Introduction
The Intersection of Business, Language, Communication, and Technology
Although he died in 1950, Shaw’s words live on, especially in the business world. Far too many executives, salespeople, consultants, and even rank-and-file employees just don’t communicate very well.
No doubt, you know the type. Some think that they’re speaking and writing effectively when they drop ostensibly sophisticated terms such as paradigm shift, synergy, net-net, low-hanging fruit, and optics.a These folks regularly rely on obscure acronyms, technobabble, jargon, and buzzwords when plain English would suffice. They constantly invent new tech-laden words, bastardize others, and turn nouns into verbs. They ignore their audiences, oblivious to the context of what they say and write. In other words, they “talk without speaking,” to paraphrase a popular U2 song.
Forget for a moment a software vendor’s poorly worded press release and an incoming CEO’s cringe-worthy memo about “strategic synergies and alignments.” There’s an underlying question here: Is such jargon necessary? In other words, are today’s business and technology environments so different and complicated that they require the use of an entirely new, usually confusing vocabulary?
For the most part the answer is no. At a high level, a good communicator should be able to explain confusing topics to teenagers without getting all technical. I have done so on several occasions. It’s really not that hard. Just remember one thing:
At its most basic level, the word communicate means “to make common.”b
Subject: The Other Scourge of Business Communication
Bad business communication is a disease with significant costs and far-reaching implications. The prevalence of hackneyed and utterly meaningless terms, however, is just one of its causes.
Let’s say that I could wave my magic wand and single-handedly eliminate the use of jargon and confusing language in every organization in the world. No longer would you hear your manager say things like, “Let’s take this offline, review our learnings, engage in some blue-sky thinking, and then circle back.” Poof! Value-adds and paradigm shifts have been vanquished forever. Grammarians and English teachers around the world would rejoice in the streets.
Would this solve the business communication problem? Although we’d be off to a good start, the answer is no. Even the Orwellian abolishment of buzzwords would not guarantee that our colleagues, partners, bosses, underlings, clients, and prospects would effectively receive and understand our messages. A multitude of misses (miscommunications, misapprehensions, misunderstandings, and mistakes) would still result. How? From the way in which we overwhelmingly choose to send our messages.
Yes, I’m talking about the first killer app of the Internet, our widely preferred communications medium: e-mail. Many corporate folks depend almost exclusively on it as a ubiquitous communications tool. They pepper their staff, colleagues, prospects, and clients with torrents of messages. In the process, they actively resist new, user-friendly, affordable, powerful, and truly collaborative tools specifically designed to make people work, collaborate, and communicate better. (Chapter 8 introduces several exciting and progressive organizations that have adopted these new applications.)
Technology and the Cardinal Importance of Business Communication
In a way, nothing has changed. Business has always revolved around communication, and some people have always been better than others at writing and speaking. No one expects the squirrelly IT guy to be as debonair as the CEO or the head of sales or marketing. Not everyone can be Dale Carnegie. We expect different things from different people at work. We accept the fact that management consultants, techies, software salespeople, and chief execs may communicate in oblique manners. This holds true irrespective of the medium: writing a quick e-mail, penning a company-wide announcement, addressing thousands of people, or speaking individually to a colleague in person. For a long time now, the inability to communicate effectively has inhibited many organizations and derailed individual careers. We have always taken certain people with 50-pound bags of salt. Ignoring or tuning out blowhards may stop an oncoming migraine, but it’s hardly a good solution to the problem, much less the ideal one.
In another way, everything has changed. Never before has the business world moved as fast as it does today—a trend that will only intensify for the foreseeable future. This is particularly true on technology-related matters. The need for clear and effective communication is more essential than ever. Not only will this problem persist if we ignore it, but it will exacerbate.
What’s the Big Whoop?
You may think that relying on jargon and excessive e-mails is just par for the course. What’s the big deal, anyway?
Several reasons readily come to mind. The first is that, as mentioned earlier, the need for clear, concise, and context-appropriate communication has never been more pronounced. As Chapter 2 demonstrates, employees are inundated with messages throughout the day, many of which arrive via confusing or inscrutable e-mails. Which of the following do you think is more likely to be effective?
- An endless chain of baffling, jargon-laden e-mails
- Simple, clear, and honest conversations either in person or via a truly collaborative tool
For a long time now, people have denounced the use of buzzwords when plain English would suffice. Yet jargon persists. The critics are helpless against “words” like incent. Beyond that, business folks turn nouns into verbs. In reality, they’re only bloviating. (The now commonplace adoptions of use casec and price point are real pet peeves of mine.) They fail to consider the context of what they’re saying, and they speak and write with zero regard for their audiences.
Second, you may believe that new times have always required new words and phrases. This is true, but not to the same extent currently exhibited. The verb “to Google” developed organically. Millions of people quickly understood what it meant. But what about horrible and contrived phrases such as Next-Generation Big Data Platform as a Service? Can we honestly make the same case here?
If technology were a fleeting trend, then perhaps we could excuse the growing use of jargon, th...
