Fake it 'til you make it ... unless that's going to break it

That title will appropriately be filed away under "Never write a self help book because people will quickly come to hate you". And I'm going with it anyway.

I got my first dose of "corporate life" in a foreign country, India, where acronyms flow like a river to the sea and the only thing that keeps these 2-to-45 letter "words" from becoming an entity unto themselves is the fact that there is no "i" in team - and acronyms? They just don't play well with others. That includes me.

I have always thought there is something winning about the phrase "fake it 'til you make it". Let me be clear that I don't mean to imply that credentials and skills aren't necessary. Here's how I see it: If you always say "I can't" to opportunities beyond your scope of knowledge (or SOK), you're saying no to the chance for a speed date with a skill set. Any language instructor will tell you that you'll learn faster and speak more confidently if you fully immerse yourself in both the language and the culture.

But in the business world, it's a bit different. When you're at a new job it is part of the drill to be so overwhelmed with information that your eyes begin to glaze over at the mention of another process or strategy, or the 10,000th introduction. I guess that's what I mean when I use "fake it". Because no one gets it exactly right the first time. I can't tell you how many times in the past two weeks I've sat in a training session going "holy moses, I think I get it!", only to walk out to my cubicle and go wait, what was that about? And in the meantime I've also forgotten how doorknobs work. But you give it time to sink in, and the concept will come back. You'll "make" it.

Acronyms, however, are a different ballgame. You can't "fake" that, and you shouldn't try. I mistook what I thought was an "Indian thing" for what is actually a corporate thing. A Frankenstein language of portmanteaus and unjustifiable letter-pairings - NO! - caboodlings, slathered together in a monstrous incongruity from all levels of every division, support group and project launch imaginable. AND YOU HAVE TO KNOW THEM ALL. Seriously. Just get it over with. Start an index. A gant chart. A Six Sigma Methodology for acronym documentation. Whatever. But don't glaze over those little buggers, or you're going to regret it when your boss comes screaming at you for not completing the DART, REFLM, tracker a la mode, etc. Bite the bullet and ask that it be spelled out - literally - when you have no idea what the iSPAWN division does (I Secretly Prance Around While Naked).

And good luck, friend. May the *GoFWo be with you.

*Gods of Fake Word-ology