Simply Put

Say What?

By Ed Armstrong
President,
Armstrong Analytics

One of the most perplexing issues in the communication business is the compulsion that drives organizations to communicate in a language that is unknown to all but its author. The aim of communication is, after all, to impart information from one life form to another. If, along the way, you not only inform, but influence and inspire, all the better.

For this reason it is difficult to understand why companies, governments and other organizations clutter their copy with jargon, doubletalk and bafflegab. It not only leaves the listener grasping for meaning, it exacts an opportunity cost as a precious chance to persuade is squandered.

Case in point, a company we shall not name specializes in helping people get their Web sites noticed by search engines. This is how they describe the gee-whiz technology that sets them apart:

“Integrated Optimization (IO) is a holistic approach in which web site design, development and search engine positioning is treated as a sequential optimization problem.”

Never mind the dubious subject/verb agreement, did you get that? This potential customer sure didn’t.

The use of jargon in place of meaning is hardly confined to the business world. The language of foundations and non-profits is also fading into the abyss. Tony Proscio’s first-rate essay, “A plea for plain speaking in foundations: In other words,” identifies a classic symptom of the disease.

“The most certain sign that modern civilization is going to hell is its invention of ‘impactful.’ The earlier arrival of the verb ‘to impact,’ rather like that of Rosemary’s baby, was a birth so diabolical as to herald an imminent and near-universal perdition. Today, finding an evaluation in which nothing is ‘impacted’ would rank with bagging a live platypus.”

Need more convincing? Just this week, I was reading a book whose title promised to “demystify” the management practice known as Six Sigma. It “informed” me that Six Sigma creates value and increases profits because, “each project in turn, progresses from its initial definition through the DMAIC cycle to maturity of financial award.”

Okay, I’ll get right on that.

An equally annoying but more egregious form of organizational jabberwocky is the use of platitude and evasion when the forum calls for candor and/or contrition. Not to kick a company when it’s down, but if you read Tyco International’s 2004 annual, you’d never know that the company’s former CEO was awaiting trial for larceny, conspiracy, securities fraud and falsifying records and that his scandalous reign involved bilking Tyco of tens of millions of dollars that paid for lavish toga parties, a $6,000 shower curtain and a hired dwarf. (Dennis Kozlowski has since been convicted on most charges and faces 30 years in prison.)

It’s fair to say that Tyco shareholders could use a little bucking up in the wake of the scandal, but new CEO Edward Breen’s message contained nary a word about it or what steps are being taken to assure it never happens again. Instead, Breen resorted to H.R.-speak: “we have established a set of guiding values—integrity, teamwork, excellence, and accountability—that are the foundation upon which we operate. Every Tyco employee has a personal obligation to exemplify the spirit of these values.”

While there’s nothing wrong with these sentiments, it’s safe to say it’s pretty much the same boilerplate that the company used before the scandal. Talk about not talking about the elephant in the room.

If you are concerned about how your organization is doing on the communication front, may I suggest “Death Sentences: How Clichés, Weasel Words, and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language,” by Don Watson. The frank-talking Aussie holds nothing back in this witty and thought-provoking defense of the English language and indictment of those that use it to obfuscate or mystify.

Watson lambastes the evolution of management and marketing language saying it “lacks almost everything needed to put into words an opinion or an emotion; to explain the complex, paradoxical, or uncertain; to tell a joke…It enrages, depresses, humiliates, confuses. It leaves us speechless.”

To be clear, trying to rid the world of bureaucratic blather is a quixotic undertaking. But we can begin in our own little piece of the universe. A good rule to follow is to think of your organization’s audience as a friend at a tavern, on a golf course, or at a church picnic. Imagine reading your firm’s latest pontification to them. If you feel pompous or like a weasel, it’s time for a second draft.

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