Thanks to blogs, business books, an abundance of MBA’s, and the internet, we have seen the rapid proliferation of the everyday vernacular of business leaders everywhere.
With the expansion has come more content, more leaders, more speakers, and more words.
All of this verbosity certainly serves a purpose, but it has also created a vast landscape of meaningless business blabber. As entrepreneurs and business leaders it is out responsibility to put meaning behind the words, however this is rarely done through speaking alone.
With each passing day we are sounding smarter and smarter by spewing out and regurgitating words that lack meaning.
Recently I found myself suffering from this growing trend. I actually was reading through one of my own emails only to find it chalk full of words that sound fantastic but really have very little meaning. At the bottom it should have said…
“Contents herein are a byproduct of MBA jibber jabber – meaning or usefulness of this email is limited and may vary based on willingness to blindly consume leadership Kool-Aid.”
While I rarely enjoy being the butt of my own jokes, I do still believe that humility has its place in our everyday vocabulary. With this in mind I serve as the inspiration of this blog, and the punchline.
Here are 7 words that are being used day in and day out that I am convinced have lost nearly all of their meaning. (At least to me, how about you?)
- Partner(ship): At some point in time in the B2B arena, every business, industry, author and consultant decided that the word customer has run its course and partner was the word to replace it. I genuinely believe that the word has meaning, however, I seriously question the application of the concept by most companies that use it. My plan is to partner with a company that can find another word to describe partnership.
- Synergy: The old 1+1=3 equation. Synergy is a wonderful idea and it is something when realized that can create one heck of an outcome. The use of the word has become rampant now and it is often used to describe situations where synergy is definitely not the result. For example, a merger where two companies (hmm, AOL and Time-Warner) come together because of their amazing synergy is not synergistic when the stock plunges like a six flags roller coaster.
- Agile: The word has arisen with the rapid growth of software platforms and development. The idea of agile development is the ability to change quickly to meet the need of our customers, partners (yup), users etc…Now we are all supposed to be agile personalities on agile teams developing agile products for these agile times. How about a product that better describes our businesses?
- Dynamic: Another word often used to describe the ability to change on a dime to meet market demands -> See also: Agile
- Visionary: Having a vision is key. But having a vision does not make you a visionary. Your customers, partners, and employees will hold the verdict of whether or not you lead a visionary strategy. In many cases we need to replace “Visionary” with “Ordinary,” that would immediately make these types of statements more accurate.
- Convergence: The particular portion of the tech vertical that I come out of has been using the word convergence to describe the coming together of the Video and IT industries into one. Unfortunately it has been using the word convergence to describe this for over a decade. At this point the businesses are still not fully converged. This happens often, we mistake parallels, similarities, and intersections for convergence. This is why it is a buzzword going bad…
- Experience: Specifically as it relates to customer experience. The idea of creating an unparalleled customer experience is great. The problem is we can only point to a handful of companies that have done it. I cannot tell you a company that is referenced for this more than Zappos. While I’m not sure why it is, I think it has something to do with customer experience being far more talk than it has been action.
As the oft culprits of over-utilization of these fancy business buzzwords I challenge that we ask ourselves to re-instill the context that is required to make these words have meaning.
Remember, we must have empathy about how those we speak to view the use of these terms as well as other jargon. Further, we must consider whether these words are even the slightest bit motivational to those we say them to?
After all, if we are just saying things because it sounds good, then we must not be the visionary (Ha) leaders that we think we are!
So what business jargon has lost its meaning to you?