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Book Group: “The Way We Talk Around Here” by Gill Ereaut
16 Sep @ 12:00 pm - 12:45 pm
Join author Gill Ereaut, alongside ICG member Judy Taylor who’ll lead a discussion about this book that shows how your organisation’s culture shows up in your language and why it matters.
Judy says…
If you work with companies who are aiming to improve workplace culture and communication, or if you are responsible for advising clients on how they communicate with their staff, about their brands, to their consumers, The Way We Talk Around Here is well worth a read.
It’s great for qualitative researchers to understand how and why language is the data of culture. By being able to decode language and its influence, it helps highlight how it also sets invisible rules and parameters that affect how we are perceived and how we perceive others. Reading this book can change how we speak, read and listen. The book outlines clear strategies for leaders to adopt more relevant and meaningful cultural norms through the language they use. The book focuses on linguistics, and provides insights into how small linguistic changes can transform a business or brand culture. It’s great to apply some of her wisdom to running focus groups and depth interviews too, and especially apply it when completing ethnographic work.
Extract from the Amazon summary:
The unspoken rules and unquestioned assumptions that make up an organization’s culture are so well hidden that, once we become insiders, we stop noticing them. They’re just ‘the way we do things around here’. Examining an organization’s language is a powerful and practical way to shed light on its culture.
Gill Ereaut describes how to uncover organizational and team cultures through paying close attention to the language used and adopted by insiders.
- How researchers and ethnographers – and those helping organisations – can spot language patterns to identify unconscious rules and norms
NB Gill Ereaut is a linguistic consultant specializing in analyzing corporate cultures and their effects. She founded UK consultancy Linguistic Landscapes Ltd in 2002, pioneering the commercial application of language analysis to organizational challenges.
More info
‘The Way We Talk Around Here: How your organization’s culture shows up in your language and why it matters’ is shortlisted for the People, Culture & Management category in this year’s Business Book Awards. Run annually, the awards celebrate the work of authors who have shared their industry or market knowledge, experience, and expertise in published book form. The category People, Culture & Management is for books focused on improving people skills, management and working environments.
Amazon link: https://amzn.eu/d/9xjVnLm (The Kindle version is currently available at a bargainous 99p/99c in the run up to the Awards announcement on Sept 10th!)
LinkedIn Live interview coming up on Aug 8th: https://www.linkedin.com/events/meetour2025bbafinalists-gillere7356325971311923201/theater/
