Ladder THIS up, fellas! Are you baked in? We need to get some heavy lifting done in quarter three or investors will throw the big rock at us.
Corporate buzzwords abound. They say nothing. The people who use them think value is attached. They kid themselves.
A good friend recently told me about the newly appointed CEO of his company. During a 30-minute speech to the masses, he used the phrase “heavy lifting” four times at a minimum, according to my friend.
Now, “heavy lifting” may seem to make sense. Broadly, yeah, it means we all need to work hard, get things done, navigate the landscape. But even those phrases mean nothing.
What, for example, does “navigate the landscape” tell employees or investors about the next step a company is taking? What does “get things done” mean? Are there specific projects on deadline? If so, which ones? And, of those, which are number one, number two and number three?
We’ll never know because no one specifies that information. So employees and investors grow bored and listless, then stop paying attention. Nothing means anything, so why listen?
Who creates business buzzwords? Is there some college or university that people attend to get this remarkable command of nothingness statements? It’s an art form. When practiced well, the masses nod their heads in the audience, acting like every word is a message from god.
It’s the cynic, the investigator, the person who uses his or her brain that dissects these types of statements, trying to find meaning and sense. When none is to be found, the speaker loses those people.
Oddly, if the leader was smart, s/he would know that those are the employees most important to the future of the organization. Motivate them, and you win. Set a clear direction that folks understand and respect, and they follow your lead. Explain explicitly what you mean, and they share your message with others (and typically support it).
There must be a committee somewhere that comes up with this stuff. How else could these buzz words/phrases be created and spread thoroughly through the business community and become part of the vernacular? The pointy heads in the back room spend weeks pushing paper across the table.
“Drink the Koolaid.”
“Break down the silos.”
“Tee it up.”
“Move the needle.”
Yeah, well MOVE THIS, fellas. Move the mush language aside and say something for a change.
The Board of Business Buzzwords Development, Enhancement and Revision Committee levels up every year in Silicon Valley to generate new business vernacular. They try new phrases and words on each other and see if the listeners understand what they mean. If not, they save it, add it to the list and use it. If, instead, the phrase makes sense and is useful, it is discarded.
Bradley: “Hey, have we captured ‘run it up the flagpole’ yet?”
Trevor: “Dude, that is so 80s.”
Bradley: “Well, we could use it to leverage our core competencies.”
Trevor: “Now you’re talking.”
If you want to get buy-in to the swim lane and empower your employees to find and categorize all the moving parts, keep talking without making any sense. You’ll baffle your staff, drive the company to a standstill and puzzle investors.
The ship will be dead in the water without a sail. Blow some fresh words in. Think through what’s really going on, then express the specifics.
You might find a lot more people paying attention, listening with their eyes and ears, instead of nodding off and looking out the window. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?
Corporate buzzwords abound. They say nothing. The people who use them think value is attached. They kid themselves.
A good friend recently told me about the newly appointed CEO of his company. During a 30-minute speech to the masses, he used the phrase “heavy lifting” four times at a minimum, according to my friend.
Now, “heavy lifting” may seem to make sense. Broadly, yeah, it means we all need to work hard, get things done, navigate the landscape. But even those phrases mean nothing.
What, for example, does “navigate the landscape” tell employees or investors about the next step a company is taking? What does “get things done” mean? Are there specific projects on deadline? If so, which ones? And, of those, which are number one, number two and number three?
We’ll never know because no one specifies that information. So employees and investors grow bored and listless, then stop paying attention. Nothing means anything, so why listen?
Who creates business buzzwords? Is there some college or university that people attend to get this remarkable command of nothingness statements? It’s an art form. When practiced well, the masses nod their heads in the audience, acting like every word is a message from god.
It’s the cynic, the investigator, the person who uses his or her brain that dissects these types of statements, trying to find meaning and sense. When none is to be found, the speaker loses those people.
Oddly, if the leader was smart, s/he would know that those are the employees most important to the future of the organization. Motivate them, and you win. Set a clear direction that folks understand and respect, and they follow your lead. Explain explicitly what you mean, and they share your message with others (and typically support it).
There must be a committee somewhere that comes up with this stuff. How else could these buzz words/phrases be created and spread thoroughly through the business community and become part of the vernacular? The pointy heads in the back room spend weeks pushing paper across the table.
“Drink the Koolaid.”
“Break down the silos.”
“Tee it up.”
“Move the needle.”
Yeah, well MOVE THIS, fellas. Move the mush language aside and say something for a change.
The Board of Business Buzzwords Development, Enhancement and Revision Committee levels up every year in Silicon Valley to generate new business vernacular. They try new phrases and words on each other and see if the listeners understand what they mean. If not, they save it, add it to the list and use it. If, instead, the phrase makes sense and is useful, it is discarded.
Bradley: “Hey, have we captured ‘run it up the flagpole’ yet?”
Trevor: “Dude, that is so 80s.”
Bradley: “Well, we could use it to leverage our core competencies.”
Trevor: “Now you’re talking.”
If you want to get buy-in to the swim lane and empower your employees to find and categorize all the moving parts, keep talking without making any sense. You’ll baffle your staff, drive the company to a standstill and puzzle investors.
The ship will be dead in the water without a sail. Blow some fresh words in. Think through what’s really going on, then express the specifics.
You might find a lot more people paying attention, listening with their eyes and ears, instead of nodding off and looking out the window. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?