These days, there are just about as many leadership styles as there are leaders. While most corporate head honchos read at least one leadership book on their way to the top, how they implement those books’ key points are as different as they are and messages can be delivered in myriad ways.
If you’re a leader who relies on corporate buzzwords rather than concrete plans of action and specific goals your employees can follow and your customers can understand, you might as well be one of Charlie Brown’s teachers because just about everyone is going to tune you out whenever you talk.
I understand all too well that buzzwords like “circle back,” “touch base” and “think outside the box” are part of just about every meeting in every boardroom—or on every videoconferencing call these days—and it’s a losing battle to think it would ever be possible to eliminate them completely.
It’s not unlike when I was covering local government meetings for years before my move into the trade publication world and just about every other thing out of members’ mouths was an acronym that they understood but most of the people in the audience didn’t.
I sometimes wondered if that was intentional, because it allowed the board members to say they talked about the situation in a public forum, even if those who were listening had no idea what most of it meant. I see some similarities with corporate buzzwords.
Why Corporate Buzzwords Must Go
Most of us understand what it means when the CEO says the company is taking a “holistic” approach to a project or new initiative, but how will we actually know if that leader achieves the goal he or she sets without adding some metrics that track the progress of that effort?
If you say you’re going to “unpack” an idea with a customer, when do you plan to repack it so the customer can take it back to the hotel or office after the conversation? If your company doesn’t have the bandwidth to address a customer issue, shouldn’t you be calling an IT company to help you?
Words have meanings and when those meanings get lost or manipulated or just made up, it can be a big problem for you, your employees and your customers. Remember when “literally” meant “something that happened exactly how I’m saying it happened?” Those were good times, for sure.
Now, the dictionary definition of the word “literally” includes a definition that says the word now also means essentially the same as “figuratively,” which is literally the exact opposite of “literally.”
Related: A Learning Culture, Not an Organizational Culture, is the Future of Work
If you don’t want your employees and customers to hear your words and interpret however they think best suits them and their needs, steer clear of corporate buzzwords and give precise instructions and metrics that they can follow and track to see whether you’re living up to your commitments.
If not, make sure you pivot so your words align with your agreements or expect you’ll get pinged before long.
