Your A – Z of office lingo. Stand on business with the words that make things work.
Whether online or in person, corporate jargon can leave you staring at your screen, or your co-worker across the boardroom table, with an expression that shows as much comprehension as your parents display when you tell them about the latest trend on social media. The difference here is that what your relatives don’t know about trends won’t hurt them – while you might be doing yourself and your team a disservice by remaining clueless at work. No-one wants to overload their speech or write with jargon, but as every South African knows: Fluency in another language gives you access to a new level of understanding – in this case, of your job, your co-workers, and the opportunities around you.
@thesagarparekh Whats your go to corporate lingo?! #corporate #corporatelife #corporatetiktok #corporatehumor #corporatetok #wfh ♬ The Office (Main Theme) – TV Sounds Unlimited
Let’s circle back to drill down into actionable insights that will turn your business vocabulary into a secret weapon for clear, efficient communication.
Actionable (adjective)
As you might expect, something that’s actionable is something that can be put into action. You’ll often hear about an “actionable insight” – an idea or lesson learned that can now be applied to a current or future project.
See also: “Action” (verb): “Great ideas on increasing hot chocolate sales! Be sure to action them before winter begins.”
Bandwidth (noun)
Unless you’re using it in its original, signal frequency-related sense, this term is usefully vague.
When setting a boundary by explaining that you do not have the bandwidth for a task, you’re saying that you don’t have the resources you need, but what those resources are needn’t be specified. Maybe you’re exhausted from another task and know that you won’t be able to give this project the brainpower you need, or perhaps you don’t feel emotionally capable of engaging with co-workers on this issue, again, before stepping away and giving it some thought. Or maybe your calendar is just too full.
Example: “I haven’t got the bandwidth to deal with the financial projections this week, but don’t worry -I’ve blocked off time for them on Tuesday.”
See also: Capacity.
Circle back (verb)
If you’re circling back to something, it means that you think it’s deserving of more attention than it’s received so far. You might want to spend more time discussing a point that was raised in a meeting, or make sure that everyone has noted and understood a specific line of your email.
Example: “I just want to circle back to the point Londeka raised earlier, as I think it’s an important one.”
Not to be confused with: Revert. To revert means to respond to where your input is needed (“I’ll revert with the costing by Wednesday”), while circling back is more about emphasising a point or reopening a topic.
Close of business (noun)
This is exactly what you think it is – until it’s not. In the past, “close of business” (often abbreviated to the strangely mielie-adjacent “COB”) could reliably be taken to mean 5pm.
Today, remote work means that members of one team might be in multiple time zones, while flexible and freelance schedules mean that the workday ends at different times for everyone. In short, it’s usually better to skip this one or be prepared to clarify, to avoid leaving a client refreshing their inbox waiting for your mail at 5pm in Sydney while you’re just getting started in time to send it from Knysna at midnight.
Example: “As our deadline, does close of business on Tuesday (5pm SA time) work for you?”
Synonyms: End of day (EOD), close of play.
Deliverables (noun)
This is an exceptionally useful term if you don’t want to find yourself scrambling for phrases like, “the social media posts and that other stuff” to explain what you’re expecting from a member of your team. Simply put, deliverables are the individual items that are needed to perform a certain task – so, you are expecting someone to deliver them, or you’re expected to deliver them to someone.
Example: “Please check that the graphic designer has Instagram posts on her deliverables list for the competition launch campaign.”
See also: Action items.
Drill down (verb phrase)
This means to look deeper into something. When you find a piece of information that seems interesting or useful, but you feel like you don’t have the full picture, it’s time to drill down – which usually involves using other information at your disposal to solve those little business mysteries.
Example: “We’ve got great user data from the app to show us what type of dresses our shoppers are buying. Let’s drill down into that and give the people what they want!”
See also: Deep dive (noun).
Learnings (noun)
If a task goes well at work, then you will end up with learnings. If a project goes badly? Even more learnings! These are exactly what they sound like – things that you’ve learned from your team’s successes and failures while working through a project to its completion – and the word is a nice reminder that while there’s always room for improvement, there’s also no need to view anything as a complete waste of time. It’s a learning experience!
Example: “The main learning from our first event is that we need bigger venues next time.”
See also: Insights.
By: Cayleigh Bright
Photography by: Getty Images
Text courtesy of Balanced Life magazine
Also read: The dos and don’t of end-of-year office parties
