Communication and Buzzwords

This is a discussion about communication and buzzwords from my perspective, as someone who likes to be clear and honest.

Communication in the Workplace

Free communication in a workplace is beneficial for many reasons, such as…

• Teamwork is better than everyone working towards different goals
• Inclusion - if everyone feels included the workplace will hopefully be happy
• Learning from others within the team
• Feedback from colleagues can help everyone improve
• Explaining goals

The fact that meetings happen at all would suggest that people value face-to-face discussions about work.

What are the benefits of face-to-face or video meetings compared to email or text communication?

• Each person can see everyone else’s body language
• When speaking you can gauge what others are thinking about what you’re saying
• People can respond in real time
• Question and answer
• Brainstorming

Comparing a meeting to an email is a bit like comparing having a chat with another person to reading a book.

• Emails are great for giving a lot of precise information.
• While writing the email you probably have time to look things up so that you can be sure the information you are giving is correct.
• You can structure an email
• Before sending the email you can re-read and remove anything unnecessary, or move text around to help with understanding

When speaking to another person, you can use aides such as bullet points or presentations, but also you might be discussing the topic off-the-cuff.

You could say that…

• Meaning and intent is more important in spoken conversations, and
• Detail and accuracy is more important in written conversation.

What are Buzzwords?

Buzzwords to me are the name of every fad that comes along. Name-dropping the fad lets your peers know you know about the latest, newest trendiest thing. Generally they’re jargon used without explanation, so the user drops the buzzword or buzzwords liberally in every conversation assuming that everyone else has the same understanding as they do.

For example:

”We are an agile company, we create scalable platforms, then implement them vertically to be as disruptive as possible.”

There are quite a few words in that sentence that are unclear and are not descriptive of what the person is actually talking about. General words describing a general philosophy without going into any detail.

My definition of an agile company may differ from yours, but in the quote we swiftly moved on from that to talking about something else with more words that can be misunderstood or misinterpreted, before moving on again.

If this quote was taken from a meeting, ten people might have ten completely different ideas in their minds about the company and product.

As discussed, buzzwords in a meeting or verbal conversation can be particularly hard to deal with.

For example, do I interrupt the speaker as soon as they mention the first buzzword, or do I wait til they’ve finished speaking and go through the list of buzzwords asking for definitions for each?

How do Buzzwords Affect a Business?

At this point, I should say, buzzwords can be used correctly as shorthand in a smallish group or if it is clear that everyone in the group understands the exact meaning of the buzzword. Maybe they’ve talked about the topic at length and all understand the pros and cons.

I guess, my problem is when buzzwords are used in interviews or sales pitches or a member of the team comes into work one day and just starts dropping new buzzwords out of nowhere to sound clever.

From the speaker’s point of view, buzzwords are:

• New, fashionable
• Sound clever
• Have variable meanings

With those advantages, there’s almost no good reason NOT to use buzzwords. Until, you examine the part where the buzzword may have different meanings to different people, or the meaning may change over the course of the week.

I’d suggest that use of buzzwords is often to make us look better than we are and to gloss over the actual meaning of what we’re saying.

If we’re trying to be open and honest, we speak in a way that everyone can understand without feeling like a dummy. Maybe use the buzzword, if you like, but also explain what you mean.

Personally, if I come out of a meeting having been fed a lot of buzzwords I haven’t understood I either have no idea what the person means or I’m exhausted and frustrated at having to keep asking basic questions.

In short, buzzwords create lack of clarity which I’d suggest is rarely good in the workplace.

How to get Clarity?

I like the idea of someone sending participants an outline of the meeting in text form before the meeting. Such as, this is the idea, this is the technical description, and here are some definitions. Then, in the meeting people have had a chance to investigate a bit further and maybe understand about the general concept, so the attendees are better prepared to engage with the buzzwords.

Another idea, is to just not use buzzwords. The problem with that, is that you may sound like the opposite of a buzzword user, i.e. old, stupid and precise. No-one wants to be thought of negatively. Everyone wants their ideas to be listened to, and preferably adopted.

When someone else is using buzzwords, and you want clarity, I’m not sure of the best way to deal with it. I think it may be situational. Why have the buzzwords suddenly appeared? Did I miss a memo? If I ask for clarity will people think I’m an idiot?

If someone is determined to sound future-thinking and too cool-for-school there’s almost no way to prevent buzzwords. If someone is determined to be unclear, asking them to be clear may cause friction.

Conclusion

I find use of buzzwords unhelpful at best, and at worst they can be deceptive and dishonest.

Often they are used to be deliberately vague. In a sales pitch for example, if I don’t know what I’m buying I can’t complain when I don’t get it.

While I don’t have a cure for buzzwords, understanding why people use them and attempting to get clarity where needed is the best I can suggest for now.

This is all just my opinion. Other opinions may vary.