Actioning a blue-skies approach outside the box

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I'd like to touch base with yourselves about incentivising challenges as we go forward. But first, I want a client-oriented feedback package on exactly why this sort of management-speak is so spleen-rupturingly abhorrent to anyone who isn't a contemptible turd of a human being. Thoughts? Feelings? Idea showers?

Some great examples here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7457287.stm

Now let's leverage some throughput, people!
 
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Amplesamples

Well-known member
God I hate that crap!

It's infected the world of education too. The one I hate the most I think is 'parachute teams'. Also 'going forward' is a bugbear. Which other way would you go?

Kind of on the same topic, but a little different is when customer services use the word "yourself" rather than you ie "we'll send that direct debit form to yourself to sign and send back". It's supposed to sound clever, but it sounds incredibly thick.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Pet hates:

'drilling down' into a topic;

"I'd like to have a meeting around the idea of...". Wtf? 'Around?' Is 'about' just too direct and not redolent enough of bullshit?


All-time worst name for a seminar: "Finding a path through the ideas swamp".

Round them up, and shoot them.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Also 'going forward' is a bugbear. Which other way would you go?

Down the pub, if anyone tried that shit on me, I think.

Kind of on the same topic, but a little different is when customer services use the word "yourself" rather than you ie "we'll send that direct debit form to yourself to sign and send back". It's supposed to sound clever, but it sounds incredibly thick.

Heh, yeah, 'hypercorrection' - not the first time I've read or written rants about this on Dissensus. It's somehow far worse than common-or-garden grammatical laziness, I think.

Also, what the cock is a 'parachute team'?
 

john eden

male pale and stale
"we need more granularity" was a good one.

I.e. we need more detail.

I wonder, is all the buzz word stuff just a way of pretending that you are hip when the actual job is the same old boring shite?
 

mos dan

fact music
All-time worst name for a seminar: "Finding a path through the ideas swamp".

Round them up, and shoot them.

or just hope that they don't find a path, and end up drowning in the ideas swamp? maybe get eaten by the brainstorm crocodiles?
 

mos dan

fact music
I think language is quite powerful so I wonder what the agenda here is, I mean.

good question. it's fair to say that the prevalance of management consultants and management speak has emerged in the last 20 years, right? surely there can't be a genuine belief in those circles that talking like that increases productivity (and therefore profit). you could probably argue that political correctness - such as it is - accounts for a small proportion in the evolution of such languge. only a small proportion though... why else? baffled.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I wonder, is all the buzz word stuff just a way of pretending that you are hip when the actual job is the same old boring shite?

Yeah, I reckon self-delusion probably has a lot to do with it.

Sorry, I mean maintaining a role-positive headspace.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
good question. it's fair to say that the prevalance of management consultants and management speak has emerged in the last 20 years, right? surely there can't be a genuine belief in those circles that talking like that increases productivity (and therefore profit). you could probably argue that political correctness - such as it is - accounts for a small proportion in the evolution of such languge. only a small proportion though... why else? baffled.

Yeah I think Mr Tea is onto something - perhaps it is about creating a positive and enthused mindset.

So you don't just "have ideas" you "run things up the flagpole" or whatever. You don't "do your job" but are "pro-active".

Even if people don't believe this stuff, if it's all they ever hear or are expected to say it probably does have a psychological effect.

Plus, being sent on training courses can make workers feel rewarded/valued so if someone spends a day out of the office learning all this shit there is maybe a double whammy.
 

mms

sometimes
this stuff is just there to deliberately mystify very simple things, make them more confused and function badly, so that any blame can be put from the person who says this crap to the people who are confused that they aren't 'on the ball.'

this is'nt a positive thing, a positive thing is digging in and changing and learning new things, developing, jargon is a mystical language that emphasizes polarity in the workspace, those who speak and those who don't -no wonder management consultants are the ones who use it the most. It's as if a persons contribution is less or greater due to a few flashy but meaningless words rather than their actual contribution.

Marketing speak is the worst, marketing is a fairly simple thing, but there is so much jargon associated with it now, i think this is because people go to university to learn this kind of subject so to sit alongside other subjects that have alot of meaningless but encouraged jargon (continental philosophy for example), it invents words to emphasize that the subject is serious and worthy of three years academic study.

people that say 'meet' instead of 'meeting', what's the point are they too busy to finish a word?
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
I'm on the last freedom moped out of nowhere city and I haven't even told the boss what time I'll be back from the pub.
 

Lichen

Well-known member
I was asked in a meeting:

"In terms of a drink, what would you like?


"In terms of" is horrid and used all the time.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Marketing speak is the worst, marketing is a fairly simple thing, but there is so much jargon associated with it now, i think this is because people go to university to learn this kind of subject so to sit alongside other subjects that have alot of meaningless but encouraged jargon (continental philosophy for example), it invents words to emphasize that the subject is serious and worthy of three years academic study."
I'm sure that this is pretty accurate. Ironic that disciplines that ought to be about increasing communication have surrounded themselves in inpenetrable jargon that ultimately serve only to work against the professed aim.

"Plus, being sent on training courses can make workers feel rewarded/valued so if someone spends a day out of the office learning all this shit there is maybe a double whammy."
I dunno, I think that most people who are sent on these courses are smart enough to see through this kind of nonsense. The best way to make someone who is on low wages feel more valued is to pay them more but it's a lot cheaper to just send them on a course and tell them that that means they're highly valued.

"good question. it's fair to say that the prevalance of management consultants and management speak has emerged in the last 20 years, right? surely there can't be a genuine belief in those circles that talking like that increases productivity"
To what extent does consultancy in general increase productivity, efficiency etc? I can believe that there are ways in which improvements are made but the amount of money that is spent by our government on consultants these days is so large that I find it hard to imagine that it works out as a net benefit.
I always think of a consultant for a business as something analogous to a psychoanalyst for a person - maybe can be a good idea in the short term but can often lead to a long term and destructive dependency. Plus both types tend to talk a load of bollocks obviously.
 

swears

preppy-kei
My manager is always going on about how we need to break away from the unchallenged assumptions of the traditional "rockist" view of invoice management. How we need to find a more "poptimistic" way of looking at our workloads. How do we feel personally about them? Rather than relying on the standard invoice processes laid down in the 60s and 70s, as "authentic" as they may seem.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I just heard a guy here say "clear as mud" to mean "very clear".

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