How I stopped saying “amplify” and learnt to love simplicity

Sit through enough comms strategy meetings and you will eventually complete a full bingo card.

You have strategic storytelling, authentic engagement, meeting people where they’re at and, (when in doubt), amplify.

Then there is the other category: the careful phrases. Strengthening engagement. Managing stakeholder expectations. Optimising outcomes.

These are the words we reach for when we want to sound as though we have things well in hand. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of them. Used too freely, though, they can send us round in circles until the actual point is nowhere to be found.

I have been guilty of all of them. In flurries of self-doubt, when I worry the words about to tumble out of my mouth sound too simple, I can come down with a fairly strong case of the buzzwords.

Don’t get me wrong, I love language. I have been accused of a certain floweriness more than once (guilty, your honour). A well-turned phrase has its place. Straightforward does not have to mean clinical, and clear writing can still have warmth, care and character.

The trouble starts when we confuse sounding impressive, or staying safe, with being clear.

“We are leveraging community insights to amplify local voices” may look at home on a slide deck. But what does it mean?

Compare it with: “People told us we got this wrong. We are meeting with them again before we make a decision.”

The second version might make someone shift in their chair, but is also much harder to misunderstand.

Sometimes organisations take Ronan Keating’s “you say it best when you say nothing at all” a little too much to heart. It may work (arguably) beautifully in a love song, but slippery words that say nothing are less charming when people are waiting to hear what has happened, what it means for them, and what comes next.

The Spice Girls had a better approach: tell me what you want, what you really, really want.

In for-purpose work, vague wording gets costly. We often communicate with people who have been consulted before, perhaps repeatedly, and who have good reason to be wary of another “exciting new initiative”. They do not need a verbal obstacle course. They need to know what is changing and whether it affects them.

A few useful checks:

• Say the thing early – If the reader has to dig for the news, request or decision, move it up.
• Name the action – Who is doing what, with who, and by when?
• Be honest about the gaps – Say what you know, what you don’t know yet, and when people will hear more.
• Try the swap test – Could this sentence be pasted into another organisation’s report without anyone noticing? If it could, it needs more life.

Good comms doesn’t need bells, whistles or linguistic wizardry. It needs to tell people what is going on.

Edwina Pearse, Director, Jackson Pearse + Collaborator, For Purpose

18 August 2026

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