Business lingo is about showing off ... and eating dog food
OPINION: Those of us in the public relations industry spend a lot of time trying to make complicated things understandable for others.
Each time I meet a new client, I am usually knocked off my feet by long lists of jargon and acronyms associated with their business.
It’s like an ‘‘in language’’, a way to show you’re part of the crew.
Many people have written on the subject, and I have always prided myself on not falling into business jargon mumbo-jumbo.
But when I listened recently to an author talking about his new book, Business Bullshit, I realised I had to take a long hard look at myself.
The author claimed it was consultants like me who encouraged the use of jargon.
Apparently, when businesses grew and brought in professional managers, in order to validate their expertise, these business experts developed their own language to sound impressive.
Managers were brought in so that ‘‘going forward’’ they could ‘‘grow’’ the business to lands of ‘‘deliverables’’. The ‘‘journey’’ would include ‘‘drilling down’’ into ‘‘best practice’’ and look at any ‘‘pain points’’ while taking advantage of ‘‘low-hanging fruit’’.
All of this, they said, was ‘‘mission critical’’.
After a while we began to ‘‘reach out’’ to others to find a ‘‘touchpoint’' so that we could ‘‘cocreate’’ to ‘‘seamlessly integrate’’ the business into a ‘‘sustainable solution’’. Meanwhile, our key ‘‘stakeholders’’ – our own staff and colleagues – sat puzzled and annoyed. They could not, and did not want to, engage in this ‘‘speak’’.
So to ‘‘enable’’ them, we hired communicators – like me – to ensure we got our people to ‘‘drink
The author claimed it was consultants like me who encouraged the use of jargon.
the Kool-Aid’’ by ‘‘reaching out’’ to them, creating ‘‘two-way’’ communication and giving a ‘‘shout out’’ to the achievers.
As the ‘‘new economy’’ developed, we learnt the value of ‘‘co-creating’’ with our customers, who were evidently more likely to believe in what we did if our products were ‘‘buzz-word’’ compliant and we demonstrated that we ‘‘eat our own dog food’’.
A friend suggested I try his more direct approach by blurting out in a meeting: ‘‘I have no idea what you’re talking about!’’
It worked for him but for me it would have been career-limiting, given it was the organisation’s chair and chief executive who were the jargon masters.
I like words and what they can create and it never ceased to amaze me how these two could wax lyrical about co-creating, being agile, pivoting and thinking outside the box, without really saying anything at all.
Of course, jargon is not all bad. It can cut through a long explanation. For example, a company could explain to its bank that it wants to ‘‘boot-strap’’ its start-up; hopefully the banker will understand it means they’re not seeking external investment.
And it makes sense to speak the same lingo as your customers and ‘‘stakeholders’’, which is my excuse for slipping into vague, pretentious vocabulary and convoluted syntax every so often.
It strikes me that when I am in a country where the only language I am fluent in is not spoken, the locals generally go out of their way to communicate with me.
Yet back at home, colleagues, clients and superiors are busy building a wall of noncommunication by inventing a nonsensical language.
Like I said, there have been numerous books and blogs written on business jargon and I am sure this column won’t be a ‘‘game changer’’.
But those of us in the business of communication should make sure we are ‘‘dogfooding’’ and reminding managers that they are alienating their own staff with this ‘‘in-speak’’. Perhaps you have the ‘‘bandwidth’’ to ‘‘socialise these thoughts’’ and get back to me.