From Orwell to the Office: How Jargon Kills Trust

The Ghost of 1984 in Todays World

In 1984 (the book not the year), George Orwell introduced the word ‘newspeak’. A term used to describe how an oppressive regime would talk around the topic rather than speak truthfully and honestly to its citizens. In fact Orwell felt that newspeak was a way to even control thought itself and make dissent impossible.

We see examples of it everyday in politics. If I look at the front page of the news today I read that a country is ‘carrying out a broad-scale wave of strikes’ on another country, which sounds a lot less visceral than ‘dropping bombs on civilians’.

In his essay Politics & The English Language, Orwell described further how language is used as a manipulative weapon and he gave some great advice for how to write well. It’s so good in fact that The Economist adopted some of Orwell’s principles in their tone of voice document. My favourite is he said “Never use the passive where you can use the active”.

He wrote this in the active voice.

Why we Obfuscate (and How it Kills Trust)

Newspeak separates, it confuses and, one of my favourite words, it obfuscates the truth (which is an ‘autology’ because it possesses the properties it describes).

These are all things that prevent building trust because they all circumnavigate openness.

And since trust is a key component of a high performing team, our language is ruining our performance.

What are some examples of this?

Well acronyms are obvious ones.

Speaking in the 2nd person rather than the 1st is a classic way of avoiding owning one’s opinions and emotions, for example:

‘When the company has bad results, you do wonder what you could have done differently’.

When they likely mean:

‘When the company did badly, I worried I hadn’t done my job properly’

This carries a totally different level of truth and leads to far more honest conversations and therefore a shift in team dynamic and an increase in effectiveness.

Essentially, say it like it is.

Don’t hide or soften.

We must own what we say.

“The Change” vs. The Truth

I’ve worked with leaders in organisations who are making people redundant and they talk about “the change” a lot. Rather than ‘change’ they could say ‘redundancies’ (which itself might still sound like newspeak) or just speak as truthfully as possible. Hiding behind words is a way of not owning decisions by hiding from the impact of them.

It’s akin to ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’…

(Sidenote: Harry Potter completes his inner heroes journey in the final battle of Hogwarts where on top of the tower fighting Voldemort, he finally calls him “Tom”. Dumbledore is the only person to call him by his first name up until then. This is the moment Harry reaches adulthood).

Another bit of newspeak is ‘downsizing’ or ‘right sizing’ which typically mean ‘firing’ really.

These small moments might sound like not much, but combine them over all our interactions and what I see is teams staying distant from each other and lacking the type of straight talking honesty that I see in high performing teams.

How to Audit Your Own Newspeak

So when reflecting on your own communication and potential ‘newspeak’ think about these elements:

• Kill the Passive Voice: Instead of “Mistakes were made,” try “I made a mistake.” An active voice identifies the actor, which is the first step toward accountability
• The “Voldemort” Test: Are you calling it “The Change,” “The Realignment,” or “The Synergy”? If you’re using a vague noun to describe a difficult reality (like redundancies), you are hiding. Use the real word
• Speak from the “I”: Are you saying “You feel…” when you actually mean “I feel…”? Talking from the first person shows vulnerability, and that builds immediate trust. Own it
• Delete the Acronyms: If a new starter wouldn’t understand your sentence without a glossary, you aren’t communicating, you’re gatekeeping

Don’t hide behind language

So in my view, being real and straight talking, is what is needed here. We must develop the courage to not hide behind language, because that courage builds trust and high performing teams are built on trust.

So if you can, don’t hide, don’t pretend.

Speak truthfully and compassionately, and you will likely slowly build a climate of trust and honesty.