Inspiring Workplaces 
The Way Work Ought to Be!

#1,026 - June 19, 2024

Soul-sucking language contributes to soul-sucking workplaces. Everyone needs to take responsibility for communicating with simple, everyday language that actually, you know, means something!

(Late-breaking news alert! We interrupt this regularly scheduled edition of Inspiring Workplaces to announce some exciting news. As of mere hours ago, my latest baby, book #9, Small Moments, Big Outcomes: How Leaders Create Cultures That Fuel Extraordinary Results, is now available on Amazon! You are amongst the first humans to know, but please don't keep it a secret! We now resume with our regularly-schedule programming.)   

Polly LaBarre, author of Mavericks at Work, coined the phrase "jargon monoxide" to talk about the convoluted and meaningless language we often use at work. 

The authors of the book, The Friction Project, have gone a step further, classifying four types of jargon monoxide at work. Have a gander at the list below and ask yourself which of these might best describe some of the communication in your workplace?  

Convoluted Crap: Using far too many words, longer and more complicated words, and more twisted explanations than is necessary!

Meaningless BS: Empty and misleading communication that is meaningless to both the sender and receiver. 

In-Group Lingo: Specialized, technical, and well-defined lingo that facilitates communications and feelings of belonging among insiders but undermines communication and coordination with outsiders who can't decipher what people in the club are talking about. 

Jargon Mishmash Syndrome: When a label or phrase means so many different things to so many different people that it is devolved into a random scatter of ideas. 

And for many years I've also warned audiences of the soul-sucking dangers of too much "deja moo" at work: The eerie feeling that you've heard this bull before!

If you want to reduce the jargon monoxide in your workplace it starts by simply being aware of how demoralizing and damaging this type of communication can be and making a conscious effort to speak and write using plain language.  

Try playing jargon bingo in your meetings as a reminder to keep your language simple, have a "BS jar" where people have to pay a fine towards your charity of choice every time they use an annoying buzzword or acronym, or do what one of my clients does and hold a theme day once a month where everyone purposely 

speaks in convoluted, buzzword-y ways as a reminder to keep their communication simple the rest of the month!