How & Why to Wrangle Buzzwords in 2023

The beginning of the year brings on all kinds of articles talking about business buzzwords of 2023 and how annoying they are — what do these words even mean and why do we use them? When used effectively, buzzwords such as "agile" or "synergy" could express new ideas,?current?trends or a business’s workplace culture. Sometimes they stand the test of time, and in other cases, they are a passing fad. In this article, we will consider the good and the bad of buzzword usage, and everything in between — plus how to change it at your company if you want to.?

Going back to the ‘30s, linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf came up with the idea of linguistic relativity. (Chicago people may be interested that Sapir was a professor at my alma mater). Also known as Whorfianism or the Whorf hypothesis, their idea argued that the language we use shapes our worldview. Now some would question if it’s the chicken or the egg — does the language we speak reflect our thoughts and feelings, or does it shape them? Or both??

Generally today, linguists believe that language influences us, but does not determine it (as Whorfianism argued). Many scientific studies prove that the use of positive language makes people feel good and negative language does the opposite. Buzzwords can be viewed as positive or negative or even somewhere in between. And within the good/bad spectrum, buzzwords elicit other feelings and effects in work dynamics. Keep reading...

WHY BUZZWORDS ARE GOOD FOR YOUR COMPANY

Membership to "the Club"

Peter Drucker, an incredibly influential thinker on management, believed in the power of using words to impact corporate culture (oh wait, is “impact” a buzzword?). On a primary level, the language we use shows membership to a clan. If you are really into a certain hobby, for example, you show off the intensity of your dedication by using the language that only your fellow hobbyists know. So when someone shows that they know the lingo, we understand that they are one of us. Stress levels decrease, and we can open up about bigger ideas, challenges and the dirty stuff that makes business move forward.?

New Business Concepts

Buzzwords also give shape to new ideas in business. “Well-being,” for example, is an idea that until the last few years the majority of businesses didn’t use. We’ll explore this term in more depth in a follow-up article. In a business sense, well-being describes an employee’s overall happiness. Businesses didn’t use the word because they didn’t understand the relationship between a worker’s condition outside of work and their performance. Now that it is a corporate buzzword, we see the blurring between work and personal life as well as acceptance that they each affect the other.

Part of a Learning Process

If you have an organization that prioritizes learning, then buzzwords can be part of the process in growing your knowledge base. For example, many companies I’ve observed use “growth mindset” as a buzzword to describe their company’s emphasis on continuing professional development programs. After a buzzword is born or begins to grow in popularity, people will start to look at it critically. If the idea falls short, or it represents a passing cultural trend, it will naturally fade into history. Or, it can encapsulate a new idea that your organization values.?

Soften the Blow of Criticism

And sometimes, the obfuscation of meaning with buzzwords can soften the blow of direct criticism. “Let’s prioritize low-hanging fruit right now,” for example, deflects the intensity of “I would never entertain going for your unrealistic idea.” When ideas or work products are rejected, buzzwords can lessen the negative.??

WHY BUZZWORDS AREN’T SO GOOD

Turning Your Brain to Mush

Well, some people would say that the use of buzzwords is actually turning your brain to mush. In the same way that positive words have a positive effect on the brain, vague words can also spark uncertainty.?

When I started grad school, I didn’t know the lingo. I was a few years older than most of my cohorts, and the jargon of academia had changed since I’d graduated. I didn’t really even understand what “theory” was when I started, let alone all the weighted words that went along with it. One of my classmates would pepper his sentences with the buzzwords of high-level academia like “reification” or “heuristic.” I initially had no idea what he was talking about and thought that he was another level of intelligence, well beyond my comprehension.?

However, as I started to learn the meaning of these words, I began to realize that his ideas were questionable. Sometimes, I even suspected that he had no idea what he was talking about! The vagueness in how he actually used the terms ultimately made his seemingly ground-breaking ideas quite empty.?

Creating Uncertainty

And you know this happens at the office. Someone sends a 100-word memo that could have been a fifth of its size and with more punch. Or a company-wide announcement that you read and read again and still don’t exactly know what’s new. Buzzwords and their lack of meaning can create an aura of mystery and elicit uncertainty. Uncertainty makes a lot of people uneasy.?

In an Inc. Magazine article titled “How Corporate-Speak Makes You Stupid, According to Science,” Geoffrey James says, “the number of business buzzwords in a presentation or document is inversely proportional to the intelligence of its creator.” Buzzwords can be a tool for hiding behind a fear to be clear and upfront. That fear could be a product of your company culture or it could be an issue unique to possible insecurities of the buzzword over-user.?

Filling Up Awkward Space in Speech

Buzzwords could be used to be filler in an attempt to extend a human-human connection that is void of other substance. In this article writer Molly Young leans toward the term “garbage speak” rather than “buzzword” or “jargon”: “...Unlike garbage, which we contain in wastebaskets and landfills, the hideous nature of these words — their facility to warp and impede communication — is also their purpose.” Like garbage, it just keeps getting made. Buzzwords that are spoken extend the duration in which people are communicating — we feel a conversation happening so it seems there should be a connection but instead it’s a buzzword salad.?

Instruments of Exclusion

Lastly, as much as buzzwords create the terms for a clan, they can also be instruments of exclusion. They can be used to exert power — as Nietzsche said: "All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power not truth.” When people wield them to signal to others that they are not part of the clan, buzzwords can incite feelings of discomfort or even anger. My favorite article title that I discovered in my research was “Corporate Nomenclature Stupefies: Sometimes Even a Dictionary Can’t Help Decipher the Buzzwords of Corporate America” (from Associated Press, Orlando Sentinel, 9/7/96). If you can’t even try to figure out what a buzzword means, then you feel like you don’t belong.?

GET YOUR COMPANY TO DIG DEEPER WITH BUZZWORDS

Writer George Orwell said, “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.” Generally, buzzwords are considered a kind of jargon.?So what can you do to wrangle buzzword use at your company?

1. Ask people what a word means to them when they use it. Curiosity must be fueling the inquiry and not judgment for this to be effective.?When you ask for details, you:

• Clarify communications for both the speaker and the listener.?
• Show that you sincerely want to understand them.?
• Prompt critical evaluation of the intended meaning. If indeed another less buzz-y word would better communicate the idea, then the speaker may discover an alternative word in this exchange.?

2. If you want to eliminate use of any words, make a joke or a game of it.?

Because of the trust required to do an activity like this, it is most effective with tight knit teams. You could create “Buzzword bingo” cards for people to track when others use the words to avoid. They call the person out, ask them for an alternative word, and have the perpetrator sign and date the box. Once someone completes a full line they win some kind of prize.? This is not my unique idea — Lara Stein (Founder of Tedx) published The Buzzword Bingo Book in the '90s and the link goes to a free digitized version of it if you want to have some fun with it.

3. Does your company have a business glossary??

A business glossary can clarify elusive buzzwords, making people more comfortable using them. Entries can also explain words at your company that you don’t use and why.

By having a business glossary, the terminologies that can cause divides make everyone feel included. They may seem basic to you, but for a new person could create a lot more comfort — i.e. do you have “clients” or “partners”??

4. Just start or stop saying the specific words you have evaluated.?

Presidential speech writer James Humes said, “The art of communication is the language of leadership.” Ultimately your employees will follow your lead. By repeatedly demonstrating the use of words that you feel are positive, support new ideas, or reflect company values, you can shift the language that your employees speak — and also their mindset.

My next article will be “Ten Buzzwords to Use or Dump in 2023.” I’ll evaluate specific buzzwords so that you can pick and choose how to move forward with them.