People
Issue No. 18 - August/September 2004
Simplicity is genius
by Adrian de Brenni
Say what you mean, save time, and get what you want.
We all need to get things happening and achieve results – and our time is limited. Then why is there so much jargon in use that prevents effective communication – communication that is essential to achieving results?
Jargon — words, clichés and phrases which become common in business, and creep in to everyday use — can be annoying at the least, and at worst they are the cause of misunderstandings that waste considerable time and resources.
Here are a few that come to mind: granularity, backward-compatibility, core competencies, run-the-numbers, silos, demographic, horizontal, vertical, on-the-same-page, synergistically, KPIs (key performance indicators), the-bottom-line, proactive, and the one that annoys me the most – incentivize. I am sure that this is not really a word and I have written it with a ‘z’ because it must have come from the USA. What’s wrong with ‘motivate’?
This babble even appears in professional development courses and curricula — which in some cases are the original source.
Most of these terms are perfectly legitimate as long as the people using or hearing them understand the context. (Instead of context I could have said on-the same-page). However it is an assumption that there is a common context, so why not just say what you mean without any ‘buzz words’?
Consider this example: ‘horizontal integration of the participants’.
Some people are thinking about suppliers and distributors of products getting together to decrease the costs of providing products to the retailers. Others are thinking about the missionary position. Just say what you mean!
How then do we avoid this misunderstanding, annoyance and time wasting? You have to want to. This first step is all that is required.
Once you are committed to simplifying things and really value simplicity, the changes will follow. You will see things more c...
