{"id":514,"date":"2015-06-17T10:00:38","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T10:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/?p=514"},"modified":"2025-07-01T17:20:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:20:24","slug":"just-say-no-to-business-speak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/just-say-no-to-business-speak\/","title":{"rendered":"Just say \u201cNo!\u201d to business-speak."},"content":{"rendered":"

Whatever it is you do for a living, chances are you use some sort of jargon or slang or made-up words that you use to communicate with others who are in your line of work.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Airline pilots speak their own language.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Doctors and nurses talk to one another in med-speak.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Lawyers, scientists, and computer geeks use words, terms, and phrases that the rest of us don\u2019t understand.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>People in the military, government workers, and building contractors do the same thing.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And not to be left out, those of us who are plain, vanilla business people, do it too.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Unfortunately, if the goal is to communicate clearly, concisely, and with precision, much of the jargon we use falls short.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Business-speak can be obscure, confusing, or vague.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Besides, it tends to make the person using it sound like a pompous ass.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Below are a few business terms that have outlived their usefulness (assuming they ever were useful) and that you should consider eliminating from your vocabulary.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>If you think you may be guilty of using some of these terms, please read on below.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just say \u201cNo!\u201d to business-speak.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOK people, this is a real game changer.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ve got to on-board our new learnings to give us the bandwidth we need to repurpose our core competencies.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>I need your buy-in here, so let\u2019s drill down, do a deep dive on this, and get real granular.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Huh?<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have ever talked like that, you are the afore mentioned pompous ass, and you need to seek professional help.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But assuming you stick mostly to the King\u2019s English with only a smattering of business-speak here and there, the suggestions below for trimming your business-speak vocabulary may be helpful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Move the <\/span><\/strong>needle – what needle?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And where are we supposed to move it?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Actually, I have been known to use this one myself and I hate to part with it, but it does have to go.<\/span><\/p>\n

Open the kimono<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 think naked 400-pound sumo wrestler.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Eeeew.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Gross!<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take it offline<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 no, let\u2019s not.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s just talk about it later.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reach out<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 there\u2019s a danger here you may touch something you\u2019re not supposed to.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Safer to call, text, or email.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take it to the next level<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 most people think we\u2019re already on the next level.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>So if we\u2019re not, where the heck are we?<\/span><\/p>\n

On a going forward basis<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 what\u2019s the matter with \u201cIn the future . . . \u201c or \u201cFrom now on . . . \u201c?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Fewer words, same meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ideation<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s even a word.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>I bet some marketing guy, bored with \u201cbrainstorming,\u201d made it up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Disintermediate<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 use \u201ccut out the middleman\u201d instead.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s easier to say and people will actually understand what you mean.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of the day<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 another phrase I\u2019m guilty of using myself, but it\u2019s gotta go.<\/span><\/p>\n

Best of breed<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 only if you\u2019re at a dog show.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tee it up<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 only if you\u2019re playing golf.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not a definitive list of business-speak terms . . . not even close.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The above are intended only to sensitize you to business-speak terms so that you can begin purging them from your business lexicon.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>If you want to see the entire universe of pretentious business terms, just type \u201cbusiness jargon\u201d into your search engine and all sorts of stuff will come up.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, you can think outside the box, looking for a window of opportunity to grab some low-hanging fruit in a bid for transparency and a shift in your paradigm.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Or you can just clean up your business language.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Your choice.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whatever it is you do for a living, chances are you use some sort of jargon or slang or made-up words that you use to communicate with others who are in your line of work.\u00a0 Airline pilots speak their own language.\u00a0 Doctors and nurses talk to one another in med-speak.\u00a0 Lawyers, scientists, and computer geeks<\/p>\n

Read More\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,36,33],"tags":[90],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}