In the business world you might expect to hear or use a lot
of jargon. However, a report just out in Britain claims that most managers
overuse business jargon and that this has a negative effect on how staff
feel.
Investors in People - a public body whose main
stakeholder is the Department for Education and Skills – says that using
terms like "blue-sky thinking" rather than saying more plainly "imagine
new or different ways of doing things" baffles employees and widens
the gap between managers and staff.
Most employees in Britain, according to
this survey, have a low opinion of colleagues who use management
jargon. Over a third of those surveyed think it shows a lack of
confidence and almost one in five think people who use it are
untrustworthy or trying to cover something up.
Some of the most overused business expressions that fell
foul of those surveyed (and their more straightforward explanations)
were:
Get our ducks in a row (have everything arranged
efficiently), brain dump (tell everything you know about a particular subject)
and think outside the box (be creative in how you think about
problems).
Peter Russian from Investors in People said that an
effective boss is one who can communicate in a way which everyone can
easily understand not one who uses a lot of management jargon.
So now that you've got the helicopter view (just an overview)
of business jargon, it's time to give you a heads up (a warning) not to overuse
this management speak. But that's a real no-brainer (that's simple), isn't
it?
