In Defence of Buzz Words

Regularly, one reads articles, blogs, surveys etc that castigate the business buzz word, the lingo, the jargon, like this or this Well I’m here to stand up for it. Because it works.

If you want to share an idea, you might offer to run it up the flagpole, you might want to socialise it, you might want to throw it at the wall and see what sticks.

And the person that you’re talking to, will appreciate exactly what you’re trying to achieve.

If you want someone to think big, really big, and outside of the normal parameters, you could ask them for some blue-sky thinking, or to think out of the box, or to push the envelope. You might now even ask for some disruption.

And do you know what? They’ll understand exactly what you mean. They may even do it.

Sometimes we all need shortcuts, and if that shortcut is the clearest way to be understood, you should use it. Certain phrases and idioms gain currency in certain industries and organisations. And rather than devise a new description every time, we use the shortcut.

But – and you knew there was going to be a but – you need to think carefully. Specifically you need to think:

• Does EVERYONE in the room understand this? Do I risk excluding some people, perhaps those more junior (and therefore those least likely to question it). Two examples:

1. Police forces love TLAs (three-letter acronyms). If something comes out with a two or four word title, they make it three, and then use the acronym. So it’s baffling to the outsider.
2. In the public sector, I’ve lost count of the times that someone has described their area as the Cinderella service. Never known what it means; I just nod sagely.

• Will I (serious consideration) sound like a tool? Is this our effective, understood shortcut, or this is a hackneyed cliché that’s going to win someone a game of buzz word bingo?
• Do I want to be the person that talks differently? Not just to substitute a different cliché, but to get people to look again at what they are being asked, and to perhaps not to hear a short-cut and short cut their own thinking.