Michael Lissack
Balance consistency with evolution. Language must evolve to re- main relevant while maintaining enough consistency to create coherence. Financial services company Capital One manages this balance through a "language stewardship" approach that regularly reviews key terms and concepts to ensure they remain meaningful while preserving essential continuity. This balance creates coherence across time as well as space. Finding the right language isn't about perfecting a static message but creating linguistic frameworks that maintain coherence while allowing for evolution and adaptation. As organizations become increasingly diverse in thought, geography, and function, language must create coherence not through uniformity but through shared understanding of core principles. Step 3: Create the right context The context in which work happens has undergone dramatic trans- formation. The shift to distributed work has created environments where teams collaborate across physical and digital spaces. Creating coherence in these hybrid contexts requires new approaches. Context determines what actions are possible and meaningful within a given situation. It shapes how people interpret information, make de- cisions, and coordinate activities. As anthropologist Edward T. Hall ob- served, "Context is everything." For organizations, context can either enable coherence or undermine it. Three fundamental shifts have transformed organizational context: Physical and digital contexts have merged. Organizations operate in "phygital" environments where boundaries between physical and digital spaces continually blur. Spotify's "Work From Anywhere" policy reimag- ines physical offices not as mandatory workplaces but as collaborative hubs that complement digital work. This integration creates coherence across the physical-digital divide. This merger requires intentional design. When financial services company Capital One transformed its workplace strategy, it created "digital-first, physical-enabled" environments where physical spaces
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