Banishing Buzzwords

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The members of Connect: Professional Women’s Network dish on the words that drive them nuts at work—and how to avoid using them.

Banishing Buzzwords

We all know them—the bosses and coworkers who rely so heavily on clichés

that they can hardly utter a sentence without spewing out at least one. In one

of Connect’s most popular discussions to date, members vented about the words

and phrases that set their teeth on edge.

We’ve rounded up the most (or should we say least?) popular offenders, along

with some helpful tips about how toavoid falling into the jargon trap.

“Team player”“Touch base”

“Step up to the plate”

“Aim for the goal post”

“Get the ball rolling”

“Raise the bar”

THE SPORTS ANALOGIES

“Tee it up”

“Hit a home run”“Slam dunk”

“Step up your game”“Hit the ground running”

“People will say ‘I just want to touch base with you.’ This would only make sense if we were baseball players. I’m an accountant, for crying out loud. Let’s all just agree to remove that phrase from our vernacular.”

Jennifer Pluff, Senior Accountant

“Win-win frequently means ‘win for us, and we think we can sucker the other side into thinking it is a big win for them.’” 

Melissa Migliuri, Research Analyst

“Clichés are an easy crutch people often use in both verbal and written communication. The real goal should generally be to form our own rather than automatically grabbing for a stale expression someone else came up with.”

Karen Tavares, VP, Investigative Science and Engineering

“Utilize” “Value-added”

“Success-driven” “Keep me in the loop”

“At the end of the day”

“Get your creative juices flowing”

“Skill set”

“Mindshare”“Moving forward”

“Get on the same page”

“Low-hanging fruit”

MIDDLE-MANAGEMENT JARGON

“Think outside the box drives me crazy. In my environment, it’s often used by people who want to criticize the current process without contributing something positive. How about ‘Let’s get creative!” or “How can we approach this in a different way?’”

Sarah Descamps, Sales & Marketing

“Circle back is the phrase I find most annoying. Not only does it sound silly, but I’ve often found it’s a kind way of saying, ‘We’re putting this off indefinitely.’ I seldom find that anyone circles back to anything.”

Helen Gaye Brewster, Sales Associate

“Sometimes it depends on who’s saying it. You know those overly slick and insincere people who like to bandy phrases about so they seem in the know? The ones who toady up to executives and order administrative assistants around because it makes them feel better about their middle-management careers? Those folks can make ANYTHING annoying. Even a perfectly wonderful word like namaste.” Tara Browne, Brand Coordinator and Production Finance Manager

“It’s above my pay grade”

“We’ve always done it that way”

“Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken”

“It is what it is”

“Let sleeping dogs lie”

“I don’t ask questions”

COP-OUTS

“I don’t like bandwidth, as in ‘I simply don’t have the bandwidth to support that right now.’ I prefer to hear ‘’It’s not my priority at the moment given my current workload.’ We are not computers…or at least most of us aren’t.”

Tina Lancaster, Coding Assistant Manager

“It is what it is. True, but if the situation is dysfunctional, do something to change it!”

Heather Dykes, Human Resources Director

“For all intensive purposes”

“Orientated”

“A whole nother”

“Déjà vu all over again”

“Not at the current time”

“Revert back”

“Exact same”

JUST PLAIN WRONG

“Irregardless. It’s not even a word! I was listening to an interesting speaker the other day making a great presentation. Then he said irregardless, and he completely lost me. I have no idea what else was said.” Julie Denton, PMO Coordinator

“Don’t even get me started on previous experience (as opposed to the experiences you haven’t yet had?) and each and every (‘nuff said).

Lesa Kerlin Kiebel, Development Coach, Resume Writer

“So many supposedly affirmative phrases reinforce the divide between management and the people they want to motivate. We’re tired of hearing them, yet so few have the courage to speak plainly and fairly with their reports. It’s a lot harder and more risky to connect and empathize with the person you’re tasked with overseeing. But in the end, if you can achieve that balance (manage without losing your humanity), you restore credibility to your position.”

Barbara Berger, Creative Director

“Incentivize”“Blue-sky thinking”

“LEAN IN”

“Prioritize”“Synergize”

NEW-OFFENDERS

“How about dialogue when used such as ‘Have you dialoged with them?’ Ugh! It makes me crazy!”

Rachelle Petrancuri, Relationship Manager

“Let’s take this offline. Why can’t you just say, ‘We will talk about it later’?”

Jennifer Boglioli, Co-Interim Director of Alumni Relations

“If we speak authentically and really consider our words, I would suspect that none of these phrases would show up, and we’d all be better communicators.”

Sally Ann Phillips, Vice President of Marketing

CONNECT: PROFESSIONAL WOMEN’S NETWORK©2013 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved. 22

Join the conversation!Connect: Professional Women’s Network, Powered by Citi, is an online community on LinkedIn that helps women achieve the careers they want and discuss the issues relevant to their success.

For more great insights from Connect members, check out the discussions: What are some of the phrases that drive you crazy? and What SHOULD we be saying in the workplace?

Visit linkedin.com/womenconnect for more information and to join the group for free!

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