Verbits: The Hidden Language That Reveals Your Company’s True Culture and Brand Value

How the words your employees actually use expose organizational truth, shape perception, and signal where your brand creates or destroys value

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When it comes to building your brand and expressing your value, you spend time crafting mission statements, refining messaging, and polishing language. And yet, the real story of your business shows up somewhere else entirely, in the words your people use when they’re not talking to you.

The Language No One Officially Creates

But first, a story:

More than 20 years ago, my wife worked at an office that had a phrase everyone understood, even though no one officially defined it.

“Boxed.” As in, “she just got boxed,” or “I’m afraid he’s getting boxed.”

When someone was summoned to HR, people paid attention because everyone knew what was coming next: the closed door and the long wait. Then the door would open slowly, and the now-former employee would walk out of the office holding a cardboard box with their personal belongings.

No one said they got fired. Instead, they said they got “boxed.”

No memo had introduced the term, no employee handbook explained it, and no executive had approved it, and yet everyone knew exactly what it meant because everyone had seen it happen. Fall out of favor with the C-suite, and you’d get boxed.

Of course, some infractions didn’t warrant getting boxed. In those cases, you’d get “PDI-ed.”

PDI was short for Personal Development Interview. In theory, this acronym might have sounded constructive or even supportive, but in practice, it meant you were being reprimanded.

No one said they had a disciplinary meeting or got lectured by the boss. They said they “Got PDI-ed.”

And just like that, a formal HR phrase became a verb that everyone understood and used because it reflected what the experience felt like.

What Is a Verbit and Why It Matters in Branding and Culture

That’s what I call a Verbit, a word that starts out as a name, acronym, or internal phrase but eventually evolves into a verb.

My terminology might be new, but the idea isn’t. You already know a lot of Verbits, phrases like “Google it,” “Xerox this,” “I’ll FedEx it,” “Can you Photoshop that?” “Just Venmo me,” and “Let’s Uber there.” All of these started as proper nouns that crossed the line into representing behavior.

When Brand Names Become Verbs, Value Has Been Defined

These words don’t simply describe actions. In their new form they carry meaning, expectations, and a specific kind of experience that people immediately recognize.

When someone says, “Google it,” they’re not describing a generic search. They’re describing something fast, simple, and reliable. When someone says, “I’ll Uber there,” they’re not talking about transportation in general. They’re referring to a frictionless, predictable experience that has reshaped expectations.

When your brand becomes a Verbit, you haven’t simply prospered in the marketplace, you’ve shaped how people think and feel about the category and where the value resides.

McKinsey: Culture Drives Business Performance 

Internal Language as a Diagnostic Tool for Company Culture

But here’s what most leaders miss: Verbits aren’t only external; they’re being used inside your company every day. And if you listen carefully, you’ll hear those internal Verbits telling you the truth about your culture in ways your official messaging never will.

When employees say someone got “boxed,” they’re not describing a process, they’re revealing how getting fired feels. And when they say they were “PDI-ed,” they’re not talking about constructive development; they’re signaling how feedback is experienced. Real language doesn’t come from strategy decks, it comes from lived experience, repeated often enough that it becomes shorthand for what people believe.

HBR: Supporting Culture Through Behavior

The Gap Between Official Messaging and Lived Experience

Ask yourself what terms your people have turned into Verbits and then consider whether those words reinforce the culture you’re trying to build or are quietly undermining it.

You can publish messaging, but you can’t control language. And because language forms where experience, emotion, and repetition meet, once it sticks, it reflects what your people truly think and feel.

Read more: Why Your EQ matters More Than Your IQ.

How to Use Verbits to Strengthen Messaging Strategy and Brand Value

This gives you a strategic advantage. You can listen for internal Verbits, audit your messaging against real usage, identify gaps between intention and perception, and begin shaping language by improving the experiences that created it in the first place.

MIT: Language Reflects Workplace Culture

Clear, Not Clever, Always Wins in Brand Communication

This is why I always talk about being “Clear, not clever.” Companies that understand this don’t chase slogans; they create experiences so well-defined and valuable that language follows naturally.

Your Brand Is Already Being Defined. Are You Listening?

The words your people use are already defining your brand value. The question is whether you’re paying attention.

If you want help decoding the language inside your organization and turning it into messaging that actually builds value, let’s talk. Because the words you hear every day may be the most important ones in your business.