The power of language innovation

I am a wordsmith. I absolutely love language and the possibilities it offers us to redesign and innovate ourselves as communities, societies, businesses and the world.

I see how often current language forms can box us in and create constructs that minimise our creativity flow and limit our innovational output.

For example, take the word 'manager' in a business setting. Manager implies managing people and projects, as if it's all up to you to ensure this happens. Yes I know that's true, but what if that term was replaced by something like 'empowerer' or i'nspirer' or 'collaborative facilitator'. These are just suggestions and I'm hoping as you read them that you can feel the release of the constructs attached to the old word and the free flow of possibility in the new ones.

Here's another example. The word 'human' identifies us as a separate species from let's say whales or bees or trees, etc. It makes us a distinct species and as a result, built into the language, is the construct of separation. So what if all life on Earth was dubbed as 'Earthians', a word that connects us as one species on this planet ,all working towards common goals for the good of the Earth and life upon it? You can feel the power that single word shift has to allow us to find a new way to be together globally. It opens up collaboration, cross species understanding and more care for the Earth.

Then there are words that trigger certain responses, words like 'social justice' (which is a wonderful concept fraught with all that is hidden within the language). It infers, built into its construct of our understanding, righting wrongs through an adversarial approach. That may not be its exact definition, but over time it's what gets built into the phrase based on our collective experiences with it. What if we could replace those two words with something like 'equitable inclusion' or 'social design innovation'? Would suddenly the adversarial / right-wrong approach dwindle away with the new language? I believe it would because language is an incredibly powerful, alchemical fabricator of life for us all.

Where does one go then to find new language to evoke things like better working relationships, enhanced connection and equitable inclusion throughout the world?

These new terms await us in what I call the field of potential & possibilities that swirl all around us at all times. It's this field that genius innovators tap to pull through unprecedented breakthroughs in idea generation, solving challenges and highly creative approaches to design and innovation.

To tap this field, one simply has to surrender the thinking mind and plug yourself into it, like plugging your computer into the internet. For now, simply intend this and see what happens. We might each do this in a variety of unique ways because that's the nature of us as infinite creators. What works for one may occur completely differently for everyone else. It's more about finding your own unique engagement with the field of potential & possibilities, about understanding that sometimes it's the invisible stuff that carries the power of the moment to bring new innovation through.

I am an innovation mentor who loves working with people to unleash genius ideas and birth innovational breakthroughs. Find out more at Innovation Mentor.