A Word, Please: Clarity is a bigger asset than business-speak
Great news! I just received an action item — a request from a colleague to utilize core competencies. Here’s an excerpt from the email he sent me.
“June: I’ve got an asset/deliverable/content solution for you to finagle. It’s for — and about — a new Orlando-based client.
“That being said, we here at the company are very excited to move forward with some dazzling assets/deliverables that we are hopeful will deliver value to the stakeholders and telegraph some key messaging and thought leadership to the audiences, which we hope to be key influencers who can assist at driving value.
“As the content strategist responsible for looping back around and getting the streamlined deliverables to all stakeholders for this campaign, I’ve completed the first phase of the process. I was hoping to leverage your robust competencies in the second phase, making the work flow as seamless as possible.
“Please feel free to utilize your bandwidth here at your own pace. These assets/deliverables/content solutions are not due to be flighted for another week and two days. Then we can close the loop and begin the curation process.”
Obviously, I was thrilled. I replied: “Rest assured I will utilize best practices in actualizing all phases of the process of optimizing the functionality of these deliverables.”
Alex responded in kind: “Thanks for telegraphing that you’ve got full optics and are keyed into this. Having been tasked with drilling down on the assets, you’re sounding like you’ve got the secret sauce and that you’ll bake it into the creative. Just like these deliverables, you yourself are a valuable asset to the bottom line!”
There’s good news and bad news here. The good news is that Alex, a colleague who was sending me an article to edit, was kidding. The bad news is that most people who talk like this — and there are plenty — are dead serious. (The even worse news is that Alex is funnier than I am. But that’s my problem.)
This brand of blather is ubiquitous in the business world. It starts innocently enough: Someone coins or adopts a term like “deliverables” as a convenient, catch-all alternative to saying “articles, photos, videos and blog posts.” Listeners think the word sounds smart. They want to sound smart too.
The new terminology becomes requisite in business circles, with everyone out to prove they can speak the lingo. The next thing you know, corporate America has forgotten how to use words like “work” and “article.”
As a language columnist, I could examine this phenomenon through any number of different lenses. I could look at the origins of each of the expressions. I could ponder whether and to what extent such terms become mainstream. I could examine which industries adopt which terms. But really, there’s only one thing I have to say about language like this: Don’t use it.
Business-speak, especially fad terms like “deliverables” and “bandwidth,” don’t make you sound smart. They make you sound like you’re trying to sound smart. Smart people don’t do that.
Dig into any top-quality publication like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal and you’ll see there isn’t a “curation process,” “deliverable” or “drilling down” to be found. Why not? Because real intelligence isn’t fancy words. It’s the ability to convey any concept in clear, simple terms. When you can explain something simply, that means it’s simple to you — not a difficult, highbrow abstraction hovering just beyond your grasp. You get it, fully and completely.
Professional communicators who’ve taken the time to get comfortable with their subject matter can and do explain it in plain language. That’s why, if you want to succeed in the business world, don’t bother utilizing your bandwidth to drill down on core competencies. Just get to work.
JUNE CASAGRANDE is the author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at [email protected].