I started my professional life in a
newsroom working for a television
station in New Zealand but by the time I
was about 22 I was burnt out ambition
overtaking basic human needs like eating
or sleeping so I decided to move into a
less demanding industry finance I took a
role in employee communications in a
large global bank and when I first
started it was quite overwhelming
suddenly I had to learn this whole new
language business I had deliverables
base slides I was touching base I think
I was even circling bases I got very
confused but after not too long I became
part of the business club and soon I was
easing everything synergizing monetizing
I didn't learn things I had learnings
and it took me a while to realize I was
using a lot of words but not actually
saying a lot jargon it pervades
corporate culture unnecessarily complex
or empty language complicating otherwise
simple messaging I even heard someone
jargon eyes jargon ironically
complaining about unnecessary verbiage I
mean when you say you'll reach out you
mean oh or email or starting an email
with going forward
I mean it's generally implied anything
you're talking about it's probably from
that point forward I also enjoy
translating what people actually mean
when they use jargon often I'll hear
people casually throw around to a sip Oh
Thea if you could just get that to me a
sip let it be great what they really
mean is Thea get this to me now actually
ten minutes ago or pain point we've
identified a new pain point
an implementation what I hear is we've
got a big problem we're not really sure
how we're going to solve it
for the most part jargon serves
absolutely no purpose whatsoever it's a
lazy way of speaking a way to make
yourself sound important often you're
just not really sure what you're trying
to get across using broad terms to avoid
thinking through your point or to avoid
accountability now working in employee
communications it's my role to translate
corporate goals and actions and make
them relevant to the individual employee
in a sense my team is their corporate
voice now this is hard for me to admit
but at one point I put this in an email
we will optimize our strategic position
by engaging the market proactively and
working towards an evolving future state
model the first thing you'll realize is
doesn't really make sense secondly what
am I actually trying to get across how
do you engage a market proactively is
that just sales and then there are those
kind of really long and detailed
PowerPoint presentations that are
actually really important we know and
understand we just don't have time
recently I was sent an especially long
jargon filled presentation from a
department that I wouldn't want to
single out so
so I asked them can we reduce the number
of fly it's kind of simplify the
language so they made it shorter they
reduced the font and increase the
margins not quite what I meant you can't
underestimate the importance of the way
we communicate language shapes how we
think feel and ultimately act how often
you seem to communication and just don't
really know what it's trying to say let
alone ask you to do I believe it's this
kind of language that means cynicism
pervades our companies I could cite
endless surveys across all industries
that say 60 70 even 80 percent of our
employees are disengaged and partly
that's down to how they're being talked
to so I'm doing the best at my end but
this needs to be a collective effort to
build an open honest and direct
environment we need to simplify what we
say and forget the verbiage so I'd like
to share three very simple and kind of
widely accepted rules for effective
communication number one know your
audience we all have things that are
important to us but it's important to be
realistic about the other person's
motivations number two know what you're
trying to say I mean seemingly obvious
but it can take time to really think
through a point number three get to that
point and do it quickly the other person
is just probably really busy so I hope
today that I've inspired you to think
twice about what you say before
responding in a meeting or pushing the
send on an email because it's really
important to me that I have your buy-in
and that you're engaged and we're on the
same page but if you want to follow up
or talk offline just reach out and I'll
see what I can bring to the table to
ensure we move this forward in its a
win-win