Deciphering the language of business

The English language remains the lingua franca of global business. Yet some businesspeople fail to make sense when communicating with their stakeholders, including customers and the media.

Of course, business should be about serving customers and, hopefully, making a profit in the process. But there are other aspects to business life that some find amusing, while others consider upsetting.

The debates on whether we should be teaching young people languages like Chinese and Arabic to reflect the changing dynamics in world trade are thankfully rare.  So, the quality of our business communication in English remains a fascinating topic.

Many consider the jargon used in offices to be a ‘pointless irritation’. A survey of 2,000 managers in the UK by the Institute of Leadership and Management found that the most irritating phrases, according to those surveyed, were “thinking outside the box” – meaning to look at things differently. This was followed by “going forward”, which means in the future. “Let’s touch base” – used when the person wants to call, e-mail or meet to discuss an issue – was a close third.

Chrissie Mahler, founder of the Plain English Campaign, believes there is a serious side to the irritation and overused jargon: it could be holding business back. She insists: “Management speak gets in the way, it acts like a barrier to procuring new business. It is downright dangerous... the longer managers sit around like gnomes with their fishing rods in a pool of ‘blue sky thinking’, the longer it will take for the economy to bounce back.”

Terry Smith, the CEO of Fundsmith – a UK investment management company that, among other things, aims to promote simple business communication – published an amusing paper entitled ‘Banned Words and Phrases’ a decade ago. Having been involved in financial services for nearly five decades, Smith is particularly interested in analysing official corporate communication. Company management, analysts and commentators often communicate with investors in a language that is at times obscure if not outright misleading.

Smith is particularly irritated by the careless use of the word ‘leverage’. In finance, this word means “the use of borrowing for finance which magnifies or leverages the operating results of a business”. It should not be used to replace simpler words like copied, relied upon, benefitted or learnt from. Smith quotes some examples where the word ‘leverage’ was misused: “ASDA is a leader in online grocery delivery, and we’ve leveraged that experience in the US.”

In the last decade, widespread use of social media by the business community has made deciphering business communication even more difficult

Even more irritating is the use of words that do not exist. Many readers rightly consider the use of such non-existent words as ‘management gobbledegook’. Smith identifies ‘agenderise’, ‘folderise’ and ‘futurisation’ as words that should never be used simply because they do not exist. He amusingly advises his readers: “If you are typing something yourself, a small clue is that if the word becomes underlined in red or otherwise highlighted, your spellcheck software application is trying to tell you either that the word is misspelt or that it doesn’t exist.”

Other words which should be avoided are those “which are used for a meaning beyond their original purpose”. My favourite gripe relates to the word ‘holistic’. This word is misused to suggest “that in operating or making a decision, a business takes all factors into account”. Smith, rightly, insists that “its use should be limited to types of therapy”.

Another category to avoid in business communication is words meant to sound profound when a simpler one will do. ‘Granular data’ and ‘granularity’ are examples of such words. ‘Detail’ is a perfect word. What I find particularly irritating is the use of acronyms in most business reports, especially internal ones.

Smith concludes his paper with another witty comment. “You should never use an expression if the opposite is so nonsensical that you would never say it. Some companies adopt a growth strategy through ‘select acquisitions’. Would anyone ever contemplate adopting a policy of ‘indiscriminate acquisition’?

In the last decade, the widespread use of social media by the business community for marketing purposes has made deciphering business communication even more difficult. Hyperbole and exaggerated claims of product usefulness and reliability characterise how businesspeople expect to convince consumers. The Trade Description Act has become no more than a useless piece of legislation.

Many business leaders argue that the linguistic challenges we face are more fundamental. They go beyond semantics and address the limited ability of many business employees to communicate simply and clearly in good basic English.