Valueless?

I love words. An avid reader since childhood, and an almost obsessive player of word games, they fascinate me. Etymology, word choice, foreign words, you name it: it's right up my street.

So I was tickled to come across what is seemingly one of the longest words in the English language: floccinaucinihilipilification. It's quite the mouthful! It's an eighteenth century word with Latin roots and it means the estimation of something as valueless.

As a Social Value Practitioner, I spend a lot of my time thinking about value, especially that value that may be created by the social purpose organisations I work with. I do deep dives into their work and make sure they do not forget to capture the totality of the value they may be generating for and with their stakeholders. By the same token, I try to ensure they do not overclaim their value and they are honest about aspects of their work which might in fact be destroying value.

As we become more sophisticated in our assessment of social value, we need to become more comfortable about judging certain activities as valueless. They may never have lived up to their intended expectations.  They may have done so in the past but no longer do today. Or they may affect such a tiny number of people - or a larger number of people in such a limited way - that continuing them is not a good use of scarce resources.

People often struggle with change. But if solid evidence shows that something is (almost) valueless, appropriate action must be taken.

This article is reproduced from Whitebarn.info