The other day I came across Unsuck It, a wonderful little dictionary of office jargon and what it really means. Like an example?
How many times have you sat in a meeting where someone told you that your company’s core competency is to curate an ecosystem of rock stars with a strong culture fit.
Do yourself a favor and look up those words on Unsuck It. I promise you won’t regret it – and don’t tell me that you hear what I’m saying…
Joking aside – I do believe that one of the greatest malaises of modern day business is the prevalence of (largely meaningless) jargon and the folks hiding behind it. Concealing oneself behind a 45 minute strategy presentation, teeming with business lingo is often much easier than actually stating what there is to say (which, more often than not, isn’t actually all that much) and doing the work.
Of course, jargon often serves as shorthand and sometimes even allows us to get to the point quicker. But stringing together sentences which get you to an immediate high score on your buzzword bingo card might be entertaining, and can even give you a quick win (sorry, couldn’t resist), but it won’t make your business any better.
I don’t think any of us is immune to this. Yours truly surely has his fair share of crossed out BS bingo cards under his belt. That shouldn’t keep us from trying our earnest to keep our language plain and simple. So that others can clearly understand us and our ideas, add to them, make them better and get s*** done.