While English is the main business language in most countries and in most international business engagements, within the English language, there are major variations.
In some companies, they have almost invented their own version of the English language. They have developed their own ‘office language’ to such an advanced level that it almost becomes another language on its own.
How should you approach such a scenario? How should you behave in such an environment? Should you also use office language or not?
I choose to be a bit progressive on this one! A little ‘corporate speak’ will do you more good than harm and therefore on the balance, it is better and safer to align with some degree of the culture at your office. In office language, there is a careful selection of words and expressions to convey particular meanings in the local setup.
Words are selected and sentences framed to drive the point home, to sound nice and to manage the understanding of the targeted audience. For example, if some key performance indicators are reduced, masters of the office language will say “we adjusted the KPI” rather than saying “we reduced the KPI.”
Now, why should you really bother about office language? Does it really add value to your communication? To begin with, if everyone is using office language, you need a bit of it to align, gain the backing and support of others and to command the respect of a true professional. If you do not use a bit of the office language while everyone else does so, you will feel and look very different from the rest.
Additionally, this gap between you and the rest of the company that use office language, may grow bigger with time and they may start to ignore and isolate you and this would definitely impact your career progression. You may even be labelled names and tags – negative ones!
Office language helps you to command and project your message with professionalism, influence and power. The powerful communication that comes from office language will make others to view you much more favourable than the case without any office language. But how do you master office language?
The best way is the simple and easy way, listen, emulate and practice. When you hear office language, you will notice it. You may also decide to emulate it next time you are to say something similar. If you keep practising office language, then with time you will quickly master it.
As an example, I remember when I started my first job after university. I joined Shell Exploration and Production Europe under their Graduate Management Development Programme. Barely two or three weeks after joining in January 2006, the information technology (IT) leadership team had a quarterly review meeting to which I was invited as an observer as part of my training.
At the end of the two-day workshop, I was asked to make some remarks as a new joiner. In my three-minute speech, I included a few of the ‘corporate speak’ words and terms I had learnt over the two days and the response from the superiors was extremely positive. They even remarked that I was quickly adopting their language.
Now, let us calibrate this appropriately. I am not advancing the usage of complicated and difficult words and sentences. We should at all times try to keep communication simple and easy to understand and follow.
If you are saying something that sounds rather difficult or complicated, then your target audience will not understand and so there is no need to use that kind of communication
Your ultimate goal is to have clear communication with your peers, superiors and other people you work with.
All the best as you learn office language as one way to rise and shine!
