[Infowarrior] - Why Jargon Feeds on Lazy Minds

[Richard Forno]

Why Jargon Feeds on Lazy Minds

Posted on November 26, 2012 in Business

http://scottberkun.com/2012/why-jargon-feeds-on-lazy-minds/

[Note: this post was first published at Harvard Business Review and has been edited]

If I could give every single business writer, guru or executive one thing to read every morning before work, it’d be this essay by George Orwell: Politics and the English Language.

Not only is this essay short, brilliant, thought-provoking and memorable, it calls bullshit on most of what passes today as speech and written language in management circles.

And if you are too lazy to read the article, all you need to remember is this: never use a fancy word when a simpler one will do. If your idea is good, no hype is necessary. Explain it clearly and people will get it, if there truly is something notable to get. If your idea is bad: keep working before you share it with others. And if you don’t have time for that, you might as well be honest. Because when you throw jargon around, most of us know you’re probably lying about something anyway.

The people who use the most jargon have the least confidence in their ideas. The people who use the least jargon have the most confidence.

In honor of Orwell here’s a list of jargon I often hear that should be banned rarely used. Flat out, these words are never used for good reason.

Words that should be banned:

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	• Transformative
	• Next-generation
	• Seamless
	• Game-changing
	• Revolutionary
	• Ideation (oh how I hate this word)
	• Disruptive
	• Incentivize
	• Innovation (see this post specifically about the i-word)
	• Innovation Infrastructure
	• Customer-centric
	• Radical
	• See this jargon Lorem Ipsum generator for more

These are the lazy words of our time and whenever I see them used I feel justified in challenging the claims. To use these words with a straight face is to assume the listener is an idiot. They are intellectual insults. They are shortcuts away from good marketing and strong thinking since they try to sneak by with claims they know they cannot prove or do not make any sense.

Marketers and managers use jargon because it’s safe. No one stops them to ask: exactly what is it you are breaking through? What precisely are you transforming, and how are you certain the new thing will be better than the old (e.g. New Coke)? If no one, especially no one in power, challenges its use, jargon spreads, choking the life out of conversations and meetings forever.

Pay attention to who uses the most jargon: it’s never the brightest. It’s those who want to be perceived as the best and the brightest, something they know they are not. They use cheap language tricks to intimidate, distract, and confuse, hoping to sneak past those afraid to ask what they really mean.

I’m going to do my best for the rest of the year to question people who use these lazy, deceptive, and inflated terms. Maybe then they’ll use their real marketing talents and tell me a story so powerful that I believe, all on my own, will transform this, or revolutionize that.

What jargon do you hear these days that you’d like to add to the list above? Let me know.
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It's better to burn out than fade away.