Many of us have a strange love-hate relationship with business jargon. When asked, we tend to say we hate it. But then, if we examine our workplace communication — emails or even speech — we find we use it frequently and would struggle without it. What’s more, when people ask for jargon-free documents, they often discover that the result doesn’t feel very “professional” to them. So, what explains this disconnect — and can we find a way to use jargon judiciously?
Where does jargon come from?
Students of jargon and buzzwords might reflect that jargon often has roots that are every bit as rich and interesting as other parts of the language. Some early jargon was a result of World War II. Those who had served rejoined the civilian workforce and found a new home for military terms and concepts in management language — hence everything from “strategy” and “tactics” to phrases like “on my radar”. The much-maligned phrase “paradigm shift” was introduced by the philosopher Thomas Kuhn in 1962 to describe the way science advanced radically, while “pushing the envelope” originated with space flight and gained widespread use after Tom Wolfe wrote his 1979 classic, The Right Stuff.
More recently we have the idea of corporate narratives and storytelling that draw on everything from the arts to psychology. And we have some great jargon from globalisation and outsourcing. The influence of Indian English has given us “do the needful” (ie, do what is necessary), the succinct “revert” (get back to you), and the wonderful “prepone” (bring forward, as opposed to postpone).
What benefits does jargon bring to workplace communication?
For starters, some jargon is genuinely useful. Words like “stakeholder” and “synergy” and “incentivise” do not have exact, concise nonjargon equivalents. Incentivise, for instance, cannot be fully replaced with similar words like “encourage” or “motivate”. Although words like stakeholder, etc., might be considered “management speak”, they convey a shade of meaning that would otherwise require unwieldy phrases. What’s more, a lot of business jargon is also specific to certain industries. “Mouthfeel”, for example, is widely used in the food industry (a full-fat yoghurt has a nice mouthfeel), and words such as “diversification” and “liquidity” and acronyms such as ROI and EBITDA are valuable pieces of finance vocabulary.
What else does jargon do?
Industry language and terms can be used to signal and reinforce belonging to your community or “crowd”. By employing certain terms, you’re telling people you belong to an in-group, whether they are accountants, engineers, lawyers, or landscape gardeners. Particularly for those joining professions, it’s part of building a professional identity at work. It’s also very useful on social media such as LinkedIn, as, again, it sends out the right signals to those you want to connect with. Finally, jargon can make you feel more confident in what you’re doing by giving you a feeling of legitimacy and expertise.
Think about your audience
If you are talking to people within your group where the jargon terms are widely understood, then a certain level of this type of language is acceptable. Indeed, not using it would be peculiar. However, if you’re speaking to an external audience, then you should avoid jargon that is not widely understood outside your industry (although you might still use more general business and managerial terms). Similarly, if you’re working on a team that draws people from multiple functions, you should not use language that is exclusive to your area — but rather terms that are widely understood.
When is jargon bad?
Jargon is bad when it is used to obfuscate meaning. You often see this when people want to make their jobs sound more complicated and grandiose than they are. Particularly if you are speaking to internal or external clients — or other stakeholders — you should be trying to explain what you are doing clearly, not bamboozling people with technical vocabulary and impressing them with how clever you are. You should aim to be inclusive in your language — and not use jargon to deliberately exclude people from conversations, discussions, documents, etc.
Jargon is also bad when you use it to distance yourself from unpleasant actions you have to take, such as making people redundant. Here you need to be straightforward, rather than dress things up in confusing language (which at worst can give people false hope). Finally, it’s also worth thinking about the clarity of your own thought. It can be a good exercise to set things out plainly and ask yourself, “Would an educated layperson understand this?” as a kind of sense check.
Is there a clear business communication model?
It’s often said that the business media is a good model for clear writing at work. This is true, but the business media speaks to a very broad and quite general audience. It tends to pointedly avoid jargon and explain anything that a reasonably educated person might not have come across. So in work communication, it is often practical and desirable to use more jargon and specialised terms than The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, or Japan’s The Nikkei does, although their clarity is to be emulated.
How business jargon is used beyond work
One factor that has driven the acceptability of business jargon in recent decades is that we increasingly use it in our everyday lives. Partly this reflects a blurring of work-life boundaries and a tendency to identify more with our jobs. But it also shows that people take a more professional approach to their personal lives. That is, they set goals and see tasks (such as redecorating a home or training for a triathlon) as work-like projects with measurable outputs and use a businesslike vocabulary to describe these things. This is why, once you look, you see the use of business jargon everywhere, from reality TV shows to parenting. The rise of self-help has contributed considerably to this, too. Both management thinking and self-help draw heavily on the social sciences, and there is considerable overlap between self-help and careers advice.
All of this has led to everyday vocabularies that are considerably richer in businesslike jargon than those of 20 years ago.
Rhymer Rigby is a journalist and author of The TV MBA: Business Lessons From Popular Culture. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Oliver Rowe at Oliver.Rowe@aicpa-cima.com.
LEARNING RESOURCES
MBAexpress: Communicating for Connections With Coworkers, Clients, and Customers — V 2.0
This course will discuss different personality styles and demonstrate the different ways to communicate information to them.
COURSE
This course focuses on the first part of the Covey formula: asking questions and listening so you understand better.
COURSE
MEMBER RESOURCES
Article
“Tips to Enhance Communication With Nonfinance Colleagues”, FM magazine, 5 October 2023
Podcast episode
“Why the ‘Best Strategy in the World’ Will Fail Without Strong Culture”, FM magazine, 28 January 2026
