An organisation’s culture comes out in many ways. Language is one of the most important. Change the language, and you can start to change the culture, says Neil Taylor
Culture is a grand word. The idea of ‘corporate culture’ is even grander. A little bit scary, in fact. It seems to include everything, from the way you do appraisals, to what chairs you have in reception. So changing that culture is a very big job.
Now, I’m a writer. Which of course means I notice people’s language, and that of organisations. When I walk into a client’s office, do they say ‘hello’ or ‘hi’? If there’s some kind of internal campaign going on, is it about ‘operational excellence’, or ‘doing everyday things better’? Is the business looking to ‘generate increased customer loyalty’ or to ‘make people love us’? The words they use are amazing clues. You can tell a lot about an organisation’s culture by its language, because it’s a really tangible expression of something usually pretty intangible.
What happened at BT
Which is why if you do want to change a culture, language can be a cunning place to start. We’ve just smugly walked off from London’s National Training Awards with a very nice glass trophy for our work together with BT. We’ve trained over 3,000 people there to write in a different way to the one they’re used to. And not just people who call themselves ‘writers’; after all, most of us write lots of stuff everyday: emails, board reports, presentations, letters to customers, and tons more besides.
But the point wasn’t really to get 3,000 people writing better (though that’s no bad thing). It was to get people thinking about how they wanted BT to come across – internally and externally – and think about what they could do to improve it. And if they started thinking about that in their language, maybe they’d think about it in the rest of their jobs, too.
Our client is BT’s head of brand for people and culture, Richard Lloyd (rightly famous for his bright shirts and big voice). He says: ‘We’re trying to create a culture where BT people make choices to do the right thing for customers and for each other. They make those choices because they want to, and because they’re inspired to. In a big company, it’s all too easy for people to think they’re just tiny cogs in a huge machine, and that their individual contribution doesn’t matter. Problem is; if everyone thinks like that, it means no-one’s bothering.’
So why do that through writing, rather than a cultural change programme? ‘Well,’ says Richard, ‘because people love it. The programme helps them see that every choice they make counts in how they write stuff for BT. So to use the jargon (sorry about that!), people find this whole approach incredibly “empowering”. BT people have a huge amount of passion and commitment, and it doesn’t take very much to release this enthusiasm and really inspire them. But you have to do it in a way which is quite radical for a big, techie company – through an avowedly non-corporate, human approach. It’s a fantastic way to harness people’s enthusiasm. And they respond to it in a big way.’
Bêtes noires
It’s striking when we run these sessions – at BT and elsewhere – that people can come up with a big, long list of corporate language they hate in five seconds flat. As they spit out ‘alignment’, or ‘development opportunity’ or ‘delivery’ you see their faces contort, their body language tense up, and their voices crack with venom. Every syllable seems to embody the gulf between what ‘management’ are trying to get across, and how it’s taken by everyone on the receiving end. Yet these same people admit to using this same language themselves, because it’s easy, because of habit, because they want to fit in, because they feel it’s expected. Someone like Richard coming along, giving them permission to say something else – something more genuine – can be a real revelation. One of our other clients, Katrina Lambert at Hay Group, said that finally freeing her people from the straitjacket of this kind of language ‘frees you to think bigger thoughts and have bigger ideas’.
Worryingly, HR can often be the worst offenders when it comes to obfuscatory corporate guff. The one bit of the business that should be able to sound a wee bit more natural is the bit that’s supposed to be skilled in dealing with people. What goes wrong is that HR people, especially senior HR people, are often so frightened of sounding ‘fluffy’ that they swing too far the other way to compensate. So instead of talking about ‘pay’ they talk about ‘remuneration’. And instead of talking about ‘redundancies’, they talk about ‘resizing’ or, worse, ‘synergy-related headcount alignment’. Seriously. Readers know what this language means, but you don’t get the credit for being honest about it. That’s a problem for the culture of a big organisation, because HR, and the leaders they represent, often set the tone. If they sound weaselly and weak, that’ll creep into everyone else’s behaviour too. And you’ll spot it in their writing.
Moreover…
It’s worth saying that I’m not preaching this stuff because I happen to like it, or because it might make people happier in their jobs (though I do, and I think it does). It can have benefits in cold, hard cash too. This year someone came along to one of our BT workshops, went back to the office and rewrote a bit of script that was being used in one of their call centres. He made it more natural, so it was easier for the person in the call centre to say, and far less annoying for customers to listen to. And he lopped off a few seconds in the process. That few seconds adds up. In fact, when you get 37,000 calls a week, those few seconds can make hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of a difference over a year. And anything which works for individuals, makes customers happier, starts to change the culture, and keeps the finance director happy, well, it’s got to be a no-brainer, hasn’t it?
Culture is a grand word. The idea of ‘corporate culture’ is even grander. A little bit scary, in fact. It seems to include everything, from the way you do appraisals, to what chairs you have in reception. So changing that culture is a very big job.
Now, I’m a writer. Which of course means I notice people’s language, and that of organisations. When I walk into a client’s office, do they say ‘hello’ or ‘hi’? If there’s some kind of internal campaign going on, is it about ‘operational excellence’, or ‘doing everyday things better’? Is the business looking to ‘generate increased customer loyalty’ or to ‘make people love us’? The words they use are amazing clues. You can tell a lot about an organisation’s culture by its language, because it’s a really tangible expression of something usually pretty intangible.
What happened at BT
Which is why if you do want to change a culture, language can be a cunning place to start. We’ve just smugly walked off from London’s National Training Awards with a very nice glass trophy for our work together with BT. We’ve trained over 3,000 people there to write in a different way to the one they’re used to. And not just people who call themselves ‘writers’; after all, most of us write lots of stuff everyday: emails, board reports, presentations, letters to customers, and tons more besides.
But the point wasn’t really to get 3,000 people writing better (though that’s no bad thing). It was to get people thinking about how they wanted BT to come across – internally and externally – and think about what they could do to improve it. And if they started thinking about that in their language, maybe they’d think about it in the rest of their jobs, too.
Our client is BT’s head of brand for people and culture, Richard Lloyd (rightly famous for his bright shirts and big voice). He says: ‘We’re trying to create a culture where BT people make choices to do the right thing for customers and for each other. They make those choices because they want to, and because they’re inspired to. In a big company, it’s all too easy for people to think they’re just tiny cogs in a huge machine, and that their individual contribution doesn’t matter. Problem is; if everyone thinks like that, it means no-one’s bothering.’
So why do that through writing, rather than a cultural change programme? ‘Well,’ says Richard, ‘because people love it. The programme helps them see that every choice they make counts in how they write stuff for BT. So to use the jargon (sorry about that!), people find this whole approach incredibly “empowering”. BT people have a huge amount of passion and commitment, and it doesn’t take very much to release this enthusiasm and really inspire them. But you have to do it in a way which is quite radical for a big, techie company – through an avowedly non-corporate, human approach. It’s a fantastic way to harness people’s enthusiasm. And they respond to it in a big way.’
Bêtes noires
It’s striking when we run these sessions – at BT and elsewhere – that people can come up with a big, long list of corporate language they hate in five seconds flat. As they spit out ‘alignment’, or ‘development opportunity’ or ‘delivery’ you see their faces contort, their body language tense up, and their voices crack with venom. Every syllable seems to embody the gulf between what ‘management’ are trying to get across, and how it’s taken by everyone on the receiving end. Yet these same people admit to using this same language themselves, because it’s easy, because of habit, because they want to fit in, because they feel it’s expected. Someone like Richard coming along, giving them permission to say something else – something more genuine – can be a real revelation. One of our other clients, Katrina Lambert at Hay Group, said that finally freeing her people from the straitjacket of this kind of language ‘frees you to think bigger thoughts and have bigger ideas’.
Worryingly, HR can often be the worst offenders when it comes to obfuscatory corporate guff. The one bit of the business that should be able to sound a wee bit more natural is the bit that’s supposed to be skilled in dealing with people. What goes wrong is that HR people, especially senior HR people, are often so frightened of sounding ‘fluffy’ that they swing too far the other way to compensate. So instead of talking about ‘pay’ they talk about ‘remuneration’. And instead of talking about ‘redundancies’, they talk about ‘resizing’ or, worse, ‘synergy-related headcount alignment’. Seriously. Readers know what this language means, but you don’t get the credit for being honest about it. That’s a problem for the culture of a big organisation, because HR, and the leaders they represent, often set the tone. If they sound weaselly and weak, that’ll creep into everyone else’s behaviour too. And you’ll spot it in their writing.
Moreover…
It’s worth saying that I’m not preaching this stuff because I happen to like it, or because it might make people happier in their jobs (though I do, and I think it does). It can have benefits in cold, hard cash too. This year someone came along to one of our BT workshops, went back to the office and rewrote a bit of script that was being used in one of their call centres. He made it more natural, so it was easier for the person in the call centre to say, and far less annoying for customers to listen to. And he lopped off a few seconds in the process. That few seconds adds up. In fact, when you get 37,000 calls a week, those few seconds can make hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of a difference over a year. And anything which works for individuals, makes customers happier, starts to change the culture, and keeps the finance director happy, well, it’s got to be a no-brainer, hasn’t it?