I hope you’re having a good day. Experiencing more highs than lows. Sorting wheat from chaff. Making inroads. Achieving goals. Planning something special. Doing something nice.

Doing words – what we were told to call verbs at school to help remember their meaning. Probably the most important part of any sentence, asserting something about the subject, expressing actions, events or states of being. There are thousands to choose from. So why would we ever want to neglect them?

One of the many “lightbulb” moments in my career was as a junior press officer at a major utility, when I was asked to join the review team for a series of presentations from mega-sized marketing agencies, pitching for the account. Sharp suits and shoulder-pads abounded (it was the 80s) and a veritable telephone directory of documents, reports, graphs and artwork. I was young, impressionable and duly impressed. But it was the opening gambit from the frontman of the first agency team, which left me truly lost for words.

I couldn’t begin to remember it exactly, but to give you a flavour, it sounded something like this: “The key to our conceptual framework is holistic governance, value-added methodology, cohesive organisational synergies and a customer-centric paradigm, with experiential brand advocacy at its future-proof core.”

I was in awe and hoping against hope that I wouldn’t get asked for my views on the PR value of what had been said. What could I say? I understood the individual meanings of the words, but when they were strung together so relentlessly, with not a doing word in sight, I lost any thread of meaning. What had he said they were going to do? What were they aiming to achieve?

Thankfully, the very capable, inspiring and wise Chief Executive addressed his comments to the agency frontman. Peering over his spectacles he said, simply: “I’m trying to work out what you actually mean.”

I wanted to cheer – and laugh – but restrained myself. It wasn’t me being stupid. It was simply a classic case of verb avoidance. Hiding a lack of any real action plan or specific ideas behind a stream of nouns and adjectives.
The experience confirmed my faith in the doing word and age has only made me more evangelical. Don’t let the verb-dodgers get away with it. Next time you hear or see a synergistic performance enhancement or thought leadership validated methodology, whether in a presentation, a job interview, an article or a brochure – ask what they actually mean, make, create, plan, achieve, do.

Going to do some reading, researching, calling and writing now – and of course a fair bit of procrastinating. I’ll just put the kettle on first.