10 Dumbest Words Used By Fundraising Consultants
Each week a river of press releases, proposals and other propaganda flows past our desks, and frankly it’s time to blow the whistle on the puffed up propagators of prolix.
Specifically, I’m singling out those fundraising, branding and communications consultants whose misuse of words and aversion to simplicity and clarity only serve to muddy the waters with their confusion.
Words matter. Indeed, as Mark Twain noted, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
Here are my Top 10 Lighting Bug Words that I pray are soon excised from the Consultant’s Lexicon:
- Integrate – unless something is being physically combined, steer clear of this word. But sadly, if you’re a Buzzword Bingo Aficionado you can rest assured this word will show up in your next meeting or proposal.
- Illuminate – this word is used to ironically suggest the consultant will provide what he/she is incapable of – clarity.
- Solution – because ‘product’ seems so simple or trite.
- Leverage – perhaps the most overused and misused term of all, and that’s saying something. I’ve yet to see a fulcrum or lever in a meeting, and yet this word is all pervasive.
- Relevance – a tricky one since it once was a useful word. Today, its misuse and overuse relegate it to this trash heap of a list.
- Synergy – no commentary required.
- Data-driven – ditto.
- Actionable – on a roll.
- Mapping – everything is getting mapped these days and yet “cartographer” never makes its way high up on the list of careers whose demand is increasing.
- Gobbledygook — Ok, I cheated a bit to get to #10. In reality, this is the outcome when combining inappropriate words into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs.
And although the world is replete with examples, this one is particularly ideal as an illustration of the idiotic use of words.
“The output of this research not only defines the pathways to purchase, but also illuminates ownership of pathway drivers to support the development of potential business strategies. We translate those results into actionable customer mindsets. By locating the prevailing sentiments within our results, we focus our attention on the linkages that derive a clear, audience-verified, personal value. Most appropriately, this is delivered in the form of a customer perspective that demonstrates the prevailing emotional criteria that will best inform how we can influence a customer decision behavior. We then overlay these mindsets with a “mapping of motivations” where we deduce the most appropriate behavior stimulus (motivation) that best connects the customer values and will generate the required customer response needed for our business drivers.”
This is not made up. Somebody (or more probably a committee) actually wrote then recently published it as part of a press release introducing some new, wonderful product. I’ll leave it to you to figure out what the product is or does.
I’m not raising all this to poke fun at the consulting community. After all, I am one, I married one, and my daughter is one. My point is the lack of simplicity and clarity in the consulting world makes us all look bad — guilt by association.
Of course it’s also true that for those consultants who want to put the time into expressing themselves clearly, there is the ability to differentiate oneself. Let’s hope for the good of the sector the competitive spirit soon kicks in.
To that end, it is time to demand more of ourselves, to demand simplicity and clarity and to recognize that achieving it is difficult. Therefore, achieving it is a notable goal. Again, Mark Twain: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”
Take more time. And if you can’t achieve simplicity and clarity, then delegate the writing task to someone who can. What and how we communicate matters.
And nonprofit clients can help too. Be on the lookout for gobbledygook and call it out. It is a sign the consultant is:
- Too busy to write simply and clearly.
- Too lazy to do it.
- Not capable of doing it and too busy or lazy to delegate to someone who can.
- Unaware of the gobbledygook.
- Trying to hide lack of knowledge and expertise in the subject.
Finally, would a post on ‘consultant speak’ be complete without a cartoon?
What’s on your ‘Lightning Bug List of Dumb Words’?
Roger
19 responses to “10 Dumbest Words Used By Fundraising Consultants”
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I’d like to nominate to the list:
-“Low hanging fruit”
-Donor “touches”
-“Donor centered” (not that it’s not a good concept–just a bit overused these days)
-“Analytics” (again, not that it’s not a useful tool–just overused and misused by too many consultants who think it makes them sound smart)
Having been witness to final “product” of some of the industry’s most well-regarded consultants the past few years–I’m appalled at the boilerplate and gobbledygook. Because so many non-profit CEOs (and development leaders) take the consultant’s words as literal gospel (because the higher the $ the better the advice, right?) the profession is, I think often set back in time and internal experts are too often disregarded. We want to hire the best–but then we feel we have to pay the external consultant BIG money and ignore those who not only ARE the best but have the organizational expertise to really make a difference.
‘Joined up’ is another classic
What we need is a Hemingway-like mind who will write consultants’ copy. Short muscular sentences. And above all, truth, as in:
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
Now there’s a challenge.
And there really is only one M in Hemingway.
A number of the words on your list seem to be there because they are used in a context where their literal meaning doesn’t apply. What’s wrong with using metaphors? The only time to use “leverage” is when you are actually physically using a lever?
Roger, These are great. I applaud Chris for his additions as the words he listed drive me batty! I have to add that some of the best words and phrases I have heard you use in meetings should not be repeated!
Rog,
I’m with Chris on the “low hanging fruit”, but want to make an argument for being “data-driven” – a lot of people are talking about it, but few are actually doing it. And, THAT, is because the data could, would, and should drive a change in behavior. And change? Change is hard for a lot of organizations.
In exchange for “data-driven”, I will nominate “mission critical”. Because if a strategy really is mission critical, it would be acted on immediately and 100 percent of the time, regardless of the amount of change required by internal stakeholders AND their consultants.
I would like to add that, regardless of the liberal use of our company name, that mindless drivel you shared above does not belong to us.
I think you missed catalyze.
Add “robust” to that list.
Check out Ken Okel’s little project “Nonprofit Phrases that Should Be Banned.” And I know that I’ve gotta watch myself – I’m a consultant, and I actually do statistical stuff with fundraising, which poses many dismaying opportunities to mis-use arcane language with people who don’t know what you’re talking about but figure you must be pretty smart if you can wrap your tongue around those technical terms. Yikes!
Anyway, here’s a link to Ken’s project:
http://www.kenokel.com/blog/2012/05/ken-okels-friday-fun-nonprofit-phrases-that-should-be-banned/
Just in case you were wondering, folks over in the for-profit sector also suffer from this syndrome, and let’s not get started on government lingo. Please.
I would like to add “thinking outside the box.”
Glom on (sounds sticky and disgusting)
Metrics (shorter than “measurement” so maybe saved the lives of many 0’s and 1’s)
Utilize (what’s wrong with “use”?)
Thanks for giving me a bunch of words to avoid. Integrate, leverage and relevance are definitely the hardest to avoid or not use so I’m interested in how I can do that.
For integration: making offline and online pieces work together. For relevance: being meaningful for who you are talking to. For leverage: taking advantage of opportunities to increase growth.
Thoughts? Ideas?
Overreliance on shibboleths extends far beyond consultants. These terms appear in nonprofit strategic plans, internal communications, etc. as well. Their (mis)usage probably originates in the business world, from textbooks, popular books, articles, speeches, etc. They spread memetically because they have a perceived usage benefit e.g.) when people hear authoritative sources use these terms, they adopt them in the hope of sounding as impressive as their users. From the standpoint of the lexicon, it’s a great survival mechanism; people perpetuate it and/or pretend to understand it from fear of sounding unprofessional or stupid.
Ok, Roger, I am guilty. Now and then I use unnecessarily complicated, technical language. And yes, sometimes I do that in order to impress, rather than to inform, my clients.
But just as many times I use jargon, because delivering the message more directly would feel simply impolite. .
I might say something like: “Dear client, I really think that a welcome program will leverage the long term Life Time Value of your new donors.” In reality I think: ‘You (%#$%%$, how rude can you be to not just thank your new donors welcome aboard, of course they will run away disappointed now after their first gift’.
Or I tell them: ‘Yes, we know after heavy testing for years and years that long copy will give you better response rates than one pagers.’ And I think: ‘I know why you have never produced any letters longer than 250 words. Your CEO doesn’t have any vision and that will be painfully visible after 10 sentences.’
So if I want to avoid these 10 silly words, I guess I ‘ll have to be more frank and direct with the clients. I will start so tomorrow.
Oh, another one that’s gotten so tired as to be meaningless: brand.
And let’s please add “impact” to the list. I have been avoiding this word for years but clients like it. Grr.
Once upon a time, I was a consultant for an organization that was gut-driven. I helped them become more data-driven and they increased their impact.
See, that wasn’t so bad.
A must-read for all corporate jargon is ‘The Lingua Franca of the Corporate Banker’ by Julia Streets. It”s a very funny look at the maze of corporate gobbledygook and the reasons why we should ban it. It even has a glossary at the back and I’m sure your top 10 have made it in there…! ‘Finding the sweet spot’ and ‘pushing the envelope’ have to be two of the worst.
Do they really insist on these words? I am not even sure they mean anything!