English or Government-ish?

04 Mar English or Government-ish?

Dear Here to Help,

As a small business owner, I interact with government. I find these interactions complex and confusing – in particular the words they use sound like a foreign language.

What do their words mean?

Why don’t they seem to understand my communications with them?

Do you have any ideas to help on this?

Thank you for your question. Communication is a frequent cause of stress with government departments. Government employees tend to speak “government-ish”, which may or may not be a form of English.

There are certain key phrases that peak government’s interest, words to avoid and even words that might mean something different to you and government. Usually, government gives you these words on their internet pages or application forms.

Maybe a story will help. I arranged for the President of a professional association to have a seat on a government consultation panel. He rang me after the first panel meeting to debrief. “How did it go?” I asked. Sounding disheartened, he said “terrible. Just terrible. Government just isn’t interested in what we have to say.” We stepped through the meeting and what was said. “Let me translate,” I said. “When government says [I don’t remember the words anymore], it is really positive. They just can’t make promises about what the Minister will do.”

The lesson is that communication with government (Governmentish) is based on similar principles to communicating with anyone else:

• use their language and words where you can,
• be clear and concise,
• tell them what you want from them (don’t ramble on complaining about what is wrong),
• answer their questions,
• do your research – find out what they are interested in and/or focussed on right now (it’s just a google search away) and work out how you can help them meet their goals, and finally
• don’t be afraid to be persistent – I put a diary entry say once a month to follow up.

At the end of the day, government employees are like everyone else – they have a lot on their plate and your will get the best out of your dealings with government if they find you interesting, easy to deal with and you align with their goals. It is well worth investing extra time upfront making it as easy as possible for government to be interested in, or even approve your application/letter/request the first time they read it. This will usually pay off in reduced frustration and time saved down the track reworking and rewording your communications.

This article comes from my column entitled “Here to Help” in Hunter Local, March 2022. If you have an everyday problem just begging for a simple, real world solution, send it to “Here to Help” and let’s see what we can achieve.

Elaine Abery has a closet full of great ideas and empowering solutions. She’s also the Director of Unravelling Red Tape, a company dedicated to helping everyday people, not-for-profits and companies change the world through improved decision-making and legislation.