R
16

My CEO asked me 'what does that even mean?' after reading our new mission statement

He was holding the draft I'd spent 3 weeks wordsmithing and just looked confused. Has anyone else had a leader force them to scrap the corporate jargon and actually say something plain?
2 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In
2 Comments
quinn582
quinn5823d ago
I wrote a whole team charter last year full of phrases like "synergistic workflows" and "value-added outcomes." My old boss loved it, but new management asked me to explain it to a new hire and I just froze. Now I keep a sticky note that says "would my dad get this?" on my monitor. That one question changed how I write everything at work. Plain language isn't lazy, it's respectful. Your CEO might be doing you a favor even if it feels rough right now.
2
laurar38
laurar382d ago
But what if the problem isn't the jargon itself, but how we use it? @quinn582, I see your point about plain language, but sometimes those specific terms are shorthand for complex ideas our team already knows. The freeze-up moment you had sounds like the real issue was writing something even you couldn't explain, not the phrases. Maybe the goal should be making sure we can always translate our own work talk into simple terms, not getting rid of it completely.
3