If you are like most tech people I know, you believe the precise word makes you sound like you know your stuff. The right acronym, the internal name for the platform, the metric only your team can spell out, and the VP nods along like it’s all clear.
Every time I’m in meetings with external teams, I get extremely annoyed, because they use loads of internal jargon. I hate it even more when senior managers and CDOs do it.
Here’s what I think the jargon says about you, and why it matters more for your next step than for the meeting you’re in.
Also, I included a list of 119 words, phrases and abbreviations, translated into real human language.
you think the right word makes you sound senior
People invent wording, thinking they look smarter. Nobody understands what they mean, so they need to explain it, and they end up sounding even more complicated.
You say “SLA“, “CDC“ and “the gold layer“ in front of people who decide your budget, and you assume they’ll keep up, because keeping up with your words is their job.
Keeping up is your job, and you do it by making your work simple enough that nobody has to look anything up.
I don’t think jargon alone stalls anybody’s career. This alone can’t be the reason. But it’s a strong signal of poor communication skills to the person in front of you. That person doesn’t always decide whether you get the next step, but they can definitely influence that decision, because at the very least they talk to the decision makers.
Every word you have to stop and explain tells the VP you can’t make your own work simple.
I’ve been in meetings where we spend a third of the time explaining words to a VP, instead of actually solving the problem we meant to.
In a 60-minute call that’s 20 minutes of a senior person’s time spent on a glossary, and the problem you came to fix gets whatever is left over. The VP doesn’t want to look slow, so they don’t stop you, and you leave thinking the call went fine.
your own team pays first
I’ve led people who complained about teams that don’t explain what they mean.
The teams use internal language, and new joiners don’t want to interrupt them, so the meeting can continue. They feel left behind, don’t learn anything and don’t contribute. It takes them more time to onboard, and they feel stupid and excluded the whole way through.
Use plain words in those meetings and you’re the one the new joiner follows, title or no title. That’s a big part of what leading looks like before anybody gives you the job.
Good communication is essential if you want to grow and talk to non-technical people. And good means simple.
I strongly believe that if you truly understand something, you can explain it with simple words to anybody. Getting to data work in executive language is a bigger skill, and it starts with dropping the words they’d have to look up.
I’m not sure simple ever feels senior while you’re saying it. It feels exposed, like you’re giving away the thing that made you sound smart. I still think it’s the skill, because even when the person in front of you doesn’t decide, they talk to the people who do.
So, I have a simple rule in my team:
Avoid jargon at all costs. If you use an abbreviation, use it with the whole phrase.
We call it the unified data warehouse, never “Nexus“. And nobody says “Our GRR is 89%“. We say “Our GRR, Gross Revenue Retention, is 89%“.
The abbreviation stays, so the team keeps its shorthand, and the whole phrase comes with it, so nobody stops the meeting to ask. It’s a boring rule, and it cuts a hell of a lot of bullshit.
If you want the people who decide to see what you do, my founding member plan gets you this sheet, every paid piece, the Design Your Promotion recordings and 3 coaching calls on your own case, and the annual plan is the cheaper way in without the calls.
Obviously, terminology exists for a reason. But you must only use it when you know everyone is on the same page, and avoid in any other case.
the dictionary to replace yours
As promised, here’s my plain language sheet. It holds 119 terms from data and business work, each next to the plain word to say instead.
Read through it once, and then use it as a reference sheet. I strongly recommend copying it into your team’s wiki and keeping it up to date with your team’s corpus.
Upgrade now to get the plain language sheet
final thoughts
I’ve been thinking a lot about intelligence and adaptability a lot lately. I notice that people who see themselves as highly intelligent are often stubborn. They use the same complex language no matter the audience, and when it comes to decision-making, they hold to their opinion until the last possible moment.
But my strong belief is that intelligent people are adaptable. They change opinions and plans quickly according to the situation. They pick their fights based on the situation and change the way they talk based on the audience.
And when it comes to career in data, and in general, leaders only promote highly intelligent, adaptable people. So, if you are one of these stubborn people, maybe it’s time to rethink the way you attack problems.
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Until next time,
Yordan