Say What You Mean: How Fancy Words Make You Sound Anything But!

For some reason the phrase stakeholder reminds me of a particular line in one of the later seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the scene Spike is explaining his intentions to Buffy, claiming that he doesn't have romantic ideals of them shacking up in a little house with a white picket fence.

He remarks (about the white picket fence), that it is bloody dangerous for one thing.

Now, in case you aren't a millennial of the female variety I'll explain why this is funny: Spike is a vampire and a white picket fence is basically a row of stakes. He's right, 'tis bloody dangerous in the context. (Also note: I couldn't find a clip of this scene so you're running on Hannah's memory alone for this which is also dangerous).

I know, neither Spike or Buffy mention stakeholders. But in my brain the word stakeholder and this scene are irreparably and intrinsically linked. When someone says stakeholder I conjure images of people literally holding sharp sticks. Then my brain jumps to vampires, then to this scene (lol!), and then eventually my brain makes its way back to the topic at hand: actual real world stakeholders.

Amusingly, the concept that stakeholders are literally dangerous isn't entirely without merit. Your stakeholders might not be holding literal stakes, but they can stab you just the same. Spike is onto something: dealing with stake(holder)s is bloody dangerous work.

It's also funny to me that our civilised and professional term for wrangling people is kind of on the money?

A fact that makes it pretty unique.

Case in point: I spent the vast majority of my career believing that document analysis was some fancy research technique. Turns out it just means to look at carefully at documents so as to understand the meaning of.

In case this doesn't seem familiar, this is literally the definition of reading.

Yup! We put a fancy label on reading. We obscure it. Jazz it up. Make it sound important. Maybe you need certification to undertake such a laborious and intensive task? We never just say what we mean.

This is the definition of jargon.

Doesn't every functioning adult do gap analysis every time they look in their fridge and cupboard before heading to the grocery store? We all do root cause analysis when we encounter a problem — flat tire? Was it a nail or sabotage? Likely the most dangerous form of stakeholder management is keeping your mother in law happy during a holiday meal. And aren't we doing requirements elicitation when we gather everyone's preferences and constraints before we order takeaways?

The difference is we'd never use those terms in those settings. At work, though? We take these same normal human activities — reading, asking questions, keeping track of things — and wrap them in professional language that makes them sound way more complicated than they really are.

This attachment to jargon — where we dress up what we do — is everywhere in business analysis.

Jargon is specialised or technical language that is not understood outside of a specific group.

Don't get me wrong, jargon serves a purpose and amongst experts it can be an easy shorthand. But it has other impacts: using jargon signals that you're part of the club. It creates an artificial barrier between those who know the lingo and those who don't. When you casually drop terms like requirements elicitationand stakeholder mapping, you're not just describing activities — you're demonstrating your expertise and status to other members of the club.

It is an elaborate inside joke. And one not without downsides.

All that fancy language actually works against us. Studies show that jargon reduces the actual understanding of the message, reduces the perceived clarity, and also reduces the recipient's confidence in the accuracy of the message. Most importantly, there's evidence to suggest that too much jargon undermines trust and credibility in the speaker. In our roles — where our position is entirely based on trust and often on our personal credibility — you can see that this is a bit of a problem, no?

And this is all without even mentioning the impact on collaboration and team work: creating insider knowledge is inherently exclusionary to anyone not familiar with the jargon (this is especially true for anyone who is operating in a language which is not their native tongue). People unfamiliar with the terms have to interrupt the flow to clarify — an act that requires a certain level of confidence that not everyone has in spades.

Deciphering nonsense takes effort and time that is in short supply.

Ironically, research has also found that clear, straightforward language generally makes the speaker sound more credible. And when people aren't overloaded with buzzwords and jargon they have more mental capacity to spend on the actual message.

A finding that absolutely aligns with my experience in the wild.

Stakeholders feel lost and confused and bewildered if you use jargon. Our managers don't understand what (or why) we're doing anything when we hide behind buzzwords. And our colleagues suspect we're taking the piss (they're not entirely wrong).

The only people who you impress with your jargon is other experts and there are limited situations when other experts really matter to your success.

When you're not kicking around on LinkedIn that is.

Okay, so fine, jargon sucks. We shouldn't use it. It bad.

But can you actually ditch the jargon and still sound like you know what you're doing?

Well, it can feel scary — at least at first. And especially scary if you have been told that the lingo matters. When you say I read through the documents and talked to people to figure out what they needed, instead of I conducted stakeholder analysis and requirements elicitation, there's this moment where you think you sound daft. Like you're not actually being helpful. Like you're just doing really obvious simple stuff that doesn't move the work forward. Like what are you even doing in this room?

But keeping things simple is the very essence of expertise in action.

True expertise isn't in any one particular skill or activity. It is far more about knowing which documents to read, who to talk to, how to make sense of what you find, and what skill to apply. It's seeing the patterns, asking the right follow-up questions, and connecting dots that other people miss. When you can easily and simply explain what you actually did and how it helped — that's when people really start to trust that you know your stuff.

So instead of stakeholder management, maybe say keeping everyone in the loop and making sure they continue to support us. Instead of gap analysis, you could say figuring out what's missing. Instead of requirements elicitation, perhaps say working out what people actually need (which will inevitably be different from what they say they want).

When we talk about our work in plain language, people actually understand what we do. And remarkably, they usually have brains and eyes and they can see how it helps the bigger picture.

Yes, it means standing in the discomfort of sounding less professional. But that discomfort is worth it when you realise that people actually understand what you're saying.

Trust me. You should try it.

Which (finally) brings us to why I've spent my Saturday writing this spiel. Like many things, it was a LinkedIn post that triggered the thought. Someone was posting advice about how to break into business analysis, and the post claimed that Language signals expertise (a true, if somewhat misleading statement — see above), followed by if you learn the lingo, you’ll learn everything else

Well heck. While it is possible there are other statements I disagree with more, nothing comes to mind.

Ironically, I actually consider it my job — our job as experts — to look past lingo to the skills and thinking patterns that lie underneath. I couldn't care less what you call it, I want to know if you can see second-order impacts, if you care about people, and how you communicate. This is what would signal capability and expertise to me. Not the jargon you layered on top.

Also, if you come at me with lingo, but without the actual skills, or you can talk about concepts, but not the realities of that activity on the ground, then I — and any other expert — will absolutely see through it. And if you try to hide the lack of expertise with jargon and lingo, the fact that you tried to hide it will seriously reduce any credibility that you had.

Lingo is actually the complete opposite of what I'm looking for.

But obviously, I'm not necessarily who is interviewing you. There are three situations where you should absolutely ignore my advice thus far.