Is face time fast losing face in the corporate world? “It won’t be soon enough for me,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant D. Singh. “It is our role to communicate with our people (known today as internal publics). All this jargon —such as ‘face time’ — is making it impossible.”

These columns have discussed corporate jargon before, the last time being when Bullfighter — a software programme to help eliminate corporate jargon — was launched. Bullfighter has come a long way since. You can now download and instal it on Microsoft Word. At the click of a mouse, you know how much bull you are generating. (Incidentally, as with all things American, fighting bull is now big business. There is a book on the subject — Why Business People Speak Like Idiots — and management seminars to help eliminate bull.)

It doesn’t seem to be working very well, however. The anecdotal evidence is that more bull is being created than ever before. Have you heard of Buddha Nature? Unlikely. “It’s the One True Home of a page or resource in a website’s structure,” says Blog designer and technology innovator Jeffrey Veen. “There may be multiple pathways for arriving at it, but it only lives in one spot. Example: You can get to your account statement from any banking page, but its Buddha Nature is the Document Centre.” If you didn’t like that, try another: “Boil the Ocean. Try to solve too many problems with an over ambitious project, typically resulting in a complete failure.”

Corporate jargon used to be the language of a freemasonry, the knowledge of which separated the insiders from those knocking on the doors. “Today, as employee turnover rates spiral and companies begin ramping up numbers, you have to be far more lucid in your communications,” says Singh.

Even earlier, studies of annual reports and chairman’s speeches had shown that higher jargon content meant lower returns to shareholders. Now comes research to show that jargon is creating barriers within the organisation. A survey by Investors in People, an organisation that works for business improvement, says that more than half the employees in the UK are sick to death of management jargon. But 55 per cent of the managers think jargon is harmless. Among employees, two-thirds feel that the workplace would be much better if there were no jargon at all. One-third says that the problem will get worse if not nipped in the bud.

Another poll in the UK by communications consultancy, CHA, says that employees are so frustrated by the ineffectiveness of communication initiatives that six out of 10 who failed to understand such messages planned to leave the organisation. “It is a natural tendency to feel isolated,” says Singh. “It’s like railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav being refused membership of the India International Centre. You just don’t belong to the club.”

In management schools across the country, jargon is something you acquire as naturally as your six-figure monthly salary. If you don’t throw in “net, net” a couple of times, you are clearly not a heavy hitter. Despite your native talents, in the fight for the corner office you are going to be betamaxed (“when a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior but better marketed competition”).

Incidentally this story has a Bull Composite Index of 7.5. It has an average sentence length of 14.9 words. The diagnosis: “Teetering on the edge of unclear. The overall meaning remains discernible, but it becomes possible to lose oneself in corollary thoughts, which can detract from the core point of the written article.” Bull.

GOING STRONG

Some new jargon and survivors

Assmosis: The process by which some people absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss.
Big Bang: A major launch event.
Blamestorming: Sitting around and discussing why a project failed, and who was responsible.
Percussive maintenance: The art of smashing, whacking, kicking or punching a machine to get it to work.
Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes: Trying out an idea or product to see if anyone likes it.
Salmon day: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

Source: Internet sites