"Granular"… "Siloed".. "this space"… management buzz-words 2015-16

Any others?

It’s getting a bit tedious now, like the word “curate” – as used every sixty seconds by people in normal life.

Other (more meaningful) words to describe things are surely available? 😕

Not necessarily new for 2015-16, but one that particularly riles me is asking someone to ‘own’ a process or a report.

“I want you to own this process”.

What it actually means is:

“I’m not going to question or check this, so make sure you do it right”.

An absolutely OK point of view for management to take – they have to be able to rely on the people working for them – so why not just say so in plain language?

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/real-time-bulls-t-bingo

“I want you to own this process”.

What it actually means is:

“I’m not going to question or check this, so make sure you do it right”.

“When the sh1t hits the fan I’m going to be blaming you.”

And for those who missed CFH’s contribution above, please use this as an opportunity to ”double click” on that information.

Thanks for interfacing that.

I’ve just been invited to a “business hangout”. It’s a conference call.

Business hangouts are conference calls you do naked.

HTH.

I thought that was a show & tell

I collected 6 pages of business jargon nonsense in my last job. I worked with a Swedish team for the last 3 years, which was refreshingly free of it, but here are a couple recent ones (not from the Swedes!)

‘Moving forward together as we follow the science and live our values’

‘Those cakes are not baked yet’

Business hangouts are conference calls you do naked.

You also got an invite to WCA’s shed then?

Ha ha, I don’t know any of those – I’m so glad I out of that world.

Although I might have accidentally created a new one on Monday.

I was in a meeting with some real corporate types and the subject of having to tell a client some unexpected, unpleasant news came up and I said something along the lines of “yeah it’s not great, but better to tell now than be the second person to tell them” aka better it comes from us. I didn’t meant to make anything of it, that just how the words came out, but a light seemed to go on above their heads and they spent the afternoon all spouting various versions of this saying – I think they settled on not being “the second one to the party” or something.

One of my favourite phrases used from the last 12 months is:

“What your talking about is a dance floor view, you need to use a balcony view.”

What the…..?

Building site management speak starts mostly with f’s and c’s.

Adding out to everything. Build out, prove out, get the **** out etc….
And socialising stuff as in showing it to people.
And not really business bollocks but the fashion for saying yourself when you will do.
Fecktards.

I nearly said paradigm today but talked myself out of it.

I’ve recently been told our company is developing a ‘decision tree’ for a project, WTactualF?

Normally this kind of business talk frustrates me, but I must admit to liking “ownership”. Why use lots of words when one word will do? Ownership says (pardon the analogy) “This is your baby. You will most likely need others to help with its upbringing and you can put it down to sleep when you need to work on something else, but until that baby is grown up it is your responsibility”

Experience has taught me that there’s a direct correlation between the amount of business buzzwords spouted by the individual and their inadequacy as a manager.

It’s almost uncanny.

“Vertically integrated” Not new and probably fairly average among some businesses but this was a bloke that runs a coffee shop. Got to be worth extra points for context.

Experience has taught me that there’s a direct correlation between the amount of business buzzwords spouted by the individual and their inadequacy as a manager.

Ironically there is also a similar correlation between how irate a person gets on this subject and how difficult they are as an employee! (By the way I am not a manager)

I’m a fantastic employee, I have a glowing email here to confirm that.

(although I am on STW on company time).

Here we go –
Emerging market = no one wants to buy our stuff
Early adopters = very few people want to buy our stuff
Saturated market = others people’s stuff is better than ours

All used as sales failure excuses

Also
Strong buying signals = not being told to **** off
Strong pipeline = big spreadsheet

One of my favourite phrases used from the last 12 months is:

“What your talking about is a dance floor view, you need to use a balcony view.”

What the…..?

They have evidently taken the ferry from Hull to Rotterdam – circular dancefloor with balcony above….

Ahhh how I miss American corporate bollocks

Granular/granularity is popular here, as is optics – “have you considered the optics of that?”. I used it in an interview last month and got promoted 8)

My boss asked me to do something because it is in my wheelhouse.

Apparently.

Who makes this stuff up, why do they do it and who do they think it impresses? Oh, and if they knew who it would impress why do they want to know such a person?

Are courses run to teach such mince? Is the person who first came up with the idea sitting back laughing their head off now?

Ownership says (pardon the analogy) “This is your baby. You will most likely need others to help with its upbringing and you can put it down to sleep when you need to work on something else, but until that baby is grown up it is your responsibility”

Get out.

finbar, are you from Cork and last week had a chat to a colleague about cycling?

solutionizing…wtf?

and be..f*cking..spoke solutions even worse.

‘Delta’ when they mean difference.

Yes, I know Delta does indeed mean difference in a mathematical context, but not in the difference between anticipated and actual sales.

Who makes this stuff up,

let me solutionize (with a z) your problem space… retards

why do they do it

they’ve received flow-down from thought leaders… see previous

and who do they think it impresses?

the whole social space … everyone

in reality, it impresses other retards

One I’ve heard recently:

“Piss, or get off the pot”.

An old one but a good one:

“Open kimono”. As in I’m going into this negotiation open kimono.

“Auto Suggest” is one my favourites.

I heard a tale once about granularity. I hope it’s true, I really do.

Apparently, someone at Barclays started using it for teh lolz, and was astonished when others started to use it seriously.

“Piss, or get off the pot”.

That’s the second Clerks reference on here in as many minutes.

muppetWrangler reminded me of one of the new managers at work a few months ago:

Upon introducing himself to a few of the staff:

“My career has a vertical projection according to the HR review last week so I don’t plan on being here long.”

Voice from the back of the group (not me):

“Let us know when you t**t yourself on the ground on the way down, we’ll send a clean-up team.”

He was gone in 3 weeks never to heard or seen again.

All this simply highlights the fact that many businesses these days (especially large corporations) are managed by complete halfwits who use flashy phrases to disguise the fact that they simply haven’t got a clue.

Slowoldman +1

Ironically there is also a similar correlation between how irate a person gets on this subject and how difficult they are as an employee! (By the way I am not a manager)

I dislike this stuff because it gets in the way of clear, effective communication.