Employee communication consultant Tom Lee called and left me a message this afternoon. He's looking for a few good business euphemisms beyond the usual "rightsizing." Though I've been awash in business euphemisms my whole career ("career" itself being a euphemism in this case), I was as stumped as Tom.
I e-mailed him:
I think the reason you’re having a hard time coming up with these euphemistic howlers is that “rightsizing” is a rare example of a euphemism that’s ALWAYS a euphemism. As for others, a challenge sometimes really is a challenge, and an opportunity really is an opportunity.
Meanwhile, perfectly good words, like “merger,” can be euphemisms. (When Wal-Mart buys Piggly Wiggly, it won’t be a merger, it’ll be an acquisition.)
Sometimes when a consultant says he’d prefer not to “get into the tall grass” an issue but he’d be happy to talk about it “offline,” he’s dodging the client’s question. Other times, he’s just trying to keep the meeting on track.
Sometimes “synergy” means shit-canning half the combined workforce … and sometimes it means the executives really believe the two companies are going to be greater than the sum of their parts.
As for good old “rightsizing,” it’s never good; but downsizing and layoffs are not euphemisms for “firing people,” which implies you’re doing it for cause.
It has everything to do with intent, which is different in every case.
I also told him I'd run it by Writing Boots readers and see if they could help.
Well, readers?
That very word–“rightsizing”–is one of the reasons that I (and a number of my former co-workers) left my last company. We all knew what it meant when our CEO used it at the big all-employees meeting. And because he buried it in a rambling, meaningless talk that combined reassurances that we were doing just fine against our new competitor with cautions about needing to really watch the finances (that’s the part where the rightsizing reference came up) that we were left knowing that there was a big problem, not knowing exactly what the problem was or how we could help to address it, but getting the distinct feeling that the “rightsizing” solution didn’t spell anything good for the staff.
That word was one of the nails in the coffin for me. I started looking for work shortly afterward.
How about this for a plan? How about bagging the euphemisms and telling employees the truth? Tell us what the situation really is, and whether there’s anything we can do to turn it around. Or tell us if it’s likely that there’ll have to be layoffs and give us time to find something else. Tell us if ours is among those jobs most likely to be cut, and give us a timeframe letting us know how long we have to find something else.
What a daydream, eh?
Joan, the process you speak of helped me think of a euphemism:
“Getting employee buy-in.”
This means, “Let’s try to get employees buy the idea.”
But we don’t say that, because it sounds violent.
We just get employee buy-in, which sounds democratic.