Communicating Clearly in Your Organization | Gabrielle Dolan | Episode 201

Scott McCarthy [00:00:29]:
Welcome one. Welcome all to the Peak Performance Leadership Podcast, a weekly podcast series dedicated to helping you hit peak performance across the three domains of leadership. Those being leading yourself, leading your team, and leading your organization. This podcast couples my twenty years of military experience as a senior Canadian army officer with world class guests bringing you the most complete podcast of leadership going. And for more, feel free to check out our website at movingforwardleadership.com. And with that, let’s get to the show. Rao, welcome back to the show. So good to have you here.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:05:52]:
Yeah. It’s so good to be back, Scott. We’re like regulars. We’ve done this so often.

Scott McCarthy [00:05:56]:
And we could do that. I could do that. I could totally there’s a there’s a number of guests that are like, yes. I could definitely do regular shows with you. Now, you’re originally on episode one eighty four, so a solid 17 episodes ago, not that long ago. And for the listener out there, if you wanna check that episode out, just go to movingforwardleadership.com/18four, and you get to talk about or sorry. Listen to Raul talk about, you know, having a mega magnetic stories and the importance of them. And then we had a little bit of I thought we were gonna have a bigger debate on that episode, but we didn’t, which was kinda surprising.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:06:35]:
Very civilized between us both.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:39]:
Alright. So you are actually the first episode of or interview, I should say, of 2022. So let’s have a little fun before we dive into today’s topic.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:06:50]:
Okay.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:51]:
Tell me something that you’re grateful for from 2021.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:06:58]:
I am grateful for, even though I missed a lot of travel and I missed in person training, I’m grateful that that is now seen running virtual training is seen as a very accepted format. So while I would really looking forward to getting back to do a lot more in person training and keynotes. Not all of them have to be. So I’m grateful that, I was able to adapt and do virtual training and, and probably reach a much bigger audience. And, I’m grateful that that’s been accepted as a valid way to run, run training workshops.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:37]:
No. That’s that’s cool. Yeah. I I would say something along the lines for me, working from home has been a much more accepted, form of working in my, you know, my day job has been in the Canadian army, you know, before.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:07:52]:
Yeah. Can I also add, I’m also grateful for jigsaw puzzles because

Scott McCarthy [00:07:57]:
get you through

Gabrielle Dolan [00:07:59]:
those days? Cause you know, I’m coming from Melbourne and we, we hold the record for the longest amount of days in, the most amount of days in lockdown. So very grateful for jigsaw puzzles.

Scott McCarthy [00:08:10]:
Oh, no doubt. All right. Second question. Before we actually dive into the, into the topic, what are you looking forward to in 2022?

Gabrielle Dolan [00:08:20]:
So it’s probably contradicting what I just said. I’m looking forward to traveling. I’m so looking forward to, trap. I do like traveling. I mean, there’s, there’s pros and cons to everything. So there was a lot of benefits to not having to travel so much, but I actually do enjoy traveling. And I, I quite enjoy traveling by myself these days, which I never used to. So just, you know, just being on a plane, no interruptions, getting to a hotel room by yourself, no interruptions.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:08:49]:
No, no, one’s saying mom what’s for dinner, all that type of stuff. It’s a real luxury. It is a real luxury. So I’m, I’m looking forward to getting back to some places, getting back to, I’ve got a trip built, for New York in June. Hopefully getting to New Zealand later in the year as well. So looking forward to a whole heap of stuff like

Scott McCarthy [00:09:10]:
that. No. That that’s, that’s awesome. I should travel a bit more now. I feel like, because my three year old’s favorite words, I feel like, is I hungry, daddy. I hungry. Oh my god, kid. What are you gonna do to me when you’re 16? Because you’re just killing it right now at three.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:09:28]:
Yeah. At 16 or be I’m really hungry. There’s no food in this house. I I when the kids get older, it was like, there’s no food in their house. And you’re just looking around like, what’s there for breakfast? I just came from the supermarket. There’s no food. Well, there’s bread, There’s cereal. There’s eggs.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:09:43]:
There’s bacon. There’s fruit. Like, how much food do you want? How many choices do you want for breakfast?

Scott McCarthy [00:09:50]:
Alright. Anyway, that that was fun. I I need to do these things a little bit more. I feel like There’s a lot in this show up, but just a little bit, you know, off topic a little bit. But alright. Today, we’re talking about slang. We’re talking about, you know, acronyms and inside terminology. So let let’s let’s dive in.

Scott McCarthy [00:10:07]:
So, you know, what’s the problem with it? Like, I grow up I grew up. I I work in an environment where, like, acronyms it’s almost like a way of life in the army. I know acronyms. I don’t even know what they mean. I just know what they’re used for, but that’s fine, isn’t it? Like, we all do that.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:10:29]:
One of my, favorite army military acronyms is snafu. Do you like that one?

Scott McCarthy [00:10:35]:
Oh, that one will keep the show PG.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:10:39]:
So we want to say that. I will, if you don’t, if you don’t describe what it means, I’ll take the, I’ll take the hint that I’m not allowed to swear. Let’s just, we can, we’d explain three of them, four of them at situation normal or boot up. So that’s what snafu. I like that one. So, so what’s the problem, you know, in, on some levels, there’s no problem. So on some levels, if everyone understands the acronym and, you know, I, I came from technology, so technology is, has its fair share of acronyms as well. So if everyone understands what the acronym means, there’s no real issue.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:11:16]:
Like, you know, in in technology, like, you know, ATM, automatic teller machine, PIN, personal identification number, they sort of become normal words. So it’s not a problem. And and in fact, even some words like scuba and laser started their life as acronyms, but now they’ve just morphed into actual words. So, when it’s like that, there’s not a problem with them. The reality though, is the vast majority of times, not everyone understands the acronym you’re saying So, and especially when they can be, industry related acronyms or your own company acronym. So, you might have an acronym in the military that might mean something completely different to someone not in the military, even in, you know, if I said something to you like SME, you might you might think that subject matter expert or you might think that small to medium enterprise. But if I’m talking to you and I’m thinking subject matter expert, and you’re thinking small to medium enterprise, we could actually have a conversation and be talking about two completely different things. So that’s one of the problems that can actually lead to miscommunication.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:12:31]:
But it’s just, it’s putting all the onus on the other person to interpret what it means. Like, what do you mean by that? So it’s not, we think it’s efficient, but it’s actually not really efficient at all.

Scott McCarthy [00:12:47]:
Yeah. It’s funny because the way you use that example, SME. So SME, yes, subject subject matter expert for me. But we’ve come across or I come across often in my work where we actually have the same acronym but with multiple definitions Yeah. Right, in the same organization. And you wanna talk about, you know, miscommunication with using that. That that is it’s wouldn’t say a huge problem, but it does it does tend to, go down the road of, you know, causing communication errors and, you know, causing confusion, which, you know, ends up in essentially lost productivity because you end up spending time chasing around trying to figure out what the heck that person’s saying or thinking, they said something completely different in the first place.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:13:41]:
Yeah. So so that’s I mean and then then and, you know, we might go like you just said, it’s not a it’s not a serious problem, but it causes a problem. I actually think it can be a serious problem. And it it and it’s like a constant problem where if we’re using acronyms that we we this is our version of what it means. It can lead to miscommunication. So, like, as a clearly other thing, it can lead what what it can also lead to is people feeling a little bit disconnected because they don’t know what it means. They sort of go, well, what does that mean? And so it doesn’t it’s not very efficient. And I’m I’m sure when when you think about why are we using acronyms, why do we why do we take three words and reduce it to a three letter acronym? Because I think we’re assuming it’s efficient and effective.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:14:26]:
We don’t have to write it out as much. We don’t have to say it as much. So surely that’s the only reason we’re using it because we think it’s efficient, but it’s actually really inefficient because if it’s leading to confusion or if the person reading it has to sort of go, well, what does that mean? That’s not efficient communication. I, and, and when we’re, I remember I got an email from my financial planner and, in the email it had something and it was BPS and I’m thinking what’s BPS. And I didn’t know. So I sent her an email back and she said, it’s basis points. My first reaction was, how do we get a three letter acronym out of two, two words? That was my first reaction. But my second reaction was like, oh, yeah.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:15:09]:
Okay. Yeah. Now that makes sense. It’s basis points. So I’m feeling, first of all, I’m feeling a bit stupid for not knowing that I’m, I’m the client, I’m the client and they’re using industry related terms that, and expecting people to understand, but also that’s not efficient. It’s not efficient because it took three, three emails in and, you know, writing out basis points or saying basis points doesn’t take it doesn’t make it any, doesn’t take it really much more time than actually saying it. So it’s not it’s it’s just not efficient. And I think we we kid ourselves that it is efficient and we reduce and therefore we reduce everything to an acronym.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:15:49]:
And we just because something has three words in it does not mean it needs to be reduced to an acronym.

Scott McCarthy [00:15:56]:
I I I definitely can understand that. And then, you know, if, if you if I had seen a email, whatever, with BP in it for basis points, you know, two letter acronym, vice a three one, I would immediately think blood pressure.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:16:11]:
Yeah. Because my

Scott McCarthy [00:16:12]:
wife my wife’s in health care. Right? So I I see BP for her. You know, whenever she talks about stuff, it’s all about blood pressure. So it it it definitely can can lead that confusion. Now what’s your recommendations for leaders out there when, you know, they’re they’re talking, they’re presenting, or and emailing, you know, writing to their folks about about using, you know, these these slang terms, these acronyms, these inside, words that, you know, that remain kinda within the organization.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:16:45]:
I think I I I remember I worked I worked with this woman, and she was really, really conscious of not using acronyms and jargon. And she was really focused on the when we communicate, it’s our responsibility to communicate in a way that’s really clear. And she actually, got a new job and it was actually a change of industry. She went from, a telecommunication industry to, an education industry. And she, she, she told me this story about one of the very first weeks in her job. Her team were producing this 10 page document that was going to be going out to the entire university. And she said it was 10 pages and she goes, it was so full of acronyms that, but they put all the acronyms on the last page. So what she said she had to do is rip off the last page.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:17:36]:
And every time an act, she came across an acronym. She had to refer to the last page to try to understand what it meant. And she said it was such to her, it was such a terrible experience to consume that information. She made her team rewrite the document without any acronyms, which meant they didn’t need the back page. So they didn’t need that tenth page. And guess how many pages that document came to 10, like the document wasn’t any bigger. It’s just that they, they said that they said the words and it just made it easier to understand. And so I think as a, As a leader or someone who’s conscious of communicating well, just be mindful of them now.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:18:21]:
Now you don’t have not some acronyms are okay. It’s just the overuse of them. It’s just the absolutely unnecessary use of using acronyms. And, you know, again, I remember someone wanted advice on, they were going for a job, and so they showed me the job description. And it had the acronym SKE, and I’m going, what what’s SKE? And she goes, oh, it’s skills, knowledge, and experience. And I was like, why is that why is that reduced to SKE? I mean, seriously, like, I’ve been in that industry forever, and someone just makes them up. We just people are just making up acronyms, unnecessarily is is the key here.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:04]:
No. I I I hear you, and I can totally relate to, you know, just finding yourself kinda stuck in that in the habit of of using them. I remember I was writing an email, actually, I think earlier this week or last late last week, and I looked at at one sentence, and it was probably, like, I don’t know, ten, fifteen words long. And at least half of that was, like, all acronyms and a good four to five or, like, literally right in a row. I was just like, oh, I need to I need to rewrite this. I was like, like, b p yo. BPT, be prepared to blah blah blah. Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:44]:
I w in accordance with and all. I was just like, oh my God.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:19:49]:
Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:49]:
And, you know, I was just like, there’s gotta be a better way. And then I was like, oh, I can’t wait to talk to Raul. You throw this one at her.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:19:56]:
I know. I I hope I become everyone’s a little annoying voice on their shoulder going, do you really need to reduce that to an acronym? Do you really need to do it? I, Scott, this, this is an example. I’m going to give you another example of a completely unnecessary acronym where I was, sitting in a presentation probably about six months ago from this woman who was talking about, how we trans transition back to work post, pandemic. And she was talking about how the working situations is gonna change, where where people employees are expecting a lot more flexibility. And there’s going to be some flexibility for all like for everyone, or there might, in some instances only be flexibility for some, and she had flexibility for all, and then I had an acronym in a brackets F F I, and then she had flexibility for some, and the acronym was F F S now I’m not going to, you’ve just told me I’m a lot of swear on this show, but seriously, what comes into your mind when you say the acronym FFS? And she had no idea. And in the end, I, I, I was, it was a virtual thing. And in chat, I said, well, whenever I see FFS, this is what I think of. And I wrote it out.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:21:12]:
And, she says, she was going, oh my, she was mortified. Taking away the site, the taking away the fact that what FF is normally with what people think of, completely unnecessary, like flexibility for all, just say it like we, that does not need to become an acronym.

Scott McCarthy [00:21:33]:
It that reminds me of, like, a, like, a like, a Windows Facebook, not memes, but, like, you know, the multiple photos that are Mhmm. Turned into a joke. And it’s like a conversation between a mom and, I believe, a daughter or something. And the the the moral of the story was, the daughter says, you know, someone’s in the hospital or someone’s got serious to her, and and the mom goes, LOL. Yeah. And and then daughter’s like, what’s

Gabrielle Dolan [00:22:01]:
wrong with you?

Scott McCarthy [00:22:02]:
Why is that funny? She’s like, what do you mean? It it means lots of love. Right? Or, you know, you know, something Yeah. Yeah. You could see, like, this is exactly the same type of scenario where, you know, it was completely innocent what was being said. And in her mind, the mom’s mind, she was saying the right thing, but the reality was in the daughter’s mind, that was a totally different message being sent. And I think that’s the moral of the story here is from what I’m hearing from you is, yeah, if you’re gonna use it, make sure that the other person absolutely knows 100% what you’re saying when you use it. Yeah. And one of the things that we do in in out of the Canadian army is if we’re using an acronym, especially in written text, what we’ll do is the first time we go, we’ll have it written out, and then in brackets, put the acronym.

Scott McCarthy [00:22:57]:
And then afterwards, we’ll use it.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:22:59]:
Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [00:23:00]:
So along those lines, what are some tips for leaders out there? If you’re gonna do it, how do you go about doing it right?

Gabrielle Dolan [00:23:08]:
Yeah. So so if if you anyone’s done any study or any academic writing, the absolute protocol is the first time you use an acronym. The first time you introduce an acronym, you you use the entire, say the entire words and then have the acronym in the brackets. And from then on, you can use the acronym. So that that is that I guess is the protocol when it comes to writing. And it should be the protocol when you’re speaking. But having said that, if it’s still not a really common acronym, it means every, even though you’ve explained what it is and then you’re using the acronym from then on, every time you do it, if it’s not really common, your audience has to do the interpretation. So it it might only take a split second, but it is literally like you’re speaking a different amount of acronyms because, like, you know, in your example, if you got four in a row and you’ve gotta do interpretation for each one, even though it could be a slight nanosecond, it’s just making it harder to understand.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:24:16]:
So there’s a protocol to use them, but, but I still believe we overuse them. I still look at anything and we overuse them. I Scott, I dunno. You know, the word acronym only entered the English dictionary in the 1940s and it be, it entered it in the 1940s because they became really popular to use during world war II. So you think about it, world war two, the reason they’ll be popular is that they were using Morse code to send messages. So, you know, if you’re using Morse code, you’re, you’re not wanting to make your messages really long. And the other reason that we’re using acronyms is because when the message would be, inter, you know, seen by the enemy, they knew the enemy wouldn’t understand it because it was full of acronyms. So, I mean, let’s just think about that for a second.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:25:03]:
It’s like, that was the purpose of using acronyms. So people wouldn’t understand it if they didn’t know it. And we were using Morse code. So unless you’re using Morse code and unless you don’t want people who accidentally see it to understand it, why would we use it so much? And, you know, you were talking about text messages before LOL. I seriously think our teenage kids use makeup those ones. So, so when the enemy comes in and sees the message, as in the parents, they got no idea what it is. And I’ve, I’ve had that experience where I’ve looked at my kids’ text messages and, or even on their Instagram messages, you, you cannot follow the conversation because all, most of the acronyms, you do not know what they mean. So you cannot follow the conversation.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:25:53]:
So, you know, just think about that when we’re overusing acronyms.

Scott McCarthy [00:25:59]:
That’s, that, you know, that’s, my history lesson of the day. I didn’t realize, but it makes absolute sense. And I think the biggest point that we need to hit on right there is, you know, why was it invented in the first place? Just like you said, to, you know, basically confuse the enemy. Yeah. And with that, so we’re essentially on purpose making the the, communication difficult to decipher. Yeah. That’s not what we need today. That’s not what you want.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:30]:
That’s not high performing, peak performing teams or organizations. So with that, you know, for the leaders out there who are leading these organizations and these teams that are just hell bent on the slang, the jargon, the acronyms, How do they go about changing so that they start stepping away from it and moving towards, you know, ex you know, saying what the heck they actually are saying?

Gabrielle Dolan [00:26:59]:
Yeah. And I think leaders need to take, funnily enough, a leading role on this because they need to do it because, and I think they need to be more conscious of it. Let’s just say a leader. And when I mean by a leader that they’re probably more senior. And they’ve probably been around longer, So they probably understand what the acronyms are, but they need to be aware of every time they’re using them, they are potentially disconnecting and isolating people. So new people come into the organization, And we’ve all experienced this. When we get a new job, we go into a new job or a new industry. People are talking in acronyms and you spend the whole time going, what does that mean? What does that mean? And new new people will ask what that means for a short amount of time until they realize, or they think they’re the only person in the room that doesn’t understand what this means and therefore they stop asking.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:27:51]:
But the reality is probably half the people in the room don’t know what that means. So I think as a leader is if one of your jobs is to, you know, include people and get people engaged and include them, you want to be leading the way by when someone else uses an acronym, even though you may actually know what it means, be the voice for everyone else in the room to say, just checking what you mean by that. Because do that a few times as a leader and see the relief on everyone else’s face when they go, oh, thank God. I’m glad you asked that and not me. So I I think you we need to be creating a culture where it’s okay to say, what does that mean? Or or what do you and I think sometimes don’t say, what does that mean? Because it implies, I don’t know what it means. I would, I would say, if you do want to challenge people using acronyms, I would say, what do you mean when you say that? Because what that implies is I know what it means, but what do you mean? So you’re helping clarify as opposed to just saying, what does that mean? But, yeah, lead leaders need to be really mindful of it. And, you know, just as more like my other client did, maybe push back and say, I need you to rewrite that because it’s got way too many acronyms. We, you know, we are not sending that out to clients that the way it is.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:29:09]:
And and that’s when you be need to be really mindful is when you’re sending out material to clients that has your internal acronyms. That is that is really poor form, really poor form.

Scott McCarthy [00:29:22]:
Awesome. Absolutely love it. Just take actions, leaders. Right? Lead by example. Show the people. And more importantly, back to a episode I quote often, with, Tim Clark, setting a stage of psychological safety environment of psychological safety where people feel included and, essentially, allowing people to, one, question, what the heck does the acronym or slang or jargon mean? But two, being, you know, being forthright and saying, okay. Let’s what do what do you mean by that? And let’s start talking and and communicating a way to ensure everyone understands what you mean so that, you know, the communication gets passed, you know, succinctly.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:30:10]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And we we spend a lot of time on acronyms because that can really lead to miscommunication, but the jargon’s the same. And again, the jargon, a lot of jargon comes from the military, you know, things like run it up the flagpole. You see people go run it up the flagpole when it was on here. I only actually found out about, I’m not been hearing, run it up the flagpole for like decades and you sort of get sort of know what it means. I only found out that the real saying is run it up the flagpole and see who salutes. And you go, ah, that sort of makes a bit more sense, but people have dropped the see who salutes bit and they’re like, they’re going on, well, let’s run that up the flagpole.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:30:47]:
And it was like, people, what does that mean? It’s like, you know, move the needle, let’s move the needle, run it up the flagpole, crazy stuff. So

Scott McCarthy [00:30:56]:
now that actually spikes a interesting question in my mind. So I hate expressions like that. Run up the flagpole, can’t see the forest from the trees. I I I actually don’t even still understand what the heck that one means. Like, please someone come come come mentor me because I I really it doesn’t you know, I I I kinda get the premise, but it just doesn’t make, you know, sense to me. Bob’s your uncle and all these other things. So what I get often criticized for, though, is being a very direct communicator because I don’t use these expressions, And I I don’t, you know, put the flowery touches to it, but rather say, you know, if I’m gonna, you know, run out the flagpole, I’m like, alright. But, you know, let’s let’s push this up through to the boss, up through the chain of command, and and see where this goes.

Scott McCarthy [00:31:49]:
That’s exactly how I would say advice going, oh, let’s run it up the flagpole and see, you know, and see who salutes. No. Not not gonna happen. So how what do you think about that where people are actually being criticized for not, you know, being too direct and not using these, you know, flowery expressions and such?

Gabrielle Dolan [00:32:09]:
Yeah. So that’s unusual, isn’t it? I I I would find that, I think, criticized for being too direct with your communications, unless they’re sort of saying you’re too harsh with it. But I, I don’t because I agree. I think when you’re using those jargony terms all the time, people might sort of get the premise of it, but it like a lot of the times you get that doesn’t even make sense. And if we, again, if we’re using them all the time and people don’t get it, then they’re not being clear. So I, I, I don’t, I don’t think I’d give anyone any criticism saying that they’d been too direct with their communication by not saying this. So I don’t know who’s telling you that Scott, but I would not listen to them. I would stick with what you’re doing because you’re right.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:32:54]:
There’s, there’s a whole lot of those sayings that don’t mean anything. And, you know, and I, and I come from Australia too. We’ve got some classic Australians sayings that like, you know, you know, like people have your, well, it’s not as if we’re playing for sheep stations. It’s like, what does that mean? I dunno. Is sheep stations really expensive or flat out flat out like a lizard drinking, like just how else did lizard just drink? I don’t know. So it’s like all these weird sayings. Yeah. Bob’s your uncle happy as Larry use Larry.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:33:27]:
I don’t know. So I, I, you know, and we all say them, like, I’m not, again, I’m not saying, I’m not saying, never say those things, never say jaggedy words, like think outside the square, and never use acronyms. It’s just the overuse of it. It’s not the overuse of them. If, if I heard the, if I hear the word pivot one more time, I think I’m going to vomit. It’s like, everyone’s pivoting, like stop pivoting enough with the pivoting. You’re making me dizzy. Everyone’s pivoting so much.

Scott McCarthy [00:34:00]:
Oh, well, I enjoy you. I enjoy I think I enjoy all my Australian guests. I enjoy your guys’ humor. I find it’s very reliable to us, but, you know, you guys all got that cool accent. It’s just always a great conversation. But, you know, this is one of those topics where, you know, it’s it’s like as we talked before, we hit record. It’s like, it’s this is gonna be, like, to the punch to the point. Right? And, essentially, if I could wrap this this conversation up, it’s like, you know what? You’re basically allowing miscommunication to occur when you use these jargon, these slang terms, these, and these acronyms.

Scott McCarthy [00:34:39]:
So avoid it at all costs because the reality of today is we don’t have time to allow for miscommunication, especially if you are sending an email to a team member and you’re gonna be away from your desk. They’re not gonna be able to confirm. Right? Or you’re having a quick conversation, and it’s about something important. Making sure clear communication, it should be, you know, near the top of the priority list for all leaders out there because organizations thrive and die on communication. And that’s how teams operate by communicating. So that’s how I would kind of wrap this up.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:35:17]:
I would too, Scott. And I, and, and I, I might just add to that. So I do sometimes I do a lot of keynotes on this. So as you could imagine, that’d be very, very funny keynotes. It’s very educational and the amount of people that come up to me afterwards. And this is the sad thing. It’s normally younger people. So let’s say people under 30 or 35 that come up to me and said, say, oh my God, I love that so much because I always thought there was something wrong with overusing acronyms and jargon, but everyone else is doing it.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:35:49]:
And I thought I just thought that that’s what how you have to speak in business because everyone else is doing it around me. So you’ve even got these people that know it’s not it’s not good communication, but because they’ve they see it role modeled so often, from other people that they just assume that that’s the way they have to talk. And it’s like, they come up and thank me. It’s almost like I I’m giving them permission to say, no, don’t do it. Don’t do it because you’ll be, you’ll be a better communicator if you don’t. And all those people that are doing it, they’ve, they’re not doing it right. They’re hiding behind the words and stuff. So I thank you for the opportunity for sharing that message because I think, the overuse of jargon and acronyms is is a pretty serious problem.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:36:32]:
And and like you said, as a leader, as a communicator, it should be up up there on your priority list to, to try to reduce it.

Scott McCarthy [00:36:41]:
Beautiful. What a great summary right there. Before we wrap up here, the last couple of questions always at the podcast. First one being Courtney, what makes a great leader? And, yes, we will compare to one eight four.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:36:57]:
Did you ask me that question? What makes a great leader? There were, there’s so many things that make a great leader, but I’m going to say a great leader is someone who’s really authentic and authentic in the way they act and behave and authentic to their values. And, and, you know, maybe part of that is it’s authentic, authentic in the way they communicate. And I think if you’re being authentic in the way you communicate, you’re not using acronyms and jargon every second word.

Scott McCarthy [00:37:24]:
I’m actually pretty sure that’s pretty much aligned exactly what you said 17 episodes ago. And then follow-up question of the show. How could people find you? How can they follow you? Be part of your journey? It’s all about you. Shameless plugs.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:37:35]:
How about me. So website, gabrielledolan.com, whole heap of stuff on that. But, but if you do want to look at the jargon and acronym, I have a separate website and that’s called jargonfreefriday.com. And there’s some pretty funny videos on. I actually got some videos made because I truly believe if the way we speak in business, we spoke in any other aspect of our life, it would be, we would just call it out for how ridiculous it sounds. So jargonfreeFridays.com. My favorite one on there is, if a marriage proposal was in corporate jargon, that that’s funny.

Scott McCarthy [00:38:14]:
I need to go check that one out. That’s gotta be hilarious. Awesome, man. Thank you again for coming back on the show. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule. I know, as soon as we hit stop here, you’re you’re bouncing and heading back out for, something, you know, another engagement. So, we’ll we’ll we’ll say thank you, for your time and all that now. And, yeah, take care, and it’s great seeing you again.

Gabrielle Dolan [00:38:40]:
Thanks, Scott. And TTFN. Tough half for now.

Scott McCarthy [00:38:49]:
And that’s a wrap for this episode, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the Peak Performance Leadership podcast. But you know what you could do to truly support the podcast and know that’s not leaving a rating and review. It’s simply helping a friend, and that is helping a friend by sharing this episode with them. If you think this would resonate with them and help them elevate their performance level, whether that’s within themselves, their teams, or their organization. So So do that. Help me help a friend win win all around and hey, you look like a great friend at the same time.

Scott McCarthy [00:39:27]:
So just hit that little share button on your app and then feel free to fire this episode to anyone that you feel would benefit from it. Finally, there’s always more. There’s always more lessons around being the highest performing leader that you can possibly be, whether that’s for yourself, your team, or your organization. So why don’t you subscribe? Subscribe to the show via movingforwardviewership.com forward slash subscribe. Until next time, lead, don’t boss, and thanks for coming out. Take care now.