[Closed] Management Speak

I never hear any dodgy management type speak from within my firm, but I have heard it from some clients (particularly public authorities).

The best use of a phase i've ever heard was years ago when I was in Nigeria advising on something. I was with one of the proper old school equity partners, and on the first day of meetings with the other side and their advisers, the partner became a bit irritated at how they seemed to be behaving in the negotiations.

So he told them, "I'm not sure I like what's going on here boys. You lot don't seem to be playing the white man at all."

Not the best thing to say to a group of Nigerian government officials, but we still made it to the end of the week without being arrested 😆

My boss talks sone right old shit

'pre-empt rather than be prompted'
'the management pyramid'
'the management monkey'

What a ****

Let's pause for a bio-break

Embrace new ways of working.

What they really mean is they want fewer people to do more work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzword_bingo

i say, 'no, thanks, i dont want to do overtime'
they hear 'yes id love overtime, any time you like.'

I bloody hate pretentious phrases designed to do nothing but confuse your peers.

"Its "baked" into the business case";

you mean even though its wrong and you haven't a clue by stamping your foot and saying that it will happen....yer right

"lets "deep dive" into this one";

so normally you dont give anything sufficient attention to make a sensible decision, bu in this case you are going to be terribly brave and find out WTF you are talking about first? Of course you could just trust the people you asked to do the work in the first place

GAAAARRRRRRRRRrr!

a new one appearing in my place is:

"so thats the exam question"

rahter than "thats the question".

"eating our own dogfood" is a common phrase that is somewhat meaningful - microsoft could do with doing it a bit more.

it means using what you are producing, rather than just shoving it out there and letting your customers find all the problems with it.

They all wannabe bloody Yanks round here (why why why????)

"I wanna give you the heads up" Your head up my ASS you pathetic wannabe

Ah balls I can't remember the others and don't want to.

One of my clients uses buzz words all the time...Could we do a 'deep dive' into this issue? My response - "a what?".

He uses the word delta a lot...as in, let compare lists and identify the delta. Why can't he just say difference?

Perhaps I need to start thinking outside the box a bit more.

I used to hear loads of this cobblers in a previous life when I spent my time floating around with management in the civil service, I can't tell you how many time I found myself dealing with 'the wolf closest to the sledge' ... who would have thought that working in policy could be so dangerous.. 😉

Slightly off topic, but why do people tell me they're going "On Annual Leave"?

You're going on your hols mate. You dress it up whatever colour you like, but at the end of the day, you and I both know you're going to go spend a fortnight sitting on a sunlounger, wearing the same pair of board shorts and drinking San Miguel til your head hurts.

Or are you now too important to have a "Holiday"?

Apparently, ideas gain traction.

"I'm not sure I like what's going on here boys. You lot don't seem to be playing the white man at all."

Many years ago, I worked for a large Asian-owned IT company. The exec board were all members of the same family, with a mostly white middle-management team, so any inter-departmental meetings we held were a fairly broad mix of ethnicity.

We took on a new head of sales, some annoying highly paid hot-shot, and he duly appeared at the weekly meetings we had to thrash out the 'top ten' problems in each department.

His opening gambit in his inaugral meeting was to argue with something one of the directors was saying, with the immortal "well, just to chuck another **** on the woodpile..." Then things went a bit quiet.

Needless to say, I think that was the last time I saw him.

"If we try and reinvent the wheel just one more time we're going to need a wheel warehouse"

You can have great fun with it if you work with the right bunch of [s] knob ends[/s] managers.

Try pulling out the pin, then over arm launching a "thought grenade" into a meeting...

Or throwing your arms into the air and shouting "bingo" if one of your colleagues is particularly full of it...

"Eating our own dog food" comes from Mars, I believe, where managers are encouraged to do just that as part of some sort of loyalty/quality control exercise.

As well as the eponymous bars, Mars also make Pedigree and Whiskas.

Can't you guys leverage this to a mutual gain point?

My MD once accused my team of "running about like blue arsed chickens" during a busy spell. How we chuckled.

I hate "going forward".

I have sent memos back for "an explanation in plain english please" when too full of buzzwords

Too busy "socialising" my plan / idea / proposal

All that reminds me of this: http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html

Written in the height of the dotcom boom but actually still shockingly accurate 12 years down the line

It's not on my list of deliverables, and I'm results driven.

I'll look where the disconnect is.

My boss doesn't have staff we're "colleagues" 27 times in a 30 minutes talk and he didn't talk for 5 of them. No definition below applie as far as i'm concerned

associate, fellow worker
Synonyms: aide, ally, assistant, auxiliary, buddy, chum, co-worker, coadjutor, cohort, collaborator, companion, compatriot, compeer, comrade, confederate, confrere, crony, friend, helper, pal, partner, teammate, workmate

I like the wheel warehouse one. I wish they'd say that at work. At least it would mean they'd finally realised that they keep trying to reinvent the wheel.

Lets touch base - always makes me feel uneasy 😉

Onzadog... you need to be on the inside looking out, not the outside looking in. Buy in to the culture, it may be a paradigm shift for you but you'll be smelling the roses in no time. If you don't know how to do it, start by picking off the low hanging fruit. Take a helipcopter view if you must, to see where they are. Palatise the fruit, synergise, then rain them down on your associates in a brain shower. Stop trying to push water up a wall, start pulling on the same end of the rope, be the ME in the tEaM. Fill yourself full of win.

Go get 'em kiddo.

"I hear what you're saying..."

Anyone ever had a deaf manager? Do they still say that?

"Pick the low hanging fruit".............

Just say, "Do the easy stuff first". Idiot.

@The Southern Yeti "Fill yourself full of win"

That's my favourite so far.

I tend to fill myself full of hatred and despair at this sort of stuff a lot of the time.

I particularly hate "mandrolic" at the moment, but that may be a fairly unusual word. It's still meaninless and deeply irritating though.

If you want a proper list of bullsh*t, try [url= http://www.toodlepip.co.uk/tags/gus-hedges ]Gus Hedges[/url] from DTDD - I'm sure I've heard some of it in real life...

One of the companies in our business park has in its corporate values poster:

'Don't over promise, do over deliver'

Which sounds a lot like, aim low and exceed your goals

One of best lines one of our managers came out with is..
'you are owned and controlled by this company...'

and another was...
'if I find out who this person is I will personally kill you...'

really, some people do have some bizarre ideas going on upstairs.

Kev

We often get 'the exam question is...' or 'what's the exam question?'. That and 'let's deal with the crocodile nearest the canoe'

There were some great ones in the Times the other day..
Let's take this off-line (Shut up and we'll talk about it later)
Let's get the potato on the fork (Let's get going)
That would be like boiling the ocean (an impossible task)
I'm coming into this with an open kimono (with everything disclosed)

It constsntly amazes me that people use this guff...and that others pretend to undestand it. I have often asked colleagues if they can explain some of the stuff that comes across my desk because I haven't a clue, and they openly admit that they don't bother reading it.

During my wedding speech, I promised not to use any buzzwords after my recent move from Engineering to Marketing, before saying "Moving forward, in this speech I'm going to leverage syngergies while going for the easy wins, grab the low hanging fruit and keep it on the radar screen".

Wasn't sure how it would go down. 2/3 of the audience got it, the ones that nodded in agreement and anticipaction were never invited to a function again and the OAP crew from Norfolk just looked blank!

DNA is everywhere now - baked into our DNA!

Elephants are also getting an honouraty mention - this project is like eating an Elephant - one bite at a time.

Also heard the other day - We need to chunk up the Elephant. WTF?

"lets run it up the flag pole"
"lets knife and fork it"
"lets deep dive"
"lets touch base"
"lets talk off line"
"we need some blue sky thinking"
"do you embrace the change?"
"its like herding cats"

Just some of the bull shit that I heard today working for BT.

Oh and I forgot one I heard last week -

"we'll have to engineer efficient architectures"

Projects not programmes... WTF is the difference?
I 'think' projects means we have to actually do something, not just write a policy on it

I recommend you all stop moaning and get yourselves promoted so you're dishing up the bs rather than eating it.

My boss talks sone right old shit

'pre-empt rather than be prompted'
'the management pyramid'
'the management monkey'

What a ****

Latest from my newest company:

Bestsourcing

Which means moving everything out of the country but sounds a bit nicer 🙁

[i]"lets touch base"[/i]

I heard that one from one of the guys in sales the other day.

haven't heard any of the others 🙁

"Come on show me your white rabbit..."

I spend white space browsing stw, whilst avoiding the elephant in the room

'Cloud thinking' knows what that means, I thought it was similar to day dreaming which I always got in trouble for.

Heard 'Were here to paint the bigger picture' a while ago quickly followed by someone saying back to management 'Oh * not more finger painting'

There's a guy I (sort of) work with who keeps going on about securing a "6-figure deal".
So far I don't think he's secured more than a 2-figure deal so he's got a little way to go but hats off to him for optimism.

Heard most of the rest and I like TSY's "fill yourself full of win". 😉

We don't eat our own dogfood, we gargle our own champagne.

Making up these things is one of the few pleasures I have at work... It's not rocket surgery.

"Talk to me about..."

no.

I read a job description today which the recruitment agency admitted they couldn't understand. I read it and told him what I thought the job was but was and admitted I was still guessing. So I'm applying for it...! I guess I'll find out eventually...
The problem with the ****s who use this kind of language is they don't realise the damage they're doing by communicating so poorly (ie causing total confusion and leading people to make the wrong decisions), and when you ask them to explain what they meant they take offence...
Self-employment is the only way to get away from these loons!

I've actually mamanged to use my all time favorite.
As a response to "There's no I in team"
"Nope, but there is a U in ****" (The 'C word' for when swear filter blocks it)
I laughed for a week once the muppet had left the office.

not so much buzzword, but on a conf call last week one of the contributors, while descibing his attempt to get some paperwork out of a client said 'so far, the conversation has been purely verbal' 😆

Some of you guys need to walk a mile down the critical path whilst wearing the customer's shoes, then and only then will you know the killer question.

Beej, I want to come and work with you. You're a genius!

Or as I said today:

'Its like checking the service abilities of the Maitre d on the Titantic, after its hit the iceberg'

To describe the management focus on a particular project that's gone tits-up.

My place has just hired in some MBA's who don't know their AFTE. Loads of acronymz.....even referred to their past employer by their stock ID......I think it's to cover up they know SFA 🙂

AFTE - arse from their elbow

My boss - lives and breaths that $h1t

Embrace the change

Low hanging fruit

Challenge

Think out side the box

Bad actors

Line in the sand

BTW - if you do 'challenge' and it's not what he wants = negative response

Oh yeah - forgot

Lets capture that as an action 🙂

"Going forward"- translation, I am going to ignore everything you have just said

But my favourite just now is "socialise that". Ie, "OK, that's a good plan, but we'll have to socialise it". What it seems to mean- though nobody's that sure- is making sure everyone who reads a business document understands it, by using either universal terminology, or by ensuring that the internal terminology's universally understood.

Or in other words MAKE THINGS YOU WRITE COMPREHENSIBLE. This doesn't need a buzz word, it needs less buzz words! Just another case of hanging a silly name on a bloody obvious thing that you should already be doing. If anyone ever says it in my office I'm going to run them through with the sharpened paperknife I keep close at hand for such moments.

I like the phrase "herding cats". It sums up project management perfectly! 😀

stw- talk to me about herding cats..

'we have all our ducks in a row'

this gets me every time and when an email needs to be circulated. 'for onward cascade' WTF. You mean send it to every who needs it. right!?!

Herding cats? Pah, easy. Herding cats in a thunderstorm, now that's tricky.

I always find this site useful for when I have meetings with marketing folks. We used to play reverse bullsh!t bingo where the idea was to get 3 made up phrases into the meeting. Nobody ever questioned what was said

[url] http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html [/url]

Sick of hearing people talk about 'live' documents. ''Well remember it's a live document anyway so we can just...''

I hear this a lot as an excuse when somebody realises there is something not quite right in said document but can't be bothered changing it...'we can just change it later 'cause it's LIVE'.

No it's not live, it's a dead and inanimate bit of paper. And it's not a grenade either, which might well be 'live'.

"Are we all rowing in the same direction?"

Just remembered that one from my previous boss.

I must block these things out because they cause me so much distress. I'd totally forgotten about pretty much everyone wanting to "eat elephant burgers". Kn0bs.

OK, that's a good plan, but we'll have to socialise it

I'm guessing that means: risky plan, not sure it'll work, if things go tits-up it'll be my fault/responsibility, so I'm going to send it to everyone in my Outlook contact list just in case, and if no-one objects my backside is duly covered.

the idea was to get 3 made up phrases into the meeting

They are all made up...

ken_shields - i did that once with a presentation to some marketing bods. We were 'Hunting the long tailed Armadillo' which was made up over some beers the night before but decided it meant a campaign where the effect trailed on for a long time.

3 months later I was in the company annual meeting and the CEO stood up and had a slide and five minute speech about the importance of 'Hunting the Long Tailed Armadillo'!

I was told to recruit an analyst and told 'really sweat them'.

Maybe I'm jaded, but not many of them seem to annoy me anymore, but thats probably because I hear them all day every day.

The moaners are probably stuck, being sweated by their bosses on lower paid jobs than thy think they are capable of 😉

My bullshit bingo loving boss printed off and presented a report I had been working on to the head of department, accidentally forgetting to credit me with the legwork. I found out and challenged him but was told "There is no "I" in team". Alas I foolishly blurted out "Aye but there's a U in C*nt". His face was a picture, however, he got promoted and I was moved to the wilderness.

At the start of a meeting this week I read that the last item on the agenda was a "hot wash-up session".

Oh, the anticipation....6 hours later I was very disappointed.

I'm so glad I work for a human ex BTCC driver and engineer, not a jumped up American management wannabe.

My wife once said in responce to being told there is no I in team after working late but leaving earlier than everyone else, was yeah, but there is a ME, and I'm off.

Lankysprinter - Member
Projects not programmes... WTF is the difference?

Programmes are groups of projects with a common strategic goal but different objectives. They are two distinct things.

I love the herding cats analogy, it sounds about right.

I personally hate "let's take this offline", "face-to-face" (as in a meeting) and "telecon" (conference calls).

djglover - Member

My wife once said in responce to being told there is no I in team after working late but leaving earlier than everyone else, was yeah, but there is a ME, and I'm off.

People who say "There's no I in team" are often surprised to find there's no U either. The english language has a sense of humour.

Met one of our suppliers today who we have had issues with. He said he had sent one of the reps on "a trip to the education tour bus..........". Legend!!

I was at a large social housing provider in Glasgow who had a sign on the wall next to the coathooks "Coats off, thinking caps on". Legendary.

What about "let's sense-check these documents" or "I need visuals on that document"

I have written a few down from one particular monthly meeting I attend - keeps me awake: -

"We are breaking down the barriers of social inclusion"

"There's a yin and a yang with everything"

"The interfacing of the electronic information tells you more than you think you want to know"

"financial strength is one of our strengths"

I swear it's true - those all came from the same bloke at various meetings.

The last one is a personal favourite of mine.

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