Brett Rutledge - The Business Linguist

The words you use are doing your thinking
for you

Language is more than a means of communication – it’s the foundation of how we think, reason, and connect.

Work with Brett

Language shapes what organisations see

Every organisation runs on language. Strategy documents, meeting conversations, values statements, the phrases repeated until nobody questions them. We treat these words as neutral containers for ideas. They aren't. The words a team uses quietly decide what it notices, what it takes seriously, and what never gets discussed at all.

As The Business Linguist, I help leaders and teams see how their language shapes their thinking, and change it where it's getting in the way of good decisions.

More about Brett

Business Insights

Rethink how you achieve influence, buy-in, authority, and impact. Advice and guidance for CEOs, boards, and executives.

Brand is a subset of identity

Your brand is not who you are. Identity is who you are. Brand is a subset of your identity. Your brand is the bits of your identity that you want to share with the world. It's how you want to be seen. If your brand and identity are out of alignment, it’s an organisational disaster waiting to happen.

Ask yourself six questions

At its core, identity is found in the answers to very simple questions like what do you do? and what’s your value? You’d think we’d be really good at answering fundamental questions like these, but most of us struggle to make small talk at a barbeque, let alone define our organisation’s identity.

Vision binds strategies together

Most organisations get their 'vision' and 'purpose' wrong. Rather than acting as a primary source of motivation for your people, a vision helps to bind successive strategies together so that you stay on track as you work towards its achievement. In many organisations, vision and purpose are the same thing.

See more
LinkedIn logo

Social Commentary

Examine how language reflects and influences social dynamics, power structures, and cultural values.

Featured
It’s all about prediction

When we realise that AI is essentially a prediction tool, it becomes less intimidating and more understandable.

Read more →
Monty Python and spam

The term "spam" originally referred to a brand of canned meat but electronic "spam" has a very different history.

Read more →
Equality versus Equity

While equality and equity are often used interchangeably, they actually have different meanings.

Read more →
“We the people…”

Among the most important changes to the draft of the United States Constitution was a critical phrase in the very first line.

Read more →
From Amazonas, Yoda is

Why does Yoda speak the way he does? Where does his language come from? Where on Earth would you find Yoda?

Read more →
Americans spell differently

Noah Webster tried to simplify the spelling of English words and some of these alternative spellings caught on.

Read more →
The word 'COMMENTARY' in bold, white outline letters on a black background.

Discover the
origins of words

Get insights into the history, culture, and evolution of words and how they shape the world.

We think we have a good handle on the meaning of 'nice'. But its 12th century Old French meaning (‘simple, stupid, foolish’) stems from the Latin nescius meaning "ignorant, unaware" - literally "not-knowing". Have a ni
In a time of FAKE NEWS, it's pertinent to ask: what does NEWS actually mean? Some mistakenly believe it's an abbreviation of 'North East West South', as in 'information from all corners of the earth'. In reality, it is simply the plural of 'new' - li
The word ‘vaccine’ sounds suitably scientific. It’s actually latin for ‘pertaining to a cow’. The smallpox vaccine was the first successful vaccine to be developed (1796). Edward Jenner observed that milkmaids who previo
You think we’d have a pretty good handle on the meaning of a simple word such as ‘simple’, right? Wrong. Depending on the time period, you could have used it to describe someone as ‘sweet’, ‘stupid’, ‘s
Ironically, we don’t fully understand the origins of the word UNDERSTAND. This highlights our tendency to use words and concepts that we think are obvious, but which may not be clear to everyone - which only invites the audience to draw their o
A brand is simply your mark: a quick way of associating certain qualities with your product or organisation. It is, in old cowboy parlance, the mark on the backside of the cow. It ain’t the cow. Don’t mistake brand for identity. Download