Is your writing poisoning your readers with ‘jargon monoxide’?

Have you heard of jargon monoxide?

I hadn’t, at least not until Tammy Tansley alerted me to it in a LinkedIn post. I immediately purchased The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder, by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao. Chapter seven of the excellent book is dedicated to “the convoluted, soulless and meaningless language used by too many leaders, consultants and gurus.”

Believe me when I say jargon monoxide is everywhere, not just in the higher echelons of management.

The problem with jargon monoxide, according to Sutton and Rao, is it fuels misunderstanding and confusion about a) the meaning of the word salad on the page, and b) what the reader is supposed to do with the undigestible mess in front of them. The result is a lack of collaboration and accountability. The words were thrown down for a reason but if no one can figure out why, they won’t respond as expected. Heads will roll because your new policy, call to action, or battle cry goes unheeded.

If you don’t want it to be your head on the chopping block, or if you genuinely don’t want to put your colleagues and customers on life support, it’s time to quit spewing garbage dressed up as authority.

There are four types of jargon monoxide identified in the book, which some won’t consider safe for work. The labels below are my SFW substitutions:

• Hubba-Jubba – too many words, too many long words, too many complicated words and too many confusing explanations. It’s all too much.

Example: Should the installer of the heating and cooling system refuse to assist you in addressing the noise emissions, the manager of the residential association will have no other option than to require you to expeditiously take action to ensure noise emissions from the heating and cooling system comply with the assigned levels to prevent occupiers of nearby premises from being disturbed.

• Meaningless Babble – empty, misleading statements (and both the writer and reader know it).

Example: ACME blends cutting-edge technology with strategic initiatives to create game-changing internal processes and unparalleled customer manifestations of the virtual world in real time.

• Lingo Bingo – only insiders can make sense of what’s on the page; everyone else will be confused and feel excluded.

Example: By optimising for inclusivity, engagement, flexibility, and collaboration, collaborators can amplify their Agility and accelerate innovation, delivering impactful solutions faster and together.

• Jargon Confusion – different meanings to different people render any writing useless. Avoid it at all costs.

Example: Words such as dynamic, synergy, holistic, flexible, innovation, engagement, solution, activate, platform – I could go on and on.

Jargon monoxide sucks the joy out of reading. Worse, it wastes time for both the writer and the reader.

Dan and I are thick into awards season so we’ve been inundated with all forms of jargon monoxide. Our biggest challenge when writing award submissions – aside from brutal word-count limits – is to translate the way a company likes to talk about themselves into something the judging panel will remember for all the right reasons. We take inspiration from poets, songwriters, cartoonists and comedians, who are masters at conveying emotion in a few lines or sentences.

From Swift to Springsteen, Schultz to the Marketoonist, and Handley to Handler, the masters remind us that removing clutter in our writing increases connection with our readers.

Advice from the experts

Removing friction is not a new concept for writers. I heed advice from these experts every day:

1. “The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.” – William Zinsser, On Writing Well, published 1976
2. “ . . . brevity is the soul of wit.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet, published 1603
3. “Omit needless words.” – William Strunk Jr., The Elements of Style, published 1920.

Barack Obama understood the power of less, especially when it came to connecting with his audience. He gave his chief speechwriter Cody Keenan this advice (shared by  bookstagrammer Lupita Acquino, – aka Lupita Reads – on the old Twitter):

“And on one particularly weighty draft he turned in, I told him to go home that night, pour a drink, and listen to some Miles. I told him the thing about Miles Davis is the silences. The notes he doesn’t play. So with that in mind, go take another swing at your draft, find me some silences, and then I’ll get to work.”

You can apply the same concept to writing. Knowing what to leave off the page – and having the confidence to do it – is the best thing you can do for you readers.

Jargon monoxide improves nothing. Removing it puts the humanity back into your writing and your readers will love you for it.

Trust me.