I’ve known Phil Simon for a while now as a speaker and author on management, and so when he told me he was writing a book on my favorite subject, communication, I thought it was time to have a chat. Specifically, Phil’s taken on that perennial problem, jargon and business nonsense-speak. I can only stand back (way back) and applaud as Phil takes on this monstrosity. Here’s the Q and A – enjoy!

Nick: What’s wrong with jargon? Isn’t one person’s jargon another person’s expertise?

Phil: Quite a bit, actually, and the problem has worsened in the business world over the last fifteen years. The word communicate means “to make common.” Cleary, many executives and rank-and-file employees have forgotten that. The business landscape is littered with terrible language from people who ought to know better. For example, over the last six months, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has consistently dropped the ball explaining his company’s strategy to investors.

The problem is that many business folks routinely forget their audiences. They forget —or have never heard of—the curse of knowledge. We’ve all seen IT people who seem to speak a different language when dealing with non-technical employees. What happens? Employees roll their eyes, tune out, or simply don’t understand what’s taking place. On the web, there’s no shortage of mind-numbing, vacuous marketing copy. Salespeople often speak in buzzwords and then wonder why their prospective clients don’t pull the trigger.

I’ve been railing against this for years, and it was time for me to channel those thoughts and suggestions into what I hope is an accessible, useful thought-provoking, full-length text.

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Nick: I agree completely – about the empty talk. But don’t we need some level of jargon within a profession—like medicine, say — to express the subtleties of specialized knowledge?

Phil: You’re right about specialized knowledge, and I make that very point in the book. While the uses of “like” as a noun and “friend” as a verb are recent changes, language has evolved since its inception. As a corollary, jargon has always existed. By no means is it a new phenomenon. I don’t pretend otherwise, nor am I the arbiter of what constitutes jargon. Still, it doesn’t take an English professor to point out confusing language—and there’s an abundance these days. It became clear to me over the past few years that poor communication was inhibiting many organizations, groups, departments, and individuals. It’s time for us to think about not only what we say, but how we say it.

No one expects a doctor to address another doctor in plain English. Both presumably know what the other is talking about. Time is of the essence when personnel are an operating room, saving their patients’ lives. They know what they’re discussing, even if John Q. Public does not. Does the same hold true, though, in the business world? Do we absolutely have to use confusing language when simpler alternatives exist?

Nick: OK, if it’s bad – and we all know it’s bad — why do we biz people take refuge behind jargon-laden phrases?

Phil: There are many factors. Management consultants are some of the worst purveyors of jargon alive. It’s as if they need to unnecessarily complicate language for fear that a simple-sounding solution won’t justify their lofty rates. Many suffer from the delusion that management is a science akin to biology or chemistry. It’s not. Management is a very important discipline, but it doesn’t follow immutable laws. Inventing ostensibly impressive phrases and words seems to make many feel people important and valuable.

There’s plenty of blame to go around, though. This is not just a consultant issue and, to be fair, I’ve met my share of plainspoken consultants who didn’t feel the need to obfuscate.

Many executives set the tone for their organizations. Far too many bastardize the language and make the simple complex. It’s understandable for those who want to climb the corporate ladder to mimic the actions of their organizations’ top brass. A vicious cycle results, one that inhibits others from truly understanding what we’re saying. Even worse, we’re often afraid to call bullshit on those who make zero sense. This goes double if that person is more senior to us.

We want to feel smart and important. This goes double when we’re concerned about job security and promotions. Is that understandable? Sure. We’re all human.

By using confusing language via a torrent of emails, though, we make things unnecessarily complicated. For some reason, many of us fear simplicity and directness in our communications. In reality we should embrace them. As Albert Einstein once famously said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

Nick: What’s the single worst effect of jargon?

Phil: Here’s another quote from the past. George Bernard Shaw also once famously said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” I love that quote, and it’s on the inside jacket of the book. We think that we’re being clear when we write and speak. Who truly thinks that s/he is not communicating well?

To answer your question more directly, jargon causes many problems, but perhaps the single biggest is the erosion of trust. Don’t take my word for it, though. In 2010, psychology professors Jochim Hansen of New York University and Michaela Wänke of the University of Basel in Switzerland published a study that confirmed what many of us have known intuitively for a long time. Hansen and Wänke discovered that people are more likely to think you’re lying if you use abstract language rather than concrete terms and phrasing. In their words, “Statements of the very same content were judged as more probably true when they were written in concrete language than when they were written in abstract language.”

The authors’ ironically clunky term: linguistic concreteness offers major benefits.

Nick: Is jargon increasing or decreasing as a problem?

Phil: As I write in Message Not Received, it’s on the rise for a bunch of reasons. Perhaps most important, marketers want to own individual terms. The race to the top of Google’s organic results has never been fiercer. As a result, consulting firms, software vendors, and marketers are inventing newfangled concepts at a faster clip than ever.

If you doubt the increase in jargon, consider the following. We’re receiving more emails than ever. As I’ve written my prior two texts, employees are being forced to deal with more information that ever. Ditto for your everyday consumer. Let’s say that received 100 emails per day in 2000 and 15 percent contained confusing language. You had to follow up with the sender 15 times to get more clarity.

Fast forward to today. You receive 150 emails per day and the same percentage confuses you. You now have to go back to the sender more than 20 times and ask for more information. If you don’t, then the sender’s message wasn’t truly received.

Nick: Why did you write Message Not Received now?

Phil: That’s a great question. I’ll be the first to admit that many other books address business communication. To boot, jargon has been with us for a very long time. So why write this book now?

I truly believe that we’ve reached a tipping point, and my research confirmed as much. Employees have never been more overwhelmed, the subject of Chapter 2 of my book. They’re being asked to integrated more content, more messages. They’re checking email on weekends, holidays, and vacation (when they take it). They’re constantly on call, barely able to keep their heads above water.

Fortunately, there’s a two-fold solution, and I didn’t see any book out there that attacked this problem from this particular angle. First, we can embrace simpler language. There’s no reason to use terms like “value-add use cases” and other linguistic atrocities. Beyond that, everything need not be communicated via email. New, truly collaborative tools like HipChat, Smartsheet, and scores of others make it easier than ever to communicate effectively. And let’s not forget the ability to go old school. Sometimes, an in-person meeting or phone conversation is the best way to proceed. Far too many of us seem to have forgotten that.

Nick: Thanks, Phil. Here’s to clear communications.