Let's Align to Axe These Phrases in 2015

Have you ever noticed how every few weeks a new word or phrase hits the business lexicon? You're plowing through email and see something that stops you with its novelty. You chalk it up as one of the quirks of the sender, or assume he's from another country, and move on. Suddenly that word or phrase is on the real and virtual lips of nearly everyone you dialogue with. Then you start using it...and a little part of you dies.

Business has its own universal operating software in the form of words and numbers that are used to communicate and coordinate all of us nodes in the system. And just like the economy as a whole, our verbal software continually adapts and evolves.

Often the changes in what we say and how we say it are clear improvements that reflect how society itself is changing. We no longer use "he" as the assumed third-person in everything. We created automated out-of-office replies so people aren't left hanging when we head out for a few days. We've even invented a score of emoticons to try and bring good vibes into de-humanizing text communication.

But all too often we embrace and overuse phrases to the point that they become like the plague. Both literally plague-like and as annoying as the cliche simile, "like the plague."

So I humbly suggest that we all take a deep breath, hold hands, and hold ourselves accountable for cutting these text and email tools from our business workbenches in the year ahead:

"Killing It"

This has been a phrase in the stand up comedy business for years, but I blame the startup world for unleashing this abomination upon the broader business world. It first surfaced for me at startup and investor mixer events where everyone was talking about how everyone else was "killing it" with their CTRs, OKRs and MRRs. Months later, my wife texted to let me know that my 14-year-old daughter was "killing it" at her cross-country meet.

More recently, I believe people realized how annoying and generic "killing it" is. But instead of cutting it out, they invented variations on the theme: "Crushing it", "Destroying it" and "Annihilating it" all battled to take the crown.

We've got to annihilate "killing it" for two reasons: First, it's way too aggressive in an economy where co-operation and building is the bigger key to success. Second, I'm tired of hearing how everyone else is killing it when in reality even the most successful companies struggle and claw every day.

"Gentle Reminder"

There has been a lot of evolution in the art of phrasing emails so that people actually get off their butts and do what you want them to do. There's not a single man or woman in business today that isn't secretly cursing someone who won't get back to them on an important matter. But no one answers the phone anymore and face-time is increasingly rare.

So we invent nice phrases to try and nudge someone else to action through email without looking like the annoying jerk that you actually are. Hence the rise of "gentle reminder" and "friendly reminder". Yuck.

While "killing it" is too aggressive, "gentle reminder" needs to go because it is passive aggressive. Let's not beat around the bush any more; it's OK to remind someone that you need are still waiting on them for something important. We're all professionals here, and we'll either give you the reply you're looking for or continue ignoring you no matter how nice your request is.

"Forgive my iPhone msipeling"

This one was funny for about 5 months in 2008 when everyone was still learning to type on their Blackberry keyboards. I still remember seeing this for the first time and thinking that the sender was very clever while effectively covering her rear-end in case of inevitable mistakes.

But welcome to 2015, folks. Not only is the joke now about as clever as a funny answering machine message, but we've all got smartphone operating system version XX.XX which has a pretty darn good spell checker. If you don't go back and correct the red underlines before hitting send, you're lazy or don't care. That's OK, receivers don't care if a misspelling makes it through, either.

The spelling apology dropped off for most people as their Legal departments took over the IT department and started issuing paragraphs of mandatory language to ensure that anything written within will not be officially recognized as any form or fact, agreement, advice, opinion, buy/sell order, PII, product claim, or endorsement. The rest of us forgot that we still had this up (or how it got there in the first place). Go ahead and remove it now. We'll wait...General > Mail > Signature > All (delete).

"Moving you to BCC"

One of the greatest uses of email in business is to forge a new connection between two strangers via a mutual contact. Millions of us a year are able to get new jobs, clients, partners and drinking buddies through a simple, digital introduction. In fact, in a world of dozens of computer-generated cold-emails a day, many of us won't communicate with anyone new without an intro.

Alas, the fun of making a useful introduction is cursed by getting copied on the back-and-forth email chain as the two parties attempt to find a time to meet and phone number to dial.

A year or so ago I saw someone reply to a connection by "Moving (me) to BCC while we work out schedules." I smiled with delight at this communication innovation. It was a way to thank and acknowledge the connector, and show that contact was indeed made, but all without bogging down her inbox any further. I immediately added this to my own toolbox.

Now, however, it's getting old and annoying. I still like the act of moving to BCC on the first response, but there's no longer a need for the cute mention of saving my inbox. Let's all agree to just handle connections like this going forward and be done with it.

Incomplete Text Speak

Need 1 moment 2 share thats annoying when u write like text n email. R we so busy that can't write n complet sentences?

It actually caused me pain to write that example, and I cringe each time someone chooses text-speak for emails. I know we're all in a hurry and tired of reading endless emails. We're all able to think faster than we can read, so it's very tempting to lose the rules of grammar in the interest of time. This is made worse by the blend of communication through texting, email, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Slack. Unfortunately, the least-quality verbiage tends to win out.

This has annoyed me for a while, but became a bigger scare when I realized that I had better practice what I'm preaching to my teenage daughters.

I also realized that people who use incomplete sentences and proper punctuation just come across poorly. As leaders, we are on stage non-stop. Everything we do is judged consciously and unconsciously, and a growing piece of how we are seen comes down to what we have written electronically. You really don't want to be seen as the guy who is SO busy that he can't strike the shift button or structure a basic sentence.

In Conclusion...

I should have mentioned earlier that I am guilty of committing every single one of these sins in the last week alone. It actually made it pretty easy to write this post; I simply looked back into my Sent folder for the things that I wish I had not pushed out. Please do hit me over the head if you see me use them in the weeks to come though.

And for those people who used these phrases in communicating with me last week: This is a gentle reminder that the real purpose of this post was to make you smile for five minutes during your coffee break.

I'm probably missing quite a few of your favorite words and phrases to hate, so add them in the comments below...

(Finally, let's all agree to kill off cheesy stock photos, like mine above!)

Bob Gilbreath is co-founder and president of Ahalogy, a leading Pinterest marketing company, and author of The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with your Customers by Marketing with Meaning. Follow him on Twitter.