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Ugh...Business Jargon
 

DonVon's picture
IB
(King Kong, 1,914
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 10:30am
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I came across a pretty hilarious article on Forbes when brainstorming ideas for my column this morning. It's about business jargon and how useless (and somewhat stupid) most of it is.

Now, I'm the first to be skeptical of buying into culture, jargon being a defining component of culture, so I have always been the _last_ to use an organization's jargon when I've been a part of it, but even I find that some of the assertions the author makes are a little absurd. You can find the article here.

Now I'm going to reach out to all of you, exceed expectations in writing this article, and shoot the wind about how I feel about jargon. Was that good enough?

Prior to my foray into finance, I worked in the healthcare industry as a quasi-software developer. The company I worked with had a very heavy-handed culture, and jargon was prevalent. Now, I never wanted to work as a software developer, but as a recent graduate, I took what I could get. This all made me even more skeptical when all of the sudden the only words I heard were "best practice", "workflow", and "best of breed".

When I quit that job to pursue finance, I vowed to never work at an organization that was full of jargon. I figured, "hey, bankers are smart folks that don't have time to waste on petty crap like jargon, what a waste of time". My naivety has since been curbed.

The funniest thing about jargon to me is the degree to which _no one_ likes it but everyone buys into it. For instance, I am not a huge fan of the phrase "reach out"...it just sounds bizarre to me. I, like the author of the Forbes article, would much rather say "get in contact with", "contact", "get in touch with", etc. Any sexual connotations aside, reach out is simply a strange way to say that you are talking, or planning on talking, to someone. However, despite disliking the phrase "reach out", I find myself using it all the time -- during information interviews, when talking to normal people, when giving friends advice about networking, and even in other situations. Honestly, I don't think anyone really _likes_ phrases like reach out...they do make you sound like a bit of a tooligan. But that doesn't matter -- spend a little bit of time in the business world and you'll quickly understand that everyone both uses business jargon and expects the people around them to use it as well.

Jargon has a bit of a cult of personality, despite being an inanimate object. Maybe because I was interested in finance (and wasn't interested in software), I found it easier to stomach the fact that suddenly I was using phrases like "reach out", "execute", "give 110%", among others.

I remember one time I got into contact (note, I did not say "reached out" :) ) with someone at a local startup that I was interested in learning more about. Their PR person was about my age - 23 - and a recent college graduate. In her e-mail response to me, she thanked me two or three times for "reaching out", and upon meeting her, I was interested to learn that she did not have a business degree and didn't see herself in a business role whatsoever after graduation. She was clearly not your prototypical business person, but she had, in a short period of time, totally bought into the jargon associated with business professions.

It was one of those weird situations where we were talking to one another, using business jargon, and we _both_ know that it was bullshit (and even smiled a few times because of how ridiculous we sounded). But at the end of the day, we had both made it "somewhere", and using jargon was totally fine. It's a weird dilemma, because all it takes is one person who uses jargon genuinely and believes it's awesome to cause everyone else to use it, most likely disingenuously.

What do you guys think about jargon? Absurd, a necessary evil...perhaps an unnecessary evil? And what do you make of some of the jargon the Forbes article brings to light...a lot of these words I didn't even realize were "business jargon" per se.

Thanks for reading.

"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Check out my blog!
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Comments

MonkeyWrench's picture

Agreed, I can't stand it. My

O
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 11:15am

Agreed, I can't stand it. My firm uses the phrase 'tag-up' for meetings, and when I hear the phrase 'lets tag-up later' I immediately want to vomit.

"Who am I? I'm the guy that does his job. You must be the other guy."

johndoe89's picture

Leverage (the most abused

PE
(Orangutan, 321
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 11:32am

Leverage (the most abused noun turned verb turned everything in finance)
Cross sell opportunities
Maximizing Shareholder Value
Synergies
ducks in a row
Core Competency
Open the Kimono
Lots of Moving Parts
Meritocratic culture
Scalable
Robust
Think Outside the Box
It Is What It Is
Ecosystem
full-service
Entrenched
Tee-Up
"Let's talk offline"
Hard Stop
Price point
Low Hanging Fruit

Check out this article from Forbes- a few of the above are on this list, hilarious:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2012/01/26/...

DonVon's picture

MonkeyWrench: Agreed, I can't

IB
(King Kong, 1,914
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 11:38am
MonkeyWrench:

Agreed, I can't stand it. My firm uses the phrase 'tag-up' for meetings, and when I hear the phrase 'lets tag-up later' I immediately want to vomit.

Oh God that hurts!!!

"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Check out my blog!

blastoise's picture

artifacts

O
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 11:40am

artifacts

Old Grand-Dad's picture

I hate "hit the ground

IB
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 11:44am

I hate "hit the ground running"

Jargon is really annoying but when everyone around you uses it, it's hard not to.

Old Grand-Dad's picture

Best part of the article,

IB
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 12:07pm

Best part of the article, “Aspiring managers would do well to remember that if you can’t express your idea without buzzwords, there may not be an idea there at all.”

WallStreetOasis.com's picture

Old Grand-Dad: I hate "hit

EN
(Human, 12,067
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 12:09pm
Old Grand-Dad:

I hate "hit the ground running"

Jargon is really annoying but when everyone around you uses it, it's hard not to.

ha, think I just used this the other day...whoops.

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analyst-therapist's picture

i love jargon, i think it is

IB
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 12:14pm

i love jargon, i think it is the funniest/douchiest thing in the world. Even though I love it in a facetious way I find myself using it all the time. Some of my favorites include: Closing the loop, moving the needle, sit down on this and many others. Although I know saying all of this makes me sound like a tool I do it all the time because one its hilarious and two I just want to fit in. When everyone at a firm has bought into it, it becomes part of the culture. Everyone uses it and acknowledges its absurdity but it also gives a way to communicate because we all understand it perfectly. I don't think its useless at all, I disagreed with the Forbes article. It has become so ingrained in business that if you don't use it you almost seem like an outsider. I think it's usefulness comes more from the "common language", if you will, that it provides business oriented individual

just my 2 cents

Value_added's picture

I don't see it as a big deal

O
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 12:19pm

I don't see it as a big deal at all. Some of the more absurd ones I don't use (lion's share, 30,000 ft view), but other pieces of jargon are so common place that they make it easier to communicate.

Reach Out vs Get in contact with
Ping vs Instant Message
etc...

Everyone in the business understands it and it's usually a shorter way of saying something.

And synergies is jargon?! how else would you describe synergies concisely?

EDIT: Some of the ones in article I've never heard - "Open the Kimono?" - don't think I could hold it in if I heard that

trailmix8's picture

I hate more than anything

AM
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 12:15pm

I hate more than anything that when describing something you add "from group X perspective" or "from system Y perspective" etc... I just hate that. Sometimes you sit in a meeting and a person uses "perspective" more than once in a complete thought. It absolutely kills me.

DonVon's picture

Dude, "open the kimono" is

IB
(King Kong, 1,914
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 12:19pm

Dude, "open the kimono" is absurd. I am going to start using that ALL the time.

"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Check out my blog!

MonkeyWrench's picture

A phrase that I really like

O
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 12:35pm

A phrase that I really like is 'Shit or get off the pot' but I guess that's not just a business term.

"Who am I? I'm the guy that does his job. You must be the other guy."

Do what I gotta do's picture

it is what it is..

(Monkey, 53
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 1:03pm

it is what it is..

bigtool05's picture

A lot of the time when you

CF
(Baboon, 142
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 1:15pm

A lot of the time when you try to explain things in normal English I feel like people think you don't know what youre talking about. I always try to avoid using jargon but it seems like you have to use it if you want to be seen as a professional

Nabooru's picture

I will agree some of of them

(Gorilla, 689
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 1:14pm

I will agree some of of them like "open the kimono" are kind of weird. But seriously, complaining about saying "reaching out" and saying it's BS? It is what it is (yes, this was on purpose). Now I can't think of a better way to say "reach out" than actually saying "reach out." I'd rather say "going forward" than "in the future" or whatever. These phrases come into practice for a reason. They have a specific meaning that everyone can understand without being fucking confused, and using them is usually the most efficient way of conveying your meaning. So no, I like using them, I do use them, and it doesn't make me look like a douche because everyone around me uses them without thinking about it. Embrace it and get used to it. Isn't there something better to complain about?

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

Thomas Ausart's picture

I like jargon and useless

CF
(Baboon, 149
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 2:14pm
  • Associate Editor at Mergers & Inquisitions
  • @AusartThomas
TheKing's picture

I never use jargon. I simply

O
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 3:13pm

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capitalizeddisinterest's picture

wake up the monkey and show

(Monkey, 55
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 4:01pm
Ace Rothstein's picture

I don't view "reach out" as

EN
(Monkey, 37
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 7:07pm
WalMartShopper's picture

TheKing: I never use jargon.

 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 7:09pm

If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!

WalMartShopper's picture

Also the only thing more

 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 7:13pm

If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!

Genetic's picture

'synergistic' to describe

 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 7:40pm
TheKing's picture

trailmix8: I hate more than

O
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 10:25pm

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mdk6c's picture

home run deep dive rock

(Baboon, 166
 
Points)
 on 6/13/12 at 10:45pm
trailmix8's picture

TheKing: trailmix8: I hate

AM
 
Points)
 on 6/14/12 at 1:28am
Relinquis's picture

Business jargon is

RE
(Neanderthal, 2,186
 
Points)
 on 6/16/12 at 12:18am

relinquis... Killing the GMAT this December; Over/Under set at: 725 GMATs.

IRRelevent's picture

Big Picture Size Up

PE
(Monkey, 51
 
Points)
 on 6/18/12 at 7:03pm
M Friedman's picture

high level (fucking hate this

(King Kong, 1,007
 
Points)
 on 7/13/12 at 11:14am

See my WSO blogs here.

Relinquis's picture

This is good ...

RE
(Neanderthal, 2,186
 
Points)
 on 9/6/12 at 8:02pm

relinquis... Killing the GMAT this December; Over/Under set at: 725 GMATs.

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