Let’s\u00a0optimize our strategies to ensure they are customer-centric in order to deactivate cannibalization<\/em>. Wow! That is a lot of buzzwords! Would we be saying the same thing if we used words like\u00a0build a plan to ensure that our products meet our customers’ needs so well that they use our new products AND continue to use our old ones<\/em>.<\/p>\n Let’s try another one. The headwinds we will likely face will necessitate a new paradigm.<\/em> Really? As an alternative, let’s\u00a0recognize that continuing to do things as we do them today will not be successful<\/em>.<\/p>\n We’ve all been there. The speaker has just finished. Maybe we were listening to the economist at the annual meeting or the expert who knows more than we do about how to achieve success. Everyone in the audience is looking out the corners of their eyes, without moving their heads, to see if anyone else understood what was just said. The speaker’s liberal use of buzzwords and otherwise uncommon language helped him clearly establish why he was\u00a0the speaker<\/em>\u00a0and others were\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0the audience. <\/em><\/p>\n Buzzwords can be awesome. They can be fun to use. They can make us feel current, connected, and (if we are totally honest) maybe even a little smarter than the average colleague. However, in the wrong situation, they can have a negative effect.<\/p>\n One wrong situation for the use of buzzwords is while guiding an organization. Instead, use simple communication – words that will be consistently understood and interpreted. As one client told me – put it in our language and not the language of a consultant. Ouch! Smart client!<\/p>\n You can always do a self-audit, but you run the risk of looking at it through your own lens and not the lens of those who matter more. As an alternative, ask those around you. Have them play back a specific message you conveyed (the telephone game with two people) to find out what they heard. Ask them to serve as the buzzword police and point out when you use overly-complicated words. Maybe you already use simple communication. But then again, maybe you don’t. If you don’t know, you should know. It may be an opportunity for you to expand your leadership bandwidth and help streamline<\/em>\u2026 er, I mean help you be a better leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We’ve all been there. The speaker has just finished. Maybe we were listening to the economist at the annual meeting or the expert who knows more than we do about how to achieve success. Everyone in the audience is looking out the corners of their eyes, without moving their heads, to see if anyone else understood what was just said. The speaker’s liberal use of buzzwords and otherwise uncommon language helped him clearly establish why he was the speaker and others were only the audience.<\/p>\n Buzzwords can be awesome. They can be fun to use. They can make us feel current, connected, and (if we are totally honest) maybe even a little smarter than the average colleague. However, in the wrong situation, they can have a negative effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,6],"tags":[15,16],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":619,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Use Buzzwords Carefully<\/h3>\n
How do you know if your communication is simple?<\/h3>\n