The 10 Business Buzzwords to Sunset in 2026: A Jargon Intervention

As 2025 winds down, it’s the perfect time to review our strategic communication initiatives. And by that, I mean let’s stop making ourselves sound like we’re communicating via a broken corporate AI.

Jargon, when fresh, can make you sound smart. When stale, it makes you sound like a PowerPoint slide from 2008. If we want to move the needle (oops, sorry, increase output 😂) in 2026, we need to ditch the empty buzzwords and embrace clarity.

Here are the top ten phrases that need to be retired, sunsetted, and perhaps even taken offline forever, starting right now.

1. "Let’s Circle Back"

What it sounds like: "I have absolutely no intention of dealing with this problem now, so I’m going to use a metaphor for avoidance."

❌The Crime : This phrase is the corporate equivalent of leaving someone on 'read.' It buys time without committing to action, often pushing the topic into an eternal meeting vacuum.

✅ Replace with: "I need 15 minutes to review this. I’ll send you an answer by 3 PM." (See? Specificity is magical.)

2. "Low-Hanging Fruit"

What it sounds like: "This is the simplest thing we can do, and I’m going to talk about it like I’m a farmer who can’t reach the middle branches."

❌The Crime: It glorifies the easiest task. While prioritizing quick wins is good, reducing every problem to garden-variety metaphors is tiresome.

✅ Replace with: "The quick wins," or "These are the easiest tasks to implement first."

3. "Leverage"

What it sounds like: "I’m going to try to sound smart by using a perfectly good verb in a way that sounds overly complex."

❌The Crime: You don’t "leverage your skill set." You use your skill set. You don’t "leverage the database." You use the database. We are not all mechanical engineers trying to lift heavy objects.

✅ Replace with: Use. (It’s shorter, easier, and actually means what you think it means.)

4. "Deep Dive"

What it sounds like: "Get ready to waste 90 minutes looking at data we should have analyzed two weeks ago."

❌The Crime: It makes a simple review sound like a perilous, high-stakes aquatic mission. Just say you’re going to review, analyze, or explore something thoroughly.

✅ Replace with: "Let's analyze this report," or "We need a thorough review of the Q4 data."

5. "Synergy / Synergistic"

What it sounds like: "1 + 1 = 3! (Except we can never actually prove it.)"

❌The Crime: The purest form of vague corporate optimism. It sounds great on a mission statement but has zero practical application. It often means "We hope these two departments eventually talk to each other."

✅ Replace with: "Collaboration," "Better integration," or "Working together."

6. "Move the Needle"

What it sounds like: "We need to make progress on the metaphorical dial that I invented just now."

❌The Crime: It’s overly dramatic. Are you making progress? Say you’re making progress. Are you increasing sales? Say you’re increasing sales. Nobody knows what metric that needle is pointing at!

✅ Replace with: "Show measurable progress," or "Improve our results."

7. "Boil the Ocean"

What it sounds like: "This task is slightly larger than I prefer, so I will now hyperbolize it into a physical impossibility."

❌The Crime: It’s an easy out. It dismisses ambition with extreme exaggeration. If a project is too big, articulate the risks and suggest phases, don't pretend it requires elemental mastery.

✅ Replace with: "That project is too broad; let’s define a minimum viable scope," or "This needs to be phased out."

8. "Thought Leader"

What it sounds like: "I think about things, therefore I must be a leader."

❌The Crime: It’s almost exclusively self-appointed. True leaders of thought are given the title by others, not by their LinkedIn headline. It's often used by people who haven't had an original thought since 2018.

✅ Replace with: "Expert," "Specialist," or, simply, their job title.

9. "Punt"

What it sounds like: "I’m going to kick this complex issue down the field, making it someone else’s problem in the future, just like in American football."

❌The Crime: It’s a messy sports metaphor for delaying decisions. It sounds unprofessional and lacks ownership. Decisions shouldn't be "punted"; they should be deferred with an actionable deadline.

✅ Replace with: "Let’s defer this decision until Friday," or "We need to escalate this to the steering committee."

10. "Take a Step Back"

What it sounds like: "Everyone stop what you're doing so I can repeat the high-level summary that was already provided in the meeting invite."

❌The Crime: Often used to slow momentum or introduce unnecessary preamble. If you need perspective, great, but this phrase just signals that you’re about to introduce delay or redundancy.

✅ Replace with: "Let's review the goal," or "Before we continue, I want to clarify the main objective."



Your 2026 Resolution

The goal for 2026 isn't to revolutionize the business world; it’s to make sure we’re not losing an extra hour a day deciphering corporate code. When you use simple, direct language, your team spends less time translating and more time executing.

Let's make 2026 the year we stop touching base and actually start connecting. Happy New Year!