Verbits – The Hidden Language Inside Your Company

The Messaging You Control vs. The Language You Don’t

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Verbits – The Hidden Language Inside Your Company Equals Your Brand Truth

The Messaging You Control vs. The Language You Don’t

We spend a lot of time thinking about and defining messaging, including taglines, campaigns, presentations, and websites. If you look at these things structurally, you’ll realize they all have one thing in common — they’re all made up of words.

That might suggest that powerful language is the best way to communicate company culture. But we all know the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

So if that’s true, perhaps the most revealing language in your business isn’t necessarily what you say but what you display.

But First, a Story

“You Give Good Eyebrow”

I’ve been told I have very expressive eyebrows. I’ve never known whether I should take that as a compliment or not, but I’ve learned it’s certainly true.

I discovered this back when I was a talking head on TV. A producer I worked with pulled me aside and said, “Want to know why we invite you back? You give good eyebrow.”

That was her exact phrase. And it was not what I expected her to say.

You see, my ego had assured me that they kept inviting me back because I was eloquent, erudite, and enlightening. But here was a big New York producer telling me it wasn’t that at all.

I was dumbfounded, so she continued. She explained that if someone was sitting in a bar watching TV with the sound off or scrolling through clips on their phone without audio, they could still tell I was saying something meaningful by watching my face. Or, more specifically, my eyebrows. And my message would break through, even without words.

When “Knitting” Became a Warning Signal

But the real lesson didn’t come from that studio, it came from my office.

Sometimes I’d overhear the people I worked with using a word I didn’t understand.

“Knitting.”

As in, “Be careful, he’s knitting,” or “Watch out, there’s some knitting going on.”

Apparently, when I get annoyed, my eyebrows crash together and touch in the middle, forming a heavy black slash that looks like a unibrow.

The people around me noticed, and they’d joke about it, moving their fingers like they were crocheting a sweater, saying “knit one, purl two,” to warn each other that I was in a bad mood.

The Moment Language Turns Into Action

Somewhere along the line, “eyebrow” stopped being a noun and became a verb.

And that shift, from noun to verb, from description to action, is what I call a Verbit.

Last week I introduced the idea of Verbits, the internal language patterns that quietly define culture.

Read More: Verbits inside your organization

What a “Verbit” Really Is

Language as Compressed Culture

A Verbit is a word that evolves inside a group to carry a specific, shared meaning. It’s not in the dictionary, and you won’t find it in your brand guidelines. But everyone on the inside knows exactly what it means.

When a team turns a word into a Verbit, they’re compressing beliefs, priorities, and expectations into a single, efficient signal. And they’re telling you what it is they value.

Read More: McKinsey – Turning Human Capital into Competitive Advantage

The Culture You Think You Have vs. The One You Actually Have

Verbits Don’t Come from Strategy Decks

Most leaders spend their time trying to define culture from the top down. They write mission statements, craft value propositions, and hold alignment meetings.

But Verbits don’t come from strategy decks. They come from behavior repeated often enough to earn its own shorthand.

How to Listen for What Matters

The Language People Use When You’re Not in the Room

If you really want to understand your culture, listen to the language your people create and use when you’re not in the room. Because that’s where the truth lives. Verbits are the purest expression of what your organization actually does, not what it says it does.

If you can identify the Verbits in your business, you can see what’s working, what’s valued, and what’s being reinforced every day without anyone having to write it down.

Read More: Understanding how people interpret signals

Read More: HBR – The Importance of Culture in Strategy

What’s Missing Tells You Everything

The Silence Around What You Claim to Value

You can also see what’s missing.

No Verbit for collaboration? That tells you something.

No shorthand for customer empathy? That tells you even more because language is never neutral. It always reflects priorities.

Read More: Gallup – Validating Culture

Why This Matters for Building Value

Belief Is the Only Thing That Builds a Brand

If you want to build value, real value, the kind that people feel and respond to, you have to pay attention to the signals your own team is already sending. Not the ones you wrote and hung in the conference room, but the ones they invented.

Because those are the ones they believe. And in the end, belief is the only thing that ever builds a brand.

The language within your organization shapes your brand every day. The question is whether you’re guiding it or reacting to it.

That’s the work I do with leadership teams.

If you’re planning a conference or leadership meeting and want your audience to understand how to build a brand people believe in, let’s talk. I’m currently booking a limited number of keynote presentations for 2026.

Read More: Build a brand people believe in