I am working on a New Year’s resolution. Going forward, I intend to leverage the opportunity to embed a more accessible communications framework across my leadership ecosystem. I am going to try to speak more clearly. It is only November, but I may need a run-up.
Management speak is infectious. You can enter a meeting as a reasonably articulate adult and emerge an hour later promising to socialise a proposition. Nobody objects. Someone writes it down, and you are expected to do it by Thursday.
I am guilty of this. Sometimes I use these expressions because I am tired; sometimes because everyone else is using them. Occasionally, I suspect, a grand phrase makes an ordinary task sound more impressive. “Ask a few people what they think” hardly justifies an afternoon in the diary. “Undertake a stakeholder engagement exercise” could keep you occupied until Easter.
My current favourite is “narrative”. We need to get the narrative right. What is the narrative here? Have we agreed the narrative? Listening to me, you might think we were halfway through writing a novel rather than preparing a staff update.
Sometimes it is the word I mean. Facts need context, and explaining how a decision came about matters. But I suspect I also use it when “explanation” would do perfectly well. “We need a clearer narrative” sounds considered and strategic; “I don’t think we’ve explained this properly” requires me to admit that we have some work to do.
“Going forward” is another temptation, although the direction is generally assumed. “In future” would usually do. Often, we could simply start the sentence two words later.
Then there is “reaching out”. We used to contact people. Now we reach out to them, as though conducting business from opposite lifeboats. It seems rather an emotional undertaking for an email asking whether someone has finished a spreadsheet.
“Take it offline” makes sense during an online meeting. In a room full of people, it means that two of them should discuss something later without making everyone else listen. I am strongly in favour of this, whatever we call it.
I am less sure about “socialising” a paper. I picture it being taken to a drinks party and introduced to the other papers. Perhaps it returns with greater confidence and a few useful contacts. In practice, we mean circulating it for comments, which sounds straightforward enough to put in an email.
Some expressions earn their place. “Bandwidth” is a useful shorthand for the amount someone can reasonably take on, although I should pay closer attention when I hear myself saying it. “She hasn’t got the bandwidth” can slip past a meeting rather easily. “She is already working flat out” might prompt us to do something about it.
I have no wish to police every metaphor or insist that colleagues consult a plain English handbook before speaking. Meetings are quite long enough already. People working together inevitably develop a shared vocabulary; explaining every familiar term from scratch would test everyone’s patience.
The trouble comes when the language leaves us unsure what has been agreed. “Alignment” sounds reassuring, but it is worth checking whether everyone has actually agreed to the same thing. Otherwise, the next meeting will be devoted to discovering why nobody has done what everyone else expected.
What are we doing? Who is doing it? When does it need to be finished? These are useful questions, even if asking them does make you sound like the person who wants to get away for lunch.
There is also language that puts a little distance between a decision and its consequences. “Optimising our operating model” may sound reassuring in a presentation. Anyone whose job is affected will want a more precise explanation. If we are stopping a service, reducing a budget or asking fewer people to do more work, we owe them that explanation.
As a charity chief executive, I should pay attention to my own contribution. Volunteers give us their time, colleagues bring their skills, and supporters trust us with their money. They deserve to understand what we are doing. A sentence that sounds impressive to me may simply be an obstacle for the person reading it.
So I am starting to practise. I shall ask whether I mean “use” when I say “leverage”, and whether I am asking for an explanation when I request a narrative. I shall also try to accept correction graciously when someone points out that I have spent a minute saying something that required ten seconds.
There will be lapses. I have been attending meetings for a very long time, and some of the vocabulary has put down roots. Please feel free to remind me of this resolution when I next suggest that we cascade something. Unless it is water, “tell people” will probably do.
