Ruling with Language

This year the European Court of Justice sparked furious debate when it ruled that insurance companies could no longer sell cheaper premiums to motorists based on gender. Conservative MEP Sajjad Karim called it ''utter madness'' and a ''setback for common sense''.

But anger about this verdict, which comes into force in December 2012, is misplaced. The Court of Justice of the European Communities (to use the proper title) does not set out the laws or policies that led to this ruling. The Court merely ensures “that EU legislation is interpreted and applied in the same way in all EU countries, so that the law is equal for everyone”.  This is an important role.

Lawyers make their living by arguing over the intent of deliberately vague and often archaic words – legalese. The natural outcome of national legal systems administered regionally is inequality; national courts will arrive at different rulings on the same legal issues.

Our MEPs should be talking about the ''utter madness'' of their legal systems that encourage the use of convoluted technical language in their laws or about their own political parties hiding unpopular messages in the jargonised language of their politicians, often spun to appeal to the broadest demographic of voters.

Whether our politicians seek to emulate our industry leaders or vice versa, jargon also proliferates much of the verbiage used by business.

Managers too often rely on industry terminology, acronyms, management clichés and metaphors to create shared (mis)understanding. For example, a company observing the success of New Labour decided to use the same trick to introduce its own business strategy. Workshop participants were asked to brainstorm, to run a few ideas up the flag pole and decide what animal best represents the New Company. A number of people suggested Chameleon, as it reacts to threats in the environment by making superficial changes – it is still the same animal; just a different colour. The Senior Management Team was also happy with the choice - it represented agility, flexibility and reactiveness. Happy that shared understanding had been achieved by embracing the animal analogy, they proceeded to roll out the strategy, seemingly unaware that the people needed to make it work were not in agreement.

Jargonised business language can be used to hide deficiencies in knowledge, ‘de-risk’ messages or to avoid conflict through delivering messages that can be interpreted in multiple ways. However, in the long run ambiguous communication leads to wasted time, poor decision making and can cost you money.

As someone that works with a range of organisations in both education and industry, I am still surprised at how quickly I adapt my own language to that of the client organisation in order that Senior Management can understand and accept me as “one of them” –continuing to use clear, unambiguous, jargon free language means we are often perceived as “lacking organisational understanding”.

So, it seems the only way to ensure that our laws are interpreted correctly, that our politicians are understood and that our business leaders communicate effectively, is if they all stop hiding behind comfortable clichés by embracing open, honest communication and the principles of plain English.