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Mindshare? Sticky wicket? Straw man? Power alley? Can you improve your credibility and achieve better results simply by eliminating corporate jargon from your vocabulary?
James Sudakow had declared war on the use of stupid corporate lingo. In his new book, Picking the Low Hanging Fruit…and Other Stupid Stuff We Say in the Corporate World, Sudakow not only advocates for speaking in plain English for his own sanity but articulates compelling reasons why doing so can have positive impacts on the work you do, the relationships you form, and even counterintuitively can help you be perceived as more credible.
Having held leadership roles in multi-billion dollar global technology companies and now serving as the Principal of CH Consulting–a boutique organizational transformation and talent management consulting practice–James is no stranger to the perils of swimming through murky jargon and the unintended consequences of its overuse. Picking the Low Hanging Fruit is a humorous glossary where we find strange but surprisingly common business expressions from burning platforms and paradigm shifts, to tissue rejection and open kimonos. Sudakow defines these terms and takes a witty jab at the corporate culture by calling out exactly what these terms do not mean, and also sites real examples from his own experiences that show the consequences of overusing these expressions.
People might not understand as much of what you are saying as you think.
Most of us move so quickly in the corporate world that we might not recognize that the number of employees who are scratching their heads and simply don’t understand these expressions is larger than we think. As a young consultant working for a Big 4 global consulting firm, Sudakow would find himself sitting quietly in a state of confusion but hesitant to mention that he was lost.
“We all figure it out sooner or later. But why put ourselves through that?” Sudakow states. “Figuring out how to do the work amidst corporate politics and culture is hard enough without throwing a language barrier into the gauntlet.”
When we have to dedicate time and energy towards figuring out what someone is actually talking about, we are inherently taking away time and energy we could be putting towards our work.
Relatability and credibility – corporate jargon doesn’t help
It doesn’t stop with simply not being understood. Credibility is at stake. In some ways, the credibility of the person using the terms can be damaged because his or her language feels inauthentic and doesn’t connect or resonate with people—even if the speaker actually has something very valuable to say.
Why is this so important? More and more have been written recently about the importance for leaders, in particular, to be relatable to their people–this relatability serving as a way to build common ground with the very teams they are asking a lot of. Many factors contribute to how successfully anyone can be in their goal of becoming a relatable leader or colleague, but overusing corporate jargon doesn’t establish anyone as “the common person.” It’s much more powerful to speak in plain English.
So what can we do about it?
Think about what you might say if you were talking to friends outside of work where corporate jargon simply wouldn’t fit. When preparing for formal presentations to groups, think about where you might slip into a corporate jargon violation and think about how you might replace it with a normal word.
If you are a leader of people, ask your teams for help monitoring your corporate jargon violations. It will likely be met with enthusiasm and move you one step further on the path of relatability. Corporate jargon bingo, anyone? At the very least, be a good corporate citizen and help someone who might be a corporate jargon abuser by simply pulling him or her aside and constructively mentioning that the message might have resonated better in plain English.
For many of us, using corporate jargon has simply become a habit resulting from being immersed in the corporate world. In Picking the Low Hanging Fruit…and Other Stupid Stuff We Say in the Corporate World, Sudakow helps us understand in a fun and lighthearted way that the words we choose are important and that we can all make ourselves better understood by staying away from jargon.
Kevin Kruse is the author of the bestselling book Employee Engagement 2.0 and the Personal Engagement Personality Quiz.
