Corporate jargon; isn’t it a great thing? Siobhan Sharpe on BBC’s brilliant Twenty Twelve sitcom is a genius at representing the PR world and she has voiced some brilliant one liners such as ‘if you have a plan b it just means you plan to fail’.
Last month I found myself falling into the corporate speak trap when I was at my desk writing the following:
‘I think we should touch base in order to ensure we are aligned on actions.’
Luckily, sanity kicked in and I found myself furiously stabbing the backspace before it was too late and my hideous words had been put in ink, so to speak. What I really meant to say was:
‘Let me call you so that we aren’t confused on what we have to do’.
Much simpler! Working in communications, I should be breaking things down and making things less convoluted. However, the busier I get, the more I find myself reverting to corpspeak. (revert in itself is a questionable word). Therefore I from today I am on a mission to reduce the level of corporate speak I use. The following phrases are banned:
Can I have visibility of that? = can I see it?
Are we aligned? = do we both get it?
What are our actionables on that? = what do we need to do?
Have we started outreaching to them? = have you called them?
Let’s touch base first thing = let’s talk in the morning
What are our measurables? What are our targets?
Any others I should include?
Asad Dhunna 