“We’ve leveraged some big wins in the HR piece this quarter.” “We’re all about disruption, we’re game-changers and we’re opening up new horizons in this space.”
Does this sort of language irritate you? You’re not alone.
A survey by the Institute of Leadership and Management found that almost a quarter of UK workers considered jargon like this a pointless irritation. Despite this, another survey found that 64% of office workers say they use jargon words or phrases multiple times a week. What’s perhaps worse is that the same survey found that 88% of us pretend to understand office jargon while having no idea what it means.
So business speak infects a lot of us and annoys many of us. But that’s only the start of the story. Because if business speak was just annoying, we could raise our eyebrows, shrug our shoulders and move on.
But business speak is more than just annoying. It’s actively bad for business.
Let me show you how.
Business speak is bad inside your business
Andre Spicer, professor of Organisational Behaviour at Cass Business School in London, has written extensively on business speak, which he terms ‘bullshit’. Here’s what he has to say about its effects on a workforce and its culture:
“When bullshit begins to take hold of an organisation, it can have surprisingly positive effects. It can create a positive image for the company and can help to increase self-confidence and build legitimacy. However, this often comes with some distinctly darker consequences: primary tasks are crowded out, valued occupational identities are compromised and stakeholder trust is undermined. Ultimately, bullshit leaves us with organisations that may be appealing on the surface but are distinctly brittle.”
Investors in People sheds a little more light on this. It says around a third of workers feel inadequate when wordy terms are used unnecessarily. Others believe their bosses are being untrustworthy or hiding something.
These are hardly positive emotions to hold while at work. Indeed, this lack of trust and suspicion is likely to be damaging to productivity because employees will simply switch off.
Engage for Success, the voluntary UK movement promoting employee engagement as a better way to work that is supported by the CIPD, says:
There is a firm correlation between employee engagement and high organisational productivity and performance across all sectors of the economy.
So using business speak with your colleagues is likely to lead to a lack of trust, a lack of engagement and a lack of productivity. Using it outside the office and talking to your customers using nonsense language takes the problem one step further.
Business speak is bad outside your business
Let’s say you’re bilingual and can speak both French and English. When you’re with French people, you speak French. When you’re with English people you speak English.
Now, most of us are bilingual in the sense that we can speak business speak and we can speak normal speak. In theory, we could use business speak with our colleagues who should understand what we’re saying (although, as we saw above, they often don’t) and normal speak with our customers and anyone else outside our organisation. But switching between two different types of language is harder than switching between two completely different languages such as French and English. We’ve all seen examples of business speak spill over into interactions with customers. We may even be guilty of doing it ourselves.
Using business speak on customers has exactly the same effect on them as it does on your colleagues. A survey of 1,000 B2B decision makers found that 88% of them think marketing clichés such as “disruptive” and “best-in-class” harm a company’s credibility. Having a potential customer think you lack credibility is, to say the least, not ideal.
So business speak damages your credibility. It also excludes many people.
Here’s an example of impenetrable business speak highlighted by the Plain English Campaign:
It is important that you shall read the notes, advice and information detailed opposite then complete the form overleaf (all sections) prior to its immediate return to the Council by way of the envelope provided.
Now, imagine English is your second language. How easy would that be to read? Let’s think for a moment too about a few statistics around native speakers of English. Content Design London points out the average reading age in the UK is about 9 years old and 1.7 million adults in England, have literacy levels below those expected of an 11-year-old. How does unnecessarily complex or evasive business speak help them? Here’s how the Plain English Campaign ‘translates’ the example above:
Please read the notes opposite before you fill in the form. Then send it back to us as soon as possible in the envelope provided.
Isn’t that easier to understand? Isn’t that more likely to foster a sense of trust in the organisation writing to you?
For the organisation sending it, isn’t that more likely to get you the result you want – for someone to fill in the form and return it? Isn’t that a better way to do business?
The value and importance of plain English is something that’s increasingly being recognised.
Take the rail industry, for example. Research found that 22% of people did not think it was easy to understand what type of ticket they need to buy for their journey and 34% did not trust that they were always getting the best deal available. In a bid to increase customer satisfaction by delivering simpler ticketing, train companies took steps to remove jargon from tickets and journey information. The result was that 91% of passengers using ticket vending machines bought the most appropriate ticket for their journey, a year-on-year improvement of 11%. These are changes that are likely to improve customer satisfaction and increase trust – which can only be a good thing.
If the rail industry is one example of where jargon infects communication, the financial services sector is another.
Research found that 58% of US retail bank content is too complex for the average American and only one out of 50 banks analysed score at acceptable long sentence levels. Visible Thread, the company that conducted the research said that using clearer language and being more transparent in its communication would be good for business because it would help:
- Achieve compliance
- Increase customer trust
- Improve close rates and lower acquisition costs
- Gain a competitive edge – particularly over other banks that are slower to change
In short, it says: “Simplifying content makes it easier for customers to understand and engage with products and services.”
This conclusion is borne out elsewhere too. Edelman’s 2018 Trust Barometer found that the financial services industry was one of the three least trusted industry sectors in the world. It also found that the best thing banks could do to increase trust was to have easily understood terms and conditions.
And if banks won’t make the change voluntarily, it seems likely they may be forced to. In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority has launched a consultation paper called Consultation on further remedies – Asset Management Market Study. It:
proposes measures to improve the quality, comparability and robustness of information available to investors. They seek to address our concern that fund objectives are not as clear or specific as they could and should be. This makes it harder for investors to exercise choice, as they may not be able to work out what they are ultimately investing in.
Again, there’s a clear link between transparency and a better business outcome.
The case for clear communication made
It seems to me that the benefits of speaking clearly are clear. On a day-to-day level employees will experience fewer petty irritations. Plainer language will lead to more engaged employees who trust the business they work for. Customers will trust businesses more and be more willing to spend money with them.
Embracing plain language won’t be for everyone. But if it’s for you, imagine the advantages you’ll see.
