Every organisation has its own language. 

Words such as shopper, patient, user, drinker, policyholder, lapsed customer and category rejector appear constantly in meetings, presentations, research briefs and strategic plans. They help teams identify who they are talking about and communicate quickly without having to explain every concept from the beginning. 

But what happens when these familiar labels begin to shape, not simply describe, the way an organisation sees people? 

That was the focus of the latest conversation in our More Bang for Your Buck series (listen to the podcast here). We spoke with Kirstie Skates, founder of Illume Linguistics, about the assumptions hidden inside everyday business language, the strategic blind spots those assumptions can create and why the most dangerous words may be the ones nobody thinks to question. 

Alongside these labels sit technical terms, acronyms and familiar expressions that gradually become part of an organisation’s everyday vocabulary. New joiners learn what everything means, which words matter and how the business talks about its customers, products and priorities. Before long, they are speaking the same language as everyone else. 

This shared vocabulary is useful. It creates precision, simplifies complexity and gives people a sense of belonging. In fast-moving organisations, this shorthand helps teams get to the point. 

But such language can also become a trap. 

The greatest risk is not necessarily the obscure acronym or technical expression that nobody understands. Those are usually easy to spot and challenge. 

Sometimes the most problematic words are the ones everyone thinks they understand.

When language becomes invisible

becomes normal. It is repeated so often that nobody thinks to examine it. 

It becomes, in Kirstie Skates’ words, “the water we’re swimming in.” 

Once language becomes invisible in this way, the shorthand can start to feel like the thing itself. A term created to simplify complex information gradually becomes the lens through which the business sees the world. 

Teams stop asking whether the label is still accurate, whether it reflects how people actually live or whether everyone using it means the same thing.

Take a word such as shopper. It sounds straightforward, but it focuses attention on a person at the point of purchase. It may obscure everything happening before that moment: who they are buying for, what they are trying to achieve, what pressures they are under and what compromises they are making. 

A patient is understood through their interaction with the healthcare system. A user is defined by their relationship with a product or service. A drinker can be reduced to their consumption of alcohol, even though the meaning of that behaviour may change dramatically by occasion, company and context. 

A lapsed customer is defined by the fact that they are no longer buying. A category rejector is understood through the organisation’s need to explain why somebody is not engaging with its offer. 

None of these labels are necessarily wrong. The problem begins when the label is mistaken for a full description of the person. 

Someone described as a lapsed user might be busy, dissatisfied, financially stretched, distracted by a competing priority or simply no longer interested. Yet once the label has been applied, the organisation may focus on how to reactivate them rather than asking what has changed in their world. 

The language makes the person easier to categorise, but potentially harder to understand. 

Organisational logic is not human logic 

Many familiar terms reflect the way a business divides the world rather than the way people make sense of their own lives. 

An airline may record an interaction as a customer complaint, while the person making it sees themselves as an experienced traveler trying to resolve a legitimate problem. A bank may talk about lending, while its customers think about borrowing. An organisation may describe someone as a non-user, although that person is unlikely to define themselves by the absence of a relationship with the organisation’s product. 

These differences can sound minor, but the underlying issue is strategically important.

When organisational language becomes the default frame, businesses risk designing products, services and communications around their internal structures rather than around people’s realities. 

The same problem occurs with broad concepts that appear universally understood. Words such as health, value, premium, professional and moderation (in reference to alcohol) can create the illusion of agreement. 

Everyone in the room may say that health matters, for example, while holding very different ideas about what health means. For one person, it may be about reducing clinical risk. For another, it is about self-control and making 'good' choices. It could mean improving physical performance, avoiding artificial ingredients or choosing a supposedly guilt-free version of a treat. 

A strategy aimed at the 'health-conscious consumer' may therefore be aimed at several fundamentally different motivations concealed beneath one convenient phrase. 

The word creates apparent clarity while smoothing over the distinctions that could make the strategy more precise.

What familiar labels quietly assume

Labels do not simply describe reality. They construct a particular way of seeing it. 

The beauty industry’s long-established language of “anti-ageing,” for instance, does more than describe products designed to reduce visible signs of ageing. The phrase assumes that ageing itself is something negative: an unwanted process to be resisted, corrected or concealed. 

That assumption may not reflect how many people think about getting older. Yet when the term is used repeatedly, its underlying judgement can disappear from view. It starts to sound like a neutral product category rather than a particular, and potentially limiting, way of framing age. 

Similarly, describing someone as a 'non-compliant patient' places attention on them not following a treatment plan. It can obscure the barriers, fears, side effects or practical circumstances influencing their behaviour. 

Even familiar marketing language can carry hidden judgement. People become 'targets', 'eyeballs' or groups from whom the organisation needs to 'extract value'. Those expressions may be used casually, but they can quietly shape the relationship between 'us' inside the business and 'them' outside it. 

This matters because internal language does not remain contained within internal conversations. It influences the questions teams ask, the behaviour they notice and the solutions they develop. 

If a business repeatedly describes people through narrow organisational labels, it may begin solving for the label rather than understanding the person.

Making the familiar visible again

The answer is not to eliminate every label or replace useful terminology with longer, more cumbersome descriptions. Organisations need shared language. 

The challenge is to remember that a label is a tool, not a complete account of reality. 

Start by gathering the words, categories and descriptions your teams use all day, every day. Look beyond obvious technical jargon and pay particular attention to the simple terms nobody normally defines. 

What assumptions sit beneath them? Are you describing people, or merely describing their relationship with your organisation? Would the people themselves recognise the words being used about them? Does everyone inside the business mean the same thing when they use the term? 

New employees can be especially valuable here. There is often a brief period when they still notice expressions that seem strange, unclear or overly specific to the organisation. External partners can offer a similar perspective. 

It is also important to return to the language people use themselves: their verbatims, diaries, conversations and unpolished explanations. The awkward moments matter - the corrections, hesitations and occasions when someone says, “I suppose you would call me that, but…” 

Those moments of disconnect are not inconvenient noise to be tidied away. They may be the first glimmer of a different way to understand the person, frame the problem or identify an opportunity. 

One question that is worth asking inside every organisation is: 

What are the words your company uses every day that nobody has questioned? 

Behind those words may be assumptions. And behind those assumptions may be opportunities your business has never seen or considered. 

Challenge Assumptions. Talk to Hummingbird Insights