Back when I had the honor of working with Kirill Klimuk (Duke ‘14) on a start-up project during Spring/Summer 2011, I learned something very important: big words are dangerous. Kirill is incredibly smart, with intellectual capabilities far exceeding my own (though he doesn’t like to admit it). He reads philosophy books for for fun, enjoys crafting essays by the sentence and has a vast vocabulary. So when he speaks, it isn’t suprising that he is a fan of “big words”… words that are not commonly used and many folks might not even be familiar with. It drove both of us nuts when I made him stop an explanation to define the wacky word he just said.
The problem is that Kirill is the minority. Most people do not talk like him, do not understand his words and have zero desire to learn them. In the business world, using big words is a problem because it can lose people. Business to me is about brevity, clarity and simplicity. I want to do something as quickly, cheaply and as simply as possible while maximizing the amount of money I make (if I did otherwise, I should expect to be kicked to the curb as a COO). Big words make the listener stop thinking about the big idea of the discussion and instead get lost in considering “wait, what does that word mean and what are its implications?” The bigger problem is that while they were thinking about that, they zoned out for the next 2 sentences I told them, which might have been my business’ value proposition.
Buzz words have the same problem. A pitch or explanation that is drowning in buzz words is just harder to understand. Particularly in an executive role, I want to hear things in the simplest, clearest language possible without any fluff. Give it to me in a bulleted list and bold what is important. Don’t clutter anything with tricky language or buzz words. Remember, people are lazy. Many times they simply won’t exert the effort to understand complex language, they’ll just walk away. If that was a customer, potential A+ employee, etc… well then we just lost.
Don’t get me wrong – I have an immense respect for Kirill’s command for the English language. But when it comes to business, I like the term “dumb it down.” Keep it so simply that it is nearly impossible to misunderstand. Eliminate as much verbage and complexities as possible from explanations, pitches and emails. Big words are great for linguists, writers and academics. However, they have no place in business.