I’m not saying it’s easy, but the things we do actually aren’t rocket science. Unless you are currently a very senior employee with NASA ( in which case, apologies – but it’s hardly brain surgery).

It does seem that all too often we require the comfort blanket of credibility that is jargon. How can we seem more credible and on the ball? Probably not by asking people to

‘have a bluesky roundtable, lasered in on improving synergistic dialogue that will improve idea socialisation – carparking any issues to address offline’

Do we really believe that any of the people we work with hear something like that and think ‘great idea’ – or are we hoping they will be so confused that it will act in a way similar to complex language in a legal document – to distance understanding to the point where most believe they are reliant on an ‘expert’ to make sense of what is going on. Baffle people into submission.If we want transparent and inclusive organisations (most people do) then don’t make language a barrier make it an ‘enabler’ – better still, just make it helpful.So here is my brief list of words that we could probably kill without anybody thinking less of us, feel free to add more.

Engagement – if you can’t define engagement in a way that doesn’t immediately make someone think of a survey – then try another word. Are you scared of people being passionate about working for you and believing in what you do? Does it sound too woolly? Or was that what you wanted in the first place. If your engagement strategy is just your annual outsourced survey then stop calling it engagement.

Stakeholder management – you have customers, shareholders and colleagues. Which ones does this impact? Go make them happy. When I think of stakeholders I think of this illustration.

Contracting – try just agreeing. You are agreeing something with a person, don’t turn them into a transaction – you both lose out.

Big data – you probably don’t know what this means. Have a look http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data Suprised? Stop using it because it is trendy – try doing some basic analysis of your data

Performance management – when you say you are ‘performance managing’ someone do you mean ‘I’m finally accepting I might have to sack them, so I’ve reluctantly started some documentation’? Thought so. What were you doing before? When they are performing you weren’t managing their performance? That’s a bit embarrassing – you only appear to have a role when people are failing. Awkward

Employee attrition – you made a bad hire or someone found somewhere better to work. It is unlikely that someone ‘attrited’ – it just feels nicer to say it because when we use technical language it loses some of the immediacy. ‘What percentage of our people didn’t want to work here anymore last year?’ is actually a far scarier and useful question than ‘what is our annualised attrition rate YTD?’. People leave, they don’t attrite. At the point you apologise for ‘having to attrite the party early’ it will be acceptable.

Managing expectations effectively – just let them know why you are going to miss the target. They are a grown up, you are – have a chat instead of attempting to manage them

Generation X/Y/Z – imagine how you would feel if you went out for a meal and were allocated your food based on age… How annoyed would you be? Or if the cinema automatically ushered you away from the movie you wanted to watch – because you were 6 months older than their target demographic. Doesn’t feel like a great way to run a business does it? So don’t do it internally, learn about your people and be flexible in how you treat them – not because generations are different, but because people are. Kierkegaard wrote ‘if you label me you negate me’ . If even his generation understood that….The times are changing, but it is more complex that just allocating people boxes

Significant culture change – this appears to be interchangeable with ‘transformation programme’ which in turn seems to involve ‘significant structural change’ which in turn seems to require HR professionals who are ‘experienced in consultation’ which in turn seems to involve people ‘familiar with large scale redundancy programmes and TUPE’. They aren’t interchangeable terms, I appreciate the interdependency, but changing a culture does not primarily involve needing to be able to sack people with minimal risk

Realign expectations – oh please…

So, that is my list of shame, please feel free to add more in the comments or on Twitter where you’ll find me called @dds180.

An original version of this appeared on my blog, where you can also find a list of places where I’ll be speaking. You can also read more of my postings when I remember to meet my deadline for theHRDIRECTOR. Thanks for the illustration go to a regular partner in crime,Simon Heath.