Image: Dilbert.com
Posted on 12/29/2011 9:32:50 AM PST by Pharmboy
Image: Dilbert.com
We are nearly at the end of 2011 and another year of mayhem behind. We will be judging our 2011 Non-Predictions and trying to dream up some new ones for 2012 in the next fortnight or so but this week we have been able to get some long needed admin done.
With it came a realisation that even if the financial industry is suffering, the creative management community has been in full swing dreaming up new terms and phrases to camouflage the blindingly obvious.
The evolution of ‘management speak’ means some phrases die and some survive and flourish. TMM really doesn't know what determines the success of one term or phrase over another other than, as with the arts, adoption and patronage by the most respected in the field. TMM hope that this year’s rash of newcomers all die off naturally but we would like to help with a shove into their deserved obscurity.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I wasn’t thinking of the “reach around” comparison, rather, just “reaching out” for breasts...but you make a good point.
We need to have visibility. grrrr.....
Do we have the bandwidth? grrrr.....
I’m afraid you lost that battle a couple of decades ago.
I appreciate you taking a proactive approach, but first we need to formulate our action plan...
Anything extolling the wonders of “diversity”.
The Balkans have got plenty of Diversity.
Fat lot of good it does them.
I believe, to paraphrase Gunny Hartman in FMJ, that would be reach-around.
But I’m just guessing. Probably should ask someone in the Navy...
(dives for cover)
Verbing weirds language.
"Di longer you verk here, diverse it gets."
Partner It’s not an adjective, verb or adverb. It’s a noun!
Who are you to be disrespecting those who use that word? /sarc
I know where you were going, and it’s valid, that phrase has always struck me as gay or at least metro sexual in nature. I could never imagine myself or my company using it.
..and with that the term.."Moving Forward"...really gets me...as if the problem/issue doesn't need to be adequately addressed or is shoved under the rug.
I claimed one of our whitest of whitebread managers was a “diversity hire”. When asked why, I maintained that based on his memos, e-mails, and powerpoint presentations he had english as a second language.
I think it mutated. I read "color outside the box" somewhere on FR just this morning.
Then, all the actual out-of-the-box thinkers are penalized and ostracized because they're not doing it right.
Been there, done that, didn't write the book though. TQM, Six Sigma too.
Even still, if you want to impress people from smaller companies, start blurting out management fad buzzwords. It's oddly hypnotic for some weird reason.
lol...good one.
It pays to ask people to define what they mean when they say “it is what it is”, often used simply to not address the “issue” currently faced. So then they simply state..’Moving forward’ after stumbling over “what is is.”
“Let’s progress this...”
And of course:
“Circle back”
Problems and issues have been combined into the deadly "challenge."
I am SOOOOOOOOO glad I have the job I have.
We use terms like, “Are you f#@%ing KIDDING ME?” Or, “That’s BULLS#%T!” Or, “C’mon, what’s this crap?” Or... you get the picture.
I am not well versed (or versed at all) at NewSpeak.
But it is what it is, and I guess I’ll have to reach out to someone who can audialize this new language for me.
Moving forward, of course.
And the various waves of "quality" and "lean" that always seem to add new layers to an already sclerotic system and manages to choke the last vestiges of independent thinking until there is nothing left to do but pack up and leave to some upstart that hasn't yet forgotten what they are trying to do.
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