Few things are more annoying than the idiotic way that people usually communicate in the business world. What could be said quite clearly is often obscured or inflated so much that it loses all meaning—it is reduced to pure gobbledygook. I’m not only referring to marketing jargon, which ought to have a stake driven through its heart, but also to the way that most of us have learned to populate our emails, reports, and presentations with cryptic acronyms and hollow business-speak, resulting in little real substance and no real impact on our audience. If you’d like your voice to be heard, I recommend a book that I read this week: Why Business People Speak Like Idiots.

Written by three bright, witty, and plain-speaking former jargonoholics, this book is worthwhile, entertaining, and a quick read. I read it during a recent flight from Oakland to Boston. From the first page you’ll recognize the truth and importance of its message. Practicing what they preach, the book opens with these words: “Let’s face it: Business today is drowning in bullshit.” Yes, they could have said this more politely, more politically correctly, but they said it as they see it. What they said is true, and we all know it.

So how did it get this bad?

There are many reasons, all of which ensure that nobody makes any real promises or delivers any real meaning. The tide of political correctness has stranded us so that business idiots can’t speak frankly about anything. Fear of liability or even responsibility rules the day, and attorneys shape every document into a promise-free blob of text that deliberately says nothing. And then there are business schools, consultants, and gurus, all of whom make a living repackaging old concepts as something “new.”

Beyond that, there’s technology, which makes it all too convenient to automate the one part of business that should never be outsourced: our voice. Whether it’s using someone else’s jargon, a generic template, or even a speechwriter, too many business people give away their biggest chip in the influence game without a thought. The temptation is everywhere. We now have the option of deleting our personality from what we say and write.

(Why Business People Speak Like Idiots, Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway and Jon Warshawsky, Free Press, 2005, pages 3 and 4)

The authors provide a clear set of instructions for cutting the nonsense from our words and allowing our real voices to find their rightful place in our professional lives. I recommend that you buy this book, read it, put it into practice, and then pass it on to your boss.

Take care,