In which our correspondent has an idea to run up the flagpole – banning management speak in the workplace…
I’ve noticed a worrying development recently. A lot of people are reaching out to me. And, no, it’s not friends extending the hand of sympathy following my latest relationship catastrophe.
No, it’s my work associates, mainly in the States. And they’re doing it by email – “I’m just reaching out to you with an opportunity,” they say, cloyingly. Followed by: “Feel free to reach out if you’d like to discuss.” It’s kind of creepy. It reminds me of that A-ha video from the eighties, where the lead singer’s hand comes out of the comic book to beckon the girl in. Like anyone needs any reminders of the 1980s.
Management speak – I used to know where I was with it. I could think outside the box when required to step up to the plate, get my ducks in a row so I could bring them to the table at an important meeting, even brainstorm with gusto if the need arose, kicking any controversial ideas into the long grass lest they impact negatively on our projected revenue streams.
But now it’s all getting out of control – there’s been a “paradigm shift”, some might say. Before putting my strategic plan together (as opposed to my… plan), I have to hold an “idea shower”, because the term brainstorming is now considered politically incorrect. Those suggestions that are any use (or that offer value-add), I have to touch base with the enabler offline about so we can make the most of our collective face-time, and now everyone’s bloody reaching out at me. It’s enough to make me spin 360 degrees.
An even more annoying development I’ve noticed is the “-ise” (or “-ize”, as our Yankee friends would have it) method of turning nouns into verbs. Everyone’s monetising, incentivising and synergising like their lives depend on it, in case any change agent embarks on a bout of “right-sizing” (downsizing, it seems, is too brutal a term these days), or their department is “Bangalored” off to an outsourcing firm in India.
The Olympics hasn’t helped that particular tendency. Now “to podium” or “to medal” are recognised definitions of success in the sporting world, it’s not going to be long before they are used in relation to our company’s global “talent” whenever they give 110 per cent or demonstrate some bleeding-edge thought leadership.
Then there are the acronyms. Now that USP has passed into general parlance, the management-speakers need to keep coming up with ever more inscrutable short-cuts – making sure they get ROI from their KPIs (personally I think they need AKUTA – a kick up the…).
But for us business travellers, jargon creep can get a whole lot hairier. I heard of one high-flying exec who found himself in a disciplinary back home after suggesting in a meeting in Tokyo
that everyone “open their kimonos” (it means sharing information, of course – what else did you think?). While I’m not sure what some of my Asian colleagues would think if I asked if I could stir-fry an idea in their think-wok.
Still, there’s nothing like a bit of buzzword bingo to get through an excruciating meeting. Cross off on your notepad whenever someone says the words “learnings”, “stakeholder”, “future-proof”, “critical mass” and “magic bullet”. One particularly annoying colleague in New York said the lot during one presentation the other week and it was all I could do to stop myself jumping up and shouting “House!”
I do also like some of the terms some wags have come up with – like “deja moo”, when you’ve heard all this bullsh*t before, or doing the “muppet shuffle” to move ineffectual employees to other departments – a bit like the Cabinet shift-around, you could say. Management speak – let’s just drown this puppy.
Illustration by Ben Southan
