Oh, the resistance you’ll face when you try to speak human.
The excuses for why it can’t be done; shouldn’t be done. The absurdities you’ll hear to justify speaking the Language of Business. Unlike any other dialect, this stilted corporate prose will one day baffle linguists with its archaic form. The bastard of formal speech and writing from the turn of the 20th century, it exists ostensibly to bewilder.
Yes, if you’ve ever tried to push communication past predictable, chances are you’ve met with one of these reasons why it can’t be done:
Legal: We have to say it like this …
Branding: Our brand guidelines say we need to say it like this …
Complexity: It’s too complicated or technical to explain simply …
Cost: We don’t have time or budget to say it better …
Tradition: This is how we’ve always said it …
Fear: We can’t risk saying it like that …
Professionalism: We need to say it that way to be professional …
To put it quite bluntly, these are all terrible excuses. Whether it’s a legal document, policy manual or corporate strategy, if we want attention, engagement and influence, we need to be speaking human.
So let’s break these excuses down in more detail, and arm ourselves with some answers.
Legal
‘We have to say it like this …’
Many organisations have a warm and friendly tone … until it’s time for a contract or policy. Then the vibe ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
