Blog No. 8
By Marcus Coates, @homeinriyadh, 12th November 2020
Wilhelm Gunkel - Unsplash
Let's Peel the Onion
Office jargon, business-speak, corporate wordplay … it’s everywhere these days. And it's the marmite of the office world. Some love it, some hate it - but chances are you won’t escape from it … and there’s an even bigger chance you probably use it – even if subconsciously!
In a survey by The Institute of Leadership & Management cited in The Guardian newspaper, management speak was regularly used in 64% of offices and a survey by TrustRadius of 764 business professionals found the following stats:
Fashionable Phrases
In blog number three (Hubricariousness (n)), back in September, I blogged about how, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), over a 1,000 new words enter the English language every year (hubricariousness was my contribution to the lexicon, by the way!). And the largest contributor to this phenomenal amount of new language is no longer down to Shakespeare, it’s down to corporate-speak enthusiasts and office wordsmiths. So think about that during your next bio break.
You see, words - like clothes and holiday destinations – are fashionable. Words are created by playful types, they gain traction, they enter the mainstream, they become trendy, they become overused, they become cliched, they become mocked, they become loathed, they get superseded, put back in the cupboard or are only uttered ironically by the cognoscenti or those behind the curve.
And you only have to look as far as the corporate world to see this phenomenon play out time and time again. You see, today’s low-hanging fruit is yesteryear’s flared trousers.
Mundanity is the origin
Why the jargon and obscure phrasing? Well, let’s face it, sitting in a cubicle staring at spreadsheets all day long or attending one long boring meeting after another about the bottom line (BL) or return on investment (ROI) or key learning points (KLPs) can become very tedious very quickly …
So who can blame an aspiring executive for spicing up his activities with gritty language from the days when they used to be young and full of dreams of adventure? When they thought outside the box or knocked it out of the ballpark or when they never dropped the ball? After all, getting ahead at work can either be a game of inches or a real marathon.
The silliness seems to be that many of these corporate phrases are borrowed from the world of high octane sports and dangerous professions - to add a dynamic edge to an executive’s day … which wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so apparently at odds with the reality of the average corporate environment …
I mean, the staff are bound to find it ironic when they are sitting under strip lighting on cost-effective seating listening to Steven from accounts (who gets vertigo walking up the stairs to the second floor) strutting around like Luke Skywalker holding a PowerPoint laser pointer like it’s a lightsabre:
“Okay Tiger Team, let’s put our cards on the table and show Susan from Marketing that we have ice in our veins when she calls us in for the meet. It’s slam dunk time. It’s time to move the needle. It's time to ... (give it a rest Steven!)
Muddying the waters
Unfortunately, many of these phrases just muddy the waters of communication. Take the expression ‘deep dive’ – a term borrowed from submariners and scuba divers. In the corporate world, doing a deep dive into a spreadsheet just means looking in more detail at the state of the finances and is in no means life-threatening (unless you get a really, really bad paper cut and bleed out, of course) ...
... wouldn’t it just be easier to say “Okay team, let’s meet and take a look at the figures.” As opposed to acting like the leader of a swat team going in for a drug bust, “Roger, Benny, let’s muster and deep dive in five before this spreadsheet gets out of control.”
Obfuscation
Even worse than muddying the waters of communication, corporate terms can be used to deliberately obfuscate or draw attention away from deficient business practices. To ‘circle back’ on a topic doesn’t mean the boss has the skills of an Apache trekker, it just means they’re delaying addressing the task as they don’t have a solution yet. When they tell you they’re going after the low hanging fruit, it just means they don’t have a better strategy. And when they say they’re going to open the kimono … well, just leave the room at that point.
And what’s with all the abbreviations?
ASAP, KPI, ROI, EOB, FYI, OMG, WTF?
Many professions are highly specialized and therefore it’s inevitable that they come with specialized language. Insiders and old hands use these expressions as a kind of shorthand to perform their tasks. If you think of special forces or an accident and emergency (A&E) drama, then the use of shorthand expressions in potentially life-threatening situations is justified and reasonable … but the same can’t be said for a staff meeting. A staff meeting is not usually a life-threatening environment in which to convey information in dense and rapid chunks. So why do it? Steven from accounts, why do it?
National Cancer Institute
In The Upside of Irrationality, psychological scientist Dan Ariely states that the use of abbreviations “[...] increase the perceived importance of ideas, and at the same time they also help keep other ideas from entering the inner circle.”
Either people have become institutionalized within their speciality and unaware they are doing it or they are out to impress newcomers by reeling off acronyms and abbreviations. At best this leads to new staff feeling intimidated and stupid, and at worse, can actually be a safety hazard when people perform procedures when unsure of exactly what they are doing - but are too nervous to ask for an explanation or elaboration.
BTW, IMHO, overusers of acronyms at the EOD can KMA
The most detested (for now!)
Staff don’t usually inform executives they are in danger of becoming Ricky Gervais from the series, The Office (or Steve Carrell in the American version); instead, they just come to loathe the jargon … because of what it represents. According to a recent vote on TrustRadius, here are some of the most loathed corporate expressions doing the rounds at the moment in ascending rank:
#27 excessive acronyms – say no more!
#22 That is/isn’t in our wheelhouse – i.e. a phrase borrowed from the nautical world, meaning: It is/isn’t an area of expertise for us.
#15 Let’s do a deep dive on this one – another nautical term meaning to look at something in more detail.
#4 Circle back – borrowed from the world of orienteering; meaning to return to a topic at a later date.
And the number one most loathed expression on the planet at the moment?
#1 Synergize – borrowed from the world of rocket scientists: to synergize means to cooperate or work as a team. The next time you host a meeting and ask your team to synergize and deliver the goods have a quick pause to feel the force of the unified loathing drifting your way or see if you can spot the eye-rolling and hear the suppressed tittering.
Should all jargon be shunned?
Personally, I love some of these expressions and revel in a bit of jargon, if for no other reason than I feel like I’ve wandered on to the studio set for The Office! Undeniably, some of these expressions are very creative and inject a bit of fun into the day.
I believe the real issue is that they are overused, and usually overused by delusional aspiring executives hellbent on domination and success by any means necessary and zealous colleagues who don’t see the mismatch between their real personas and the false image they are trying to project … or they just plain overuse phrases until they become cliché.
Final words …
Anyhow, I’m glad I got all that off my chest. Now all I need to do is to perform a data dump to lighten my system, then circle back for some wordsmithing on this blog after a solo thought shower. One thing you'll be happy to hear though, I won’t be opening my kimono for you today.
You can find an editable and downloadable template of jargon, definitions and their subtext on the business page of my website, here … don’t circle back, go for a slam dunk and get it now!
All images are taken from creative commons on Unsplash: 1 - Wilhelm Gunkel, 2 - Rian Shin, 3 - National Cancer Institute, 4 - Mitchell Luo
All the jargon used in this article is below. Practice saying these phrases at work and talk yourself into the boardroom! Remember - skills, experience and qualifications will only take you so far ... what you really need to succeed in the business world is to communicate in a such a way that no one really knows what you're actually saying.
To keep me blogging, please give me a like, comment or subscribe on the website and my words will continue to flow ✏️
I'm glad you enjoyed the article, Clare. Jargon is everywhere these days! I love the fact you played jargon noughts and crosses at the bank... hilarious 🤣
This is interesting, funny and reminds me of when I worked at a large corporate bank in South of England around 2001 and my colleague and I played noughts & crosses with making a move on the board every time we heard a corporate jargon phrase spoken. How we laughed at how ridiculous it can be, how difficult it can be to understand if you don't know these phrases and how some people seemed to act empowered with it or was it self-important??!!
Thanks for taking the time to comment, Saud. Have you heard any interesting office phrases lately?
Thanks for sharing this flowery blog mate, I believe that everything around us is controlled by words, i.e., emotions, experiences and events.