Things you DON’T want to say

Communication Tips

                           

 

Things you DON’T want to say

July 23, 2014 | Written by: Antoine Dufosse 

by
Antoine Dufosse

The 12 Most Overused Business Buzzwords

Does anyone actually like business jargon, or is it just a bad habit? Found in corporate offices, startups and resumes alike, business buzzwords and phrases like “think outside the box” are so overused at this point that they no longer convey any actual information. Although sometimes a word or phrase might feel appropriate for a business situation, more often than not, there are clearer ways to explain yourself.With this in mind, I asked a group of 12 founders which pieces of business jargon they wish fellow entrepreneurs and startups would stop using.Here are their top choices:

 

1. Hit the ground running

 

I hear this phrase come up at the end of almost every meeting that I’m in. Whether it comes from somebody on my team or from a client, it’s become a cliché. The goal is always to have positive progress with any new initiative. This phrase is unnecessary and redundant.

— Michael Quinn, Yellow Bridge Interactive

 

2. Visionary

 

Entrepreneurs and startups should never refer to themselves as an expert, guru, visionary or any similar term in the first person. That moniker is typically reserved as a bold statement recognized about you by others. It is not something you should have to declare to the world.

— Parker Powers, Millionaire Network

 

3. Think outside the box

 

I’m so tired of hearing this in all capacities in the business world. Yes, it has an important meaning — but please “think outside the box” and find a new way to say this! Differentiate yourself from every other person who read one business book and now thinks they are Jack Welch or Mark Zuckerberg.

— Tim McHugh, Saddleback Educational

 

4. Innovate

 

The way that really strong words like innovation are being turned into nothing more than marketing jargon is not good for the business world. Products, services and companies should earn the right to be deemed innovative.

— Caitlin McCabe, Real Bullets Branding

 

5. Influencers

 

Many brands want to get their products in front of “influencers,” and events these days always advertise they’re going to be full of “influencers.” This term used to mean individuals who had a high amount of influence over a certain market or fan base. However, these days it’s just a jazzy way of saying, “We’re having a party. Invite all your friends as long as they have jobs and aren’t crazy.”

— Travis Steffen, Cyber Superpowers

 

6. Pivot

 

Pivot has become the glamorous way of saying that you changed something that wasn’t working. Call it what it is. Admit that you made a mistake or a subpar product/service and that you found a way to adjust it. I have much more respect for calling it like it is than trying to put a pretty bow on something to try and save face.

— Darrah Brustein, Network Under 40 / Finance Whiz Kids

 

7. Paradigm shift

 

OK, the term “paradigm shift” is technically a valid way to describe changing how you do something and the model you use. But it has been so overused in the business world as to be redundant — now we’ve got paradigms shifting paradigms of paradigms. I even saw Kevin Spacey use it in a GQ interview a while back. Come on people, think of a new expression! Spacey particularly. I don’t think Frank Underwood would approve.

— Grant Gordon, Solomon Consulting Group

 

8. Engagement

 

A common and discreditable practice among startups and marketers alike is using the buzz word “engagement” as a real measure of evaluation. It dilutes the success of your efforts with a vague statement that generalizes all of the resulting actions, when in reality each action should be weighed separately and with corresponding degrees of value. Engagement is a fluff word in a world of increasingly improving measurement and evaluation tools. It has no place here.

— Fabian Kaempfer, Chocomize

 

9. Value add

 

I’m providing a service or product or good that is useful to you. That is the value add. There’s nothing more to add to it. It works or it doesn’t. It has valuable characteristics or not. I just don’t like terms that suggest that something is or should be more than itself.

— Ty Morse, Songwhale

 

10. Pre-revenue

 

I hate when founders use the term pre-revenue to describe their “game-changing” startups. With few exceptions, businesses exist to make money. If you’re in the third year of your startup and you’re still pre-revenue, chances are you have an expensive hobby, NOT a company. Go back to the drawing board and come up with a business model that works.

— Brittany Hodak, ZinePak

 

11. Growth hacking

 

A growth hacker is what lazy people call an expert marketer. It’s also a trendy phrase among wantrepreneurs. Some people argue that growth hacking is something new, when really it’s just a fancy way of saying business development or marketing. I believe people come up with new phrases for old ideas and they catch on. Not to sound cynical, but speaking as a marketer, the phrase growth hacking is really just marketers marketing marketing (themselves). After all, if it’s new, fewer people understand it and it then commands a higher premium as far as monetary or equity compensation. The reality is that the skill set growth hackers are pulling from is the same one used by other marketers for the last century. So let’s be honest and call it what it is: marketing.

— Matthew Ackerson, Petovera

 

12. Game changer

 

I have seen numerous people describing their latest product or service as game-changing or a game changer. This usually turns out to be mainly hype. For one thing, this expression doesn’t really have a precise meaning. To me, something is only a game changer if it’s truly revolutionary and changes the way things are done. Some examples include the automobile, personal computer and smartphone. How many products fall into this category? When you say something is a game changer, you then have to live up to your own hype and reveal something outstanding. Most of the time, it’s better to tone down your rhetoric and be more realistic about what you’re offering.

— Shawn Porat, Fortune Cookie Advertising

The Importance of Questions in Conversations

Communication Tips

The Importance of Questions in Conversations

by Jon Mertz on September 24, 2012 in Everyday Life

There is an odd thing happening in conversations. When you meet someone new, the conversation is lopsided with only one person asking questions of the other. When an acquaintance or colleague is done answering the questions, they just walk away. It is unfulfilling for the person on the other side.

It seems some are eager to tell their story. Some are willing to tell a lot about their weekend or viewpoint. The missing element in conversations is the return questions. All is becoming a fast and energetic one way flow of information.

Mark Twain once said:

“A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.”

Today, my take is:

“A person’s character is learned from the questions unasked in a conversation.”

We need to take a deep breath in conversations, as they should be a mix of giving and taking in. A rhythm to conversations occurs when questions are bouncing back and forth. All are being heard and involved.

 

A few conversational points to remember:

Answer questions fully. 

When asked a question, tell your story or give your answer fully. Others were interested enough to ask, so answer with what you are comfortable with.

Give people your full attention.  

Put away your digital devices, and stop looking for someone else to talk with. Pay attention to the person in front of you. Being fully present in every conversation will speak well of your character.

Ask questions to gain an understanding. 

At times, asking the same question of another is appropriate and right. At other times, it may be more valuable to ask a different question to gain a deeper understanding. Listen to the questions being asked, and build upon them. 

An escalating inquisitive conversation will develop better relationships for projects and initiatives, as well as just expanding the human connection.

Take a mindfulness test at the end of a conversation.  

When a conversation has ended, spend a few minutes reviewing it in your mind. How many questions were asked by all involved? Was there a balanced curiosity? Was the time learning about each other equitable? We need to learn from our conversations by gauging our presence and then taking some mental notes for the next one.

There are few things more satisfying than an interactive and thoughtful conversation. A well-composed conversation is one in which all are asking questions of each other, listening to learn, and building on each other’s views and stories.

What conversational points would you add to raise the value of our exchanges?

6 phrases never to say again

Communications Tips

 

6 phrases never to say again

 

By Jeff Haden | Inc 
Wed, Jan 11, 2012 3:32 PM EST

Love catchy business speak? Before your next meeting or presentation, make sure you aren't guilty of one of these useless (& annoying) verbal tics.

Years ago, I worked for a manager that was the poster child of buzzwords. He loved slipping “cones of precision” and “silos” and “drill down” and… well, let’s just stop there.

(Oh, he also bought one of the first Palm Pilots, so roomfuls of people often sat waiting while he laboriously entered timelines and schedules into his calendar. Yep, he was one of those.)

One of my colleagues maintained a running list of this manager’s buzzwords. If this colleague heard a new one, he pulled a small notepad out of his shirt pocket and wrote it down. Whenever he whipped out his pad two things happened: 1) the manager looked smug and proud because he thought he had just said something so insightful the supervisor wanted to capture for it for posterity, and 2) the rest of us tried not to laugh because we knew what was really going on.

Guess how productive those meetings were.

Unfortunately, we all have a little of that manager in us. We use the same words too often, or without noticing use irritating speech patterns, or simply fall in love with certain expressions. (I’m definitely guilty; I once carried on a passionate and all-too-public affair with “that’s neither here nor there.”) When we do, whatever we hoped to say gets lost.

See if you’re guilty of any of these:

1. The Double Name: Using a person’s name twice-- especially your own-- in the same sentence as a way to justify unusual or unacceptable behavior.

Typical usage: “What can I say? That’s just Joe being Joe.” (Or even worse, “What can I say? That’s just me being me.”)

Whenever you say a person’s name twice as a way to describe them you’re actually making an excuse for behavior you would never tolerate from someone else.

And everyone knows it.

2. The Fake Agreement: Pretending to agree while expressing the opposite point of view.

Typical usage: “I can definitely see what you’re saying, but I just don’t think we should take on that project.”

In fact, you don’t really see what I’m saying because otherwise you would agree with what I’m saying. Beginning a sentence with, “I hear you…” is like a condescending pat on the head.

Don’t try to couch a different opinion inside a warm and fuzzy Fake Agreement. If you disagree, just say so professionally.

3. The Unsupported Closure: Ending a discussion or making a decision without backup or solid justification.

Typical usage: “At the end of the day, we’re here to sell products.”

Really? I had no idea we’re supposed to sell products!

Unsupported Closure is a go-to move for people who want something a certain way and don’t feel like, or can’t, explain why. Whenever you feel an, “At the end of the day…” coming on, take a deep breath and start over, otherwise you’ll spout inane platitudes instead of objective reasons that may actually help your employees get behind your decision.

Quick note: A Fake Agreement combines nicely with an Unjustified Closure: “I hear what you’re saying, but at the end of the day revenue concerns must come first.” Win-win!

4. The False Uncertainty: Pretending you’re not sure when, in fact, you are.

Typical usage: “You know, when I think about it I’m not so sure shutting down that facility isn’t the best option after all.”

Oh yes, you’re sure; you’re just trying to create buy-in or a sense of inclusion by pretending you still have an open mind… or you’re planting seeds for something you know you will eventually do.

Never say you aren’t sure unless you are truly willing to consider other viewpoints.

5. The First Person Theoretical: Pretending to be another person in order to explore different points of view.

Typical usage: “Let’s say I’m the average customer. I walk in your store. I want to buy a shirt...and so on."

You can get away with this occasionally, but more than once a year is really irritating.

Think about it. Let’s say I’m the average reader and I know someone who uses the First Person Theoretical to pretend they’re putting themselves in someone else’s shoes. And let’s say I’m thinking it’s really irritating. In fact, let’s say I’m thinking we can just move on.

6. The Favorite Word: Using a word so often that word is all anyone hears.

Typical usage: Simply pick a word and hammer it to death.

I had a boss who never met a sentence he couldn’t find a way to shoehorn “in other words,” “in general,” and “regarding” into. Often he could cram all three into the same sentence, sometimes multiple times. I kept track one time and counted thirty-seven “in other words” in a four-minute span.

Hey, I’m not proud. I’m also not worried about him reading this since he’s probably off somewhere clubbing baby seals.

When you fall in love with a word or expression, other people not only tire of it but they hear nothing else. Whatever you hoped to get across gets lost as people think, “Oh jeez, for once could he leave out the ‘that’s neither here nor there’”?

Ask someone if you overuse a word or phrase. At first they’ll look uncomfortable and try to avoid answering. Insist.

Eventually they’ll tell you, and I promise you’ll never use that word again.

The neuroscience of communication

Communication Tips

The neuroscience of communication

by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman

http://www.psychologytoday.com

If I were to put you into an fMRI scanner—a huge donut-shaped magnet that can take a video of the neural changes happening in your brain—and flash the word “NO” for less than one second, you’d see a sudden release of dozens of stress-producing hormones and neurotransmitters. These chemicals immediately interrupt the normal functioning of your brain, impairing logic, reason, language processing, and communication. 

In fact, just seeing a list of negative words for a few seconds will make a highly anxious or depressed person feel worse, and the more you ruminate on them, the more you can actually damage key structures that regulate your memory, feelings, and emotions.[1] You’ll disrupt your sleep, your appetite, and your ability to experience long-term happiness and satisfaction.

The Power of the Unconscious

The altered state of mind.

If you vocalize your negativity, or even slightly frown when you say “no,” more stress chemicals will be released, not only in your brain, but in the listener’s brain as well.[2] The listener will experience increased anxiety and irritability, thus undermining cooperation and trust. In fact, just hanging around negative people will make you more prejudiced toward others![3]

Any form of negative rumination—for example, worrying about your financial future or health—will stimulate the release of destructive neurochemicals. And the same holds true for children: the more negative thoughts they have, the more likely they are to experience emotional turmoil.[4] But if you teach them to think positively, you can turn their lives around.[5]

Negative thinking is also self perpetuating, and the more you engage in negative dialogue—at home or at work—the more difficult it becomes to stop.[6] But negative words, spoken with anger, do even more damage. They send alarm messages through the brain, interfering with the decision making centers in the frontal lobe, and this increases a person’s propensity to act irrationally.  

Fear-provoking words—like poverty, illness, and death—also stimulate the brain in negative ways.  And even if these fearful thoughts are not real, other parts of your brain (like the thalamus and amygdala) react to negative fantasies as though they were actual threats occurring in the outside world. Curiously, we seem to be hardwired to worry—perhaps an artifact of old memories carried over from ancestral times when there were countless threats to our survival.[7]

In order to interrupt this natural propensity to worry, several steps can be taken. First, ask yourself this question:  “Is the situation really a threat to my personal survival?” Usually it isn’t, and the faster you can interrupt the amygdala’s reaction to an imagined threat, the quicker you can take action to solve the problem. You’ll also reduce the possibility of burning a permanent negative memory into our brain.[8] 

After you have identified the negative thought (which often operates just below the level of everyday consciousness), your can reframe it by choosing to focus on positive words and images. The result: anxiety and depression decreases and the number of unconscious negative thoughts decline.[9]

  

The Power of Yes

When doctors and therapists teach patients to turn negative thoughts and worries into positive affirmations, the communication process improves and the patient regains self-control and confidence.[10] But there’s a problem: the brain barely responds to our positive words and thoughts.[11] They’re not a threat to our survival, so the brain doesn’t need to respond as rapidly as it does to negative thoughts and words. [12] 

To overcome this neural bias for negativity, we must repetitiously and consciously generate as many positive thoughts as we can. Barbara Fredrickson, one of the founders of Positive Psychology, discovered that if we need to generate at least three positive thoughts and feelings for each expression of negativity. If you express fewer than three, personal and business relationships are likely to fail. This finding correlates with Marcial Losada’s research with corporate teams,[13] and John Gottman’s research with marital couples.[14]   

Fredrickson, Losada, and Gottman realized that if you want your business and your personal relationships to really flourish, you’ll need to generate at least five positive messages for each negative utterance you make (for example, “I’m disappointed” or “That’s not what I had hoped for” count as expressions of negativity, as does a facial frown or nod of the head).

It doesn’t even matter if your positive thoughts are irrational; they’ll still enhance your sense of happiness, wellbeing, and life satisfaction.[15] In fact, positive thinking can help anyone to build a better and more optimistic attitude toward life.[16] 

Positive words and thoughts propel the motivational centers of the brain into action[17] and they help us build resilience when we are faced with life’s problems.[18] According to Sonja Lyubomirsky, one of the world’s leading researchers on happiness, if you want to develop lifelong satisfaction, you should regularly engage in positive thinking about yourself, share your happiest events with others, and savor every positive experience in your life.[19]

Our advice: choose your words wisely and speak them slowly. This will allow you to interrupt the brain’s propensity to be negative, and as recent research has shown, the mere repetition of positive words like love, peace, and compassion will turn on specific genes that lower your physical and emotional stress [20]. You’ll feel better, you’ll live longer, and you’ll build deeper and more trusting relationships with others—at home and at work.

As Fredrickson and Losada point out, when you generate a minimum of five positive thoughts to each negative one, you’ll experience “an optimal range of human functioning.”[21]  That is the power of YES.

 For more information on the effects of positive and negative speech, see Words Can Change Your Brain (Newberg & Waldman, 2012, Hudson Street Press), and for strategies to reduce stress and improve communication, visit www.MarkRobertWaldman.com.

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[1] Some assessments of the amygdala role in suprahypothalamic neuroendocrine regulation: a minireview. Talarovicova A, Krskova L, Kiss A. Endocr Regul. 2007 Nov;41(4):155-62.

 [2]HaririAR, Tessitore A, Mattay VS, Fera F,Weinberger DR.. The amygdala response to emotional stimuli: a comparison of faces and scenes. Neuroimage. 2002 Sep;17(1):317-23.

 [3] Duhachek A, Zhang S, Krishnan S. Anticipated Group Interaction: Coping withValence Asymmetries in Attitude Shift. Journal Of Consumer Research. Vol. 34. October 2007.

 [4] The Role of Repetitive Negative Thoughts in the Vulnerability for Emotional Problems in Non-Clinical Children. Broeren S, Muris P, Bouwmeester S, van der Heijden KB, Abee A. J Child Fam Stud. 2011 Apr;20(2):135-148.

 [5] Protocol for a randomised controlled trial of a school based cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) intervention to prevent depression in high risk adolescents (PROMISE). Stallard P, Montgomery AA, Araya R, Anderson R, Lewis G, Sayal K, Buck R, Millings A,Taylor JA. Trials. 2010 Nov 29;11:114.

 [6] What is in a word? No versus Yes differentially engage the lateral orbitofrontal cortex. Alia-Klein N, Goldstein RZ, Tomasi D, Zhang L, Fagin-Jones S, Telang F, Wang GJ, Fowler JS, Volkow ND. Emotion. 2007 Aug;7(3):649-59.

 [7] Wright, R. The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. Vintage, 1995.

 [8] Erasing fear memories with extinction training. Quirk GJ, Paré D, Richardson R, Herry C, Monfils MH, Schiller D, Vicentic A. J Neurosci. 2010 Nov 10;30(45):14993-7.

 [9] Generalized hypervigilance in fibromyalgia patients: an experimental analysis with the emotional Stroop paradigm. González JL, Mercado F, Barjola P, Carretero I, López-López A, Bullones MA, Fernández-Sánchez M, Alonso M. J Psychosom Res. 2010 Sep;69(3):279-87.

 [10] [Negative and positive suggestions in anaesthesia : Improved communication with anxious surgical patients]. Hansen E, Bejenke C. Anaesthesist. 2010 Mar;59(3):199-202, 204-6, 208-9.

 [11] Kisley MA, Wood S, Burrows CL. Looking at the sunny side of life: age-related change in an event-related potential measure of the negativity bias. Psychol Sci. 2007 Sep;18(9):838-43.

 [12] May I have your attention, please: electrocortical responses to positive and negative stimuli. Smith NK, Cacioppo JT, Larsen JT, Chartrand TL. Neuropsychologia. 2003;41(2):171-83.