when to police grammar
This is a vote against “execute on” and “solve for”. These phrases have their places. And but also these particular phrases seem to claim all the places.
If you have an idea and you are doing that idea, you are executing it. You are not executing on it.
If you have a problem and you are handling that problem, you are solving it. You are not solving for it.
Like my rant against ellipses, this one won’t change the fundamental course of your business or relationships. And but also, your words are a big core element of your work and your relationships. Choosing them with care, refining those choices, modeling how you want your people to make those choices - all worthwhile.
There’s a meta-thing at play here with the modeling. You might need the kind of culture where people ignore persnickety grammatical niceties like this one (in cases where speed matters most, for example). In that case, don’t waste time on them. Praise and champion swift action and casual cliches.
If, on the other hand, you’re in a line of work where clear, precise communication really matters - digging into these small habits of speech can be a great place to put your attention.
One time at Carver, we did a whole staff training on reversing the word order of a common phrase. As of that training, we taught “kids learning English” not “English language learners”. In that school, how we talked about and to kids was pretty much the whole ball of wax. That 45 minute training was a great use of time. The core insight of it and the immediately applicable action it asked of us rippled out through all 180 days and 1,440 class periods that followed. And the very fact of it, the training on this tiny grammatical thing, signaled in a strong way - we take this seriously around here. When it comes to how we talk about kids, there isn’t something “too small”. The details are the substance.
-eric
