven by the standards and it's all those other pieces together, a whole collective thing. That's your curriculum.

Darrin Peppard (14:10.6)

Sometimes in the corporate space, curriculum means just training modules, or maybe it means the onboarding tools. It might even mean some leadership development stuff. Again, I would say even in the corporate space, a big part of your curriculum are the on-the-job training opportunities, the working alongside your colleagues, the experiences that you have during your work day.

All of that together is the curriculum of your particular activity. The big leadership takeaway here, when you say curriculum, the question is, you talking about content? Are you talking about instruction? Are you talking about learning outcomes?

I'm not saying you should use my definition. What I am saying is you need to be really, really clear about what it means and then make sure everybody understands that you're on the same page. Very quick side note, very quick story. When I first became a superintendent, I had a couple of teachers who said, Hey, we want to buy a new curriculum in fill in the blank. I don't, I can tell you the subject, but I'm not going to.

Darrin Peppard (15:25.13)

when we started unpacking standards, when we started talking about all the pieces that go into it, they didn't want to do that work. I said, no, we've looked at the textbooks. We picked out the one we want. We want to buy that curriculum.

Darrin Peppard (15:41.481)

I don't think that's your curriculum. I think it's a resource. It's a great resource. But it should not be lockstep, the only thing that you're using in your educational program. Again, I know people are gonna throw stones. Bring it at me. It's what I believe.

Number five, we're halfway through here, folks. Rigor. I love this one. Man, I love this one. Rigor. According to Webster's, is the quality of being extremely thorough, exhaustive, accurate. It's the severity of life, hardship, or challenge. Rigor, it's a tough word. Far too often, it's confused with more work or harder work.

In education, oftentimes when people say, well, I'm just being, you know, I'm really following through with rigorous assignments. That means I'm going to pile on more homework.

Man, I'll tell you what, this comes up all the time with schools and school leaders. know, Darren, we want to see more rigor in our classrooms. Man, go define it right now. Because if you don't, the misinterpretation will be, make it harder. No, no. It means go in depth. mean, be really thorough with what kids are learning, not just at the surface level. Make them take things from just simply remembering.

and regurgitating on an exam to where they can actually go do something with it. Where they can actually take that knowledge and transfer it into another context and do something with it. To me, that's what rigor is all about.

Darrin Peppard (17:32.512)

In the corporate world, sometimes rigor means let's just set unrealistic targets. Let's put together extremely complex processes. You don't have to make things harder, more complicated, or more difficult in order to gain rigor. So much of rigor is about how you view the standard, the expectation, and how deep you can take the learning specifically related

to that standard.

I would say big takeaway here, define rigor as the depth of thinking, the problem solving, the perseverance and not just making it more work. To me, that's what rigor is all about.

Number six, you'll love this one, folks. It's the dreaded F word. yeah, fidelity. We've all said this one. We've all said, yeah, this needs to be done with fidelity. And here's what Webster says. Fidelity is a quality or state of being faithful, accurate in details or exactness. In education, we say all the time, this needs to be implemented with fidelity. This needs to be taught with fidelity.

Typically that is interpreted as a rigid adherence. Do it exactly the way it is in the textbook. Well, you know my feeling on that. A couple words ago, we talked about curriculum.

Darrin Peppard (19:10.238)

adherence specifically to a textbook to me is not what fidelity is. And I'm not saying that that's what it should be for you, but whatever it is, if you're saying the dreaded f-word, you darn well better explain what do you mean. Because oftentimes what people think is, okay, you're telling me I have to do this exactly the way that it is outlined.

totally do it without deviation, regardless the setting, education or not. I have to do it exactly lockstep with what is written. What that does is create a complete lack of flexibility. It totally stifles innovation. And I'll be honest with you, I think it takes so much of the art of work out of the work.

if you want people to just simply lockstep follow.

maybe I ought to take a deep look at that.

I think it's really important that leaders define what fidelity is. And maybe it should be something along the lines of being committed to the intent, be committed to what we're expecting in terms of the outcomes, be committed to utilizing the resources that you have to achieve the overall goal, rather than let's just gain robotic adherence.

Darrin Peppard (20:47.765)

to a specific set of steps. To me, that's what fidelity should be. We're all working towards this goal. We're gonna utilize the resources that we have.

ultimately to try and reach that goal.

Number seven. This just keeps getting better. Best practices. Anybody hear that one recently? We need to make sure we're following best practice. Okay. I hear it. I hear it all the time. What does Webster say? It's a procedure that has been shown by research and experience to produce the optimal results.

It's established or proposed as a standard suitable for widespread adoption. In other words, it is best that you do it this way. That's what the research says. Unfortunately, it gets weaponized quite often. It gets used to maybe shut down creativity. It gets used to create robotic

adherence, that fidelity that we talked about earlier.

Darrin Peppard (22:08.927)

The risks again here, we can become very quickly outdated. We can be context blind. We can be completely caught off guard with results when we're not allowing the people we have to innovate, to create, and to think differently.

because I would bet a lot of people who use the term best practices also use the term out of the box thinking and you cannot do both.

I'm not saying best practice is wrong. I mean, it's called best practice for a reason. But if you want your people to quote, think outside of the box, they can't simply just keep doing things the way they've been done. I've got to be given the opportunity to experience other methods. So how do you take care of this one? Define what best practice is and say this is a great starting point, but encourage people.

to encourage people to innovate, encourage people to create something different.

Darrin Peppard (23:19.295)

Number eight, got three to go here, folks.

Number eight is data driven.

Just keeps getting better, doesn't it? We are data driven. It's characterized, according to Webster's, by decisions or processes guided by data rather than intuition or personal experience. In education, that means we are looking at testing data, assessment scores, benchmarks, those types of things. In the corporate world, it's our KPIs, it's metrics, it's analytics, it's dashboards.

Being data-driven is not a problem, but we have to define specifically what we mean by data-driven, what data specifically are we looking for, and we can't be simply blind only to data. Because the big risk that comes from being only data-driven is it reduces people to numbers, and it's not balanced by human judgment.

No matter what it is that you do, no matter what your walk of life might be, you got to trust the people that are doing the work. And people are not numbers. Allow the people to experiment a little bit, to have some latitude, to be able to create. Being data-driven is a good thing. But if we're going to say we're data-driven,

Darrin Peppard (24:54.795)

We got to make sure we're really crystal clear what we mean by that. Because when all we do is talk about data, we're taking the human element out of the work that we do.

All right, here we go, number nine, expectations. According to Webster, expectations are an act or a state of expecting, it's the condition of being expected or a standard of conduct or a specific performance we expect. Now, oftentimes, I saved this one towards the end for a reason, because oftentimes this is an area where leaders

fail to be clear because we have this tendency to assume that our expectations are understood without really clearly communicating them or for that matter without clearly continually communicating them saying them in one staff meeting and never mentioning it again that's not making your expectations clear

yelling it when you're angry with someone is not making your expectations clear.

we have to be crystal clear. Whether in education, that means I have specific expectations around lesson planning, around the classroom management expectations that you are going to hold in your classrooms, the duty assignments that you have, what collaboration might be in your PLC meetings and so forth, or in the corporate space being.

Darrin Peppard (26:38.088)

very clear about deadlines, about what the quality of work is going to be, around how you expect communication to happen. We have to be clear with those expectations. And I would take it one step further. We have to be clear about those expectations of ourselves first, before we can be clear about those expectations of others. This is a step that a lot of leaders miss. I say, this is what I expect.

but then either they don't live up to their own expectations or they have failed to define the expectations they have of themselves. Begin with you. Get clear on what you expect of yourself before you focus on what you expect of others. Because if you can be clear about your own expectations, it becomes that much easier to be clear of other people's expectations. All right, here we go. We're in the homestretch. Number 10. I saved this one for last for a reason. Although honestly,

Let's be real, right? Probably six or seven of these words could have easily been the closer. But the closer today is professional development. Yeah. According to Webster's, it's continuing education, continuing training for your profession. Pretty simple definition. But, man, we sure messed this one up. If we're not crystal clear, we have a tendency to take professional development and

Sometimes use it as a noun, sometimes as a verb, sometimes as an adjective. We use it for all kinds of things. In education, it could be anything from inspiring workshops to having a keynote speaker to having compliance sessions.

Let's be real clear. What is the professional development about? And what really is professional development? Is a workday professional development? Probably not. If you're not working to grow people professionally, don't call it professional development. And by the way, don't call it a PD. A PD means it's a thing.

Darrin Peppard (28:51.23)

Professional development should be an experience. Professional development should be something that the people take ownership of that actually helps them to be better in their job. To reduce it to it's just a thing means that's how your staff is going to take a look at it too.

Any ongoing training, any leadership program, any thing that is designed to help our people grow and improve can be professional development. A work day is not professional development. Another quick side note.

when I started as a superintendent.

one of our buildings had been told prior to me being there that they could just work from home on professional development days.

How is working from home professional development? That's not. Even if they were working, and I think some were, I really do, I think some weren't. But a work day is not professional development. Plain and simple. Define it and use the definition correctly. The risk we have when we allow it to just be something that we did, we did a PD, it becomes a checkbox.

Darrin Peppard (30:17.244)

It no longer is about growth. Big, big, big takeaway here. Define it as purposeful learning connected to the growth goals of your organization, not just clocking hours. If you can get clear about that, and you can stay with that clarity, professional development all of a sudden takes on a whole new meaning.

Man, that was a lot of fun. I certainly riffed quite a bit on each of those and I enjoyed that. And I hope you did too. I have a feeling that I probably struck some chords with a handful of you. I hope so. Because the challenge is this. Every one of us uses these words and they can either sharpen or blur the work that we're doing. The difference is whether or not we as leaders are willing to stop and define them.

When you are in your next staff meeting, your next team huddle, your next strategy session, think about the words you're using. Ask yourself, have I defined this clearly for my people? Do they really know what I mean by accountability? Do they really know what I mean about engagement? Do they really understand what I mean about being data driven? Words are powerful, only when we're clear about what they mean.

And I'll tell you what, I would love to hear from you about this episode. I would love to hear about the buzzwords that are in your world that are just driving you nuts. Maybe I'll do another episode, like throw some more words at me and I will dive in and punch holes in them because we have to get crystal clear about the words that we're using. Reach out to me on all of my social network platforms that are all down in the show notes, folks. Drop me an email, darren at roadtoawesome.net.

If this conversation hit home, let's talk a little bit more. Let's talk about how I can support you and your team in bringing a lot more clarity to your leadership and into your organization. Because when clarity exists, incredible action is what follows. Man, I had so much fun with this episode, folks. Thank you for joining me here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Until next time, get out there, have a road to awesome day.