The rhetoric of business is often pompous and befuddling. Don’t let this happen to you.
Nice to see we’re not the only ones who complain about indecipherable business communications.
Check out this Oct. 29 column by New York Times media critic David Carr about a CEO’s internal memo at magazine magnate Conde Nast (Vogue, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, etc.). Looks as though employees are having a hard time understanding their boss’s lingo (“consumer-centric business model,” “holistic brand management approach” and “multi-platform, integrated sales and marketing organization”). Sounds like a consulting firm ghostwrote the memo.
Executives aren’t impressed by breakthrough ideas communicated incoherently for a good reason: They need to understand the ideas first in order to recognize their novelty. Thought leaders use simple and familiar language to explain big, complex concepts.
If this is the case, why is so much content produced by professional and other B2B firms so indecipherable? Anyone have a theory? Let’s hear it.
Originally published 10/29/2010