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My CEO asked me 'what does that even mean?' after reading our new mission statement
He was holding the draft I'd spent 3 weeks wordsmithing and just looked confused. Has anyone else had a leader force them to scrap the corporate jargon and actually say something plain?
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quinn5821mo ago
I wrote a whole team charter last year full of phrases like "synergistic workflows" and "value-added outcomes." My old boss loved it, but new management asked me to explain it to a new hire and I just froze. Now I keep a sticky note that says "would my dad get this?" on my monitor. That one question changed how I write everything at work. Plain language isn't lazy, it's respectful. Your CEO might be doing you a favor even if it feels rough right now.
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laurar381mo ago
But what if the problem isn't the jargon itself, but how we use it? @quinn582, I see your point about plain language, but sometimes those specific terms are shorthand for complex ideas our team already knows. The freeze-up moment you had sounds like the real issue was writing something even you couldn't explain, not the phrases. Maybe the goal should be making sure we can always translate our own work talk into simple terms, not getting rid of it completely.
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hannah2407d ago
Wait, is it really that bad though to use language that's specific to your industry? Like, if everyone on the team already knows what "synergistic workflows" means, then isn't it just a faster way to say something we all agree on? I feel like the sticky note thing is a good rule for explaining stuff to outsiders, but for internal stuff, we're wasting time if we have to spell everything out like we're talking to a fifth grader. My old team used to joke that our meetings doubled in length after the boss made us rewrite all our project updates in plain English, and nobody was happier or got more work done. Maybe the real trick is knowing your audience, not just tossing out every bit of shorthand.
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