Smart people can sound stupid at times. We all know at least one person who overuses buzzwords and slang. It’s always a person who is irritating enough to make your blood boil.
But when websites, the newspapers and social media posts include overused buzzwords, that’s a real problem. They not only become meaningless, but they can also be distracting and even annoying. The impact intended is virtually lost to the reader. I recommend that all buzzwords be “thrown under the bus” at the end of the day.
Last week I overheard a Kindergarten student say to his friend, “At least we are on the same page.” Nowhere as strange sounding as when a 90-year-old grandmother said “cool” at the local store when she was handed her lottery ticket. The word “cool” stopped being cool in the ‘90s. Then, someone resurrected it and now we can’t stop using it. I don’t know if “chill out” means the same?
That’s why a professional services firm, Grant Thornton LLP, compiled a Jargon Index, ranking business jargon by popularity. He said, “Jargon is pervasive and persistent, plaguing our industry with buzzwords lacking substance.” If you really want to stand out without the “smoke and mirrors”, eliminate the numerous overused words and phrases from your communications.
“Synergy”: If you mean working together, just say it, “Let’s work together” instead. Many people say “crushing it” which sounds too macho and over-the-top. You don’t have to sound like a weightlifter bragging about bench presses to make your point.
I don’t believe any woman’s leadership should be diminished by lowering her position as “girl boss.” I guess we should also start referring to Jeff Bezos (Amazon) as a “boy boss” then.
“Reach out” implies a physical action and better used when the church is seeking to help out the poor, not in a business setting.
There is so much media about the pipeline extension crisis that every second sentence by the reporters contains the expression “middle ground or ‘’common ground.” For Pete’s sake, everybody should gather onto the pipeline route, remain there until they make a freaking decision or get mowed down by a freight train.
Euphemisms were first used in work settings to make people more comfortable with touchy subjects that were hard to talk about Soon, these rewordings morphed into corporate buzzwords that grew until everyday conversations started sounding like they were taking place on another planet.
During one meeting my boss responded to a suggestion like this; “Listen, I don’t have the bandwidth for it with everything that’s on my plate but ping me anyway because at the end of the day it’s on my radar and I don’t want to be thrown under the bus because I didn’t circle back around on this no-brainer.”
I understand the temptation. These catchphrases are spicy and they make you feel clever but they also annoy the hell out of people. If you think that you can use these phrases without consequences, you’re kidding yourself.
Have fun with it, because if you don’t hit the ground running, you can always go back to the drawing board and get the ball rolling, par for the course but really a bang for your buck ….
However, using buzzwords less is about sounding like a sincere businessperson. The use of these meaningless buzzwords stops others outside the circle from putting forward their ideas, creating a system where only those “in the know” have the capacity to contribute. For instance, it may save you one second by saying “synergy” over “working together” but the reality is that asking most people to recommend “synergies” would be better if the word used was “cooperation.”
Even the word innovation is itself a buzzword – the most overused word of all. We need to be inclusive in order to make innovation work. It may make it important and knowledgeable to use buzzwords associated with innovation, but the reality is simply that it has the effect of disengaging people from the process. So back to the drawing board.
Although “win-win” sounds even handed, I do prefer a cleverer buzzword expression such as “circle back around” to “drill-down” and “flesh out” that “elephant in the room” before it is “in the driver’s seat.”
It is so hard to square the circle, it’s like banging your head against the wall.
