Nicholas Craig column

Nov 10 2006 By Nicholas Craig, The Journal

Let's do some joined-up thinking, eat some reality sandwiches and run this idea up the flagpole to see who salutes. We are obsessed with meaningless business jargon.

Investors in People believes that the proliferation of such phrases is damaging British industry. They polled 3,000 workers in a survey published this week. Many employees said that buzzwords baffled them and widened the divide between management and staff.

America started it all of course - what with Silicon Valley's computer jargon or "geekspeak" and the pseudo-science of business theory. The growing habit in this country of sending bosses to management courses threatens to lead to the invention of a whole new language.

Incentivise, proactive, synergy, strategic fit, gap analysis, bottom line, out of the loop, benchmark, value-added, think outside the box, and so on. They're used far too often as sloppy shorthand and new age management speak instead of talking plain English. What business jargon implies is that you're part of a fairly exclusive, cutting-edge club.

It's probably a sort of security blanket for managers in a scary, competitive world.

As the phrases grow to take over whole conversations, they resemble a strange new tongue that brings together like-minded businesspeople.

What kind of productive work can be done in this jargon-suffocated environment?

Those using the lingo may only be hiding behind it because they lack the confidence to speak their mind.

Those not in with the management-speak are `out of the loop', and therefore cannot contribute their ideas.

So if you think of your family as a `team-based organisation', if you find yourself saying you're `highly leveraged' rather than in debt and you end arguments with `let's talk about this off-line', you're hooked.

You need to get back in touch with your past - your `sunk cost' - and start communicating rather than baffling half the people you talk to. The best managers know how to talk directly to people and motivate them. Communicating clearly is not always easy, but is invariably worthwhile.

So get your ducks in a row, push the envelope and ditch the jargon. You will immediately help everyone understand your meaning.

Remember, it's not a problem, but an opportunity.

Nicholas Craig is a partner at Watson Burton Law Firm