GREVAN COLLIERS, a management consultancy with offices in eleven countries, has removed the word "internal" from its internal glossary following a six-week review of the document's tone.

The glossary, a 240-page reference defining terms such as "deliverable", "bandwidth" and "circle back", previously used the word "internal" in 38 of its definitions. It now uses the phrase "intended for colleagues" throughout.

The firm said the change followed feedback that the glossary was being shared on professional networking platforms at a rate of 400 screenshots per week, and that readers encountering the word "internal" outside the company felt excluded by it.

"We noticed our confidential reference material was performing extremely well with external audiences," said Ms Davina Kell-Hurst, the firm's Director of Verbal Identity. "When a document finds an audience, you don't fight the audience. You revise the document."

The review

The review was conducted by the firm's own engagement analytics unit, which measured which glossary pages were being photographed and posted most often. Definitions containing "internal" underperformed by an average of 22 percent.

"It was a reach problem," said Mr Anton Pelfrey, who led the work. "You put a term like 'internal stakeholder' in a post and the algorithm reads it as closed-door. Closed-door content does not travel. We are a thought-leadership organization. Our glossary now has an external posture."

The glossary's confidentiality notice has been renamed a "sharing policy". Its first line now reads: "This document is intended for colleagues, and for anyone who finds it."

What happens next

Copies of the glossary were previously distributed to staff only. They are now issued with a suggested caption and a QR code linking to the firm's newsletter, which has gained 12,000 subscribers since the review concluded.

Three employees who declined to be named said they had been asked to post their copies publicly before the official launch, to give the impression of grassroots enthusiasm. Two said they were told the request was itself internal, and could not be shared.

The firm declined to say whether the word "internal" would be reinstated. A follow-up review is scheduled for the new year, examining whether the phrase "intended for colleagues" is discouraging engagement from people who are not colleagues.

Ms Kell-Hurst said the direction of travel was clear. "Every document is a post now," she said. "Some of them just haven't realized it."

The glossary is expected to reach its target of one million impressions by December, at which point the firm says it will begin work on a public version of the document, of which the current edition will be a draft.