KPI, ROI and EBITDA are some of the most commonly used acronyms in the corporate world. However, using certain abbreviations in front of Cisco’s Indian-origin executive could get a meeting terminated.
Jeetu Patel, president and chief product officer at Cisco, recently revealed why he sometimes ends meetings when employees use acronyms, particularly those coined internally by the company. “I’m like, who’s JP? He’s like, that’s Jeetu Patel. I don’t even go by JP,” he recalled. Many might hesitate to ask what these expressions mean and instead remain silent, he added. He also believes senior leaders have a responsibility to communicate in a way that everyone can understand.
He estimated that an annual attrition rate of 5% to 10% at Cisco’s scale could mean around 9,000 new employees joining the company each year, according to Fortune. Over 3 years, that could amount to approximately 27,000 people, or nearly a third of its workforce.
He also recalled an instance when he heard employees referring to him as “JP” while discussing an approval. However, Patel said he did not even go by that nickname. Explaining his concerns, Patel said that even a relatively small employee attrition rate can result in thousands of new people joining a large organisation every year. These employees, he said, would have to navigate company-specific terms and abbreviations casually used during meetings. “They don’t know all the colloquial acronyms that we’ve come up with, but they feel too stupid to ask because they don’t want to be intrusive and invasive in a meeting,” Patel said. “So now people are talking past each other, and you’ve got a third of the population that does not feel comfortable asking what that means, and the two-thirds that are using the acronyms feel like that’s superbly efficient. ut how is anything efficient that a third of your company does not even understand what you’re talking about?” he said. Patel said that he encourages new employees to stop meetings whenever communication becomes unclear. During orientation, he tells them they have the authority to interrupt a discussion if they do not understand what is being said.
