8
OPINION
Actions over labels
Companies should focus first and foremost on “doing” and then worry about “saying” what they are doing.
I get it, we need names to refer to each other by something other than, “Hey, you!” We want to know if a movie is a horror flick versus a comedy to decide if it is something in our wheelhouse. The Recording Academy needs genres to give out Grammy awards. Heck, we are obsessed with creating new music subgenres every three years. I guess it helps sell the Grammys broadcast to a wider audience. The same can be said about the compulsion to put labels to categories, initiatives, and trends in business. Although it is true that labels and acronyms can be helpful, in fact they only set the stage; it is a business’s honest approaches and tangible actions and steps that truly makes a difference.
Javier Suarez
Labels produce gut reactions, both positive and negative, stemming in most cases from unconscious and conscious biases. This is especially true in the socio-political landscape of our time where neutral zones and gray areas are hard to come by. Also, our collective failure to have any attention span that surpasses the length of a TikTok video is driving us to only react without anything resembling a pause to read (remember that concept?), research, digest, openly discuss (another lost art), and shape informed opinions. Look at diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). OK. Take
a deep breath. I know. It’s a lot. One way or another, you probably had a potent reaction just now. But hang on. Take another deep breath. Hear me out. I am not going to debate DEI as a concept, but rather the impact of the DEI label. But I will give you a break to recover and come back around to this topic. Historically, as with most things in society, businesses go through cycles where we hang on to a particular concept as the new, shiny object we are all focusing on. Although a lot of trends have merit, they can quickly lose value as their label or acronym takes precedence to its substance. Companies should
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THE ZWEIG LETTER APRIL 21, 2025, ISSUE 1582
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