On leverage and learnings

Whenever some businessman uses the word “leverage” in conversation with me, I’ve made it a habit for the past few years to ask him what he means.

“We will leverage our leadership in the retail clothing sector to grow our presence in the attractive petroleum-refining industry,” he says in those oracular tones that are taught on that free CD attached to the back of every diploma handed to an MBA at graduation.

I ask him what he is talking about, explaining that I am just a dope from Nebraska who can’t possibly be expected to understand all of this.

To my vast amusement, most of them can’t explain what they mean. Not even a little bit. About the best answer is something along the lines of “You know … leverage.” (The exception is financial types who use the word precisely to describe the power of borrowed money.) Because the speaker doesn’t know what he’s talking about, I am left to come up with my own guess. Communications problems often start at exactly this point.

I have conducted the experiment sufficiently that I now offer with confidence Seelmeyer’s First Theorem of Leverage:

In most current uses, this word is used without meaning and can be safely ignored.

But science must plow ever onward, and we now are faced with an entirely new issue. Why have people started using the word “learnings”?

In context: “From our attendance at this seminar, we came away with several important learnings ...”

For hundreds of years, we have had a perfectly good and understandable word in English — “lessons” — that has been used to great effect by some our finest writers and thinkers. If there was a public outcry for a replacement word, I missed it.

This is just a personal observation and perhaps won’t stand up to rigorous scientific tests, but it seems that the people who use the word “learnings” are trying just a little too hard.

They remind me in some way of the guy who takes dance lessons for six weeks before the company’s holiday party and can’t wait to get on the dance floor when the band strikes its first notes.

Lacking the confidence to believe that their co-workers will admire them for their innate talent and skills, they use the word “learnings” to impress us. It’s really not necessary, folks. You’re doing just fine.

At least so far, I haven’t heard anyone say that they plan to “leverage our learnings.”

But I’m sure the day is coming.