Battle of the Corporate Speak
This is fantastic. Based on a few conversations we've had here in the past, I know that many of the Ricochetti share my utter disdain for bloodless corporate diction (also the name of a band I was in during college). That means you should appreciate Jargon Madness as much as I did.
Forbes has brilliantly put together a March Madness style bracket for the worst workplace lingo, which you can vote on at the site. Here's how it breaks down:
Group 1:
Rock Star
Ask
Ideate
Do more with less
Going Forward
Make it happen
Takeaway
Thought leadership
Group 2:
Pivot
Bandwidth
'Come to Jesus' moment
Best-of-breed
Organic
Adult in the room
Big data
Care and Feeding
Group 3:
Change Management
Client-facing
Deliverable
Disruption
Effort
Punch a puppy
Optics
Parking lot
Group 4:
Sacrifice
Share of wallet
Pain point
Space
Take ownership
Onboarding
Fail
Alignment
I haven't picked my winner yet, but my final four (for those who are unfamiliar with brackets, you get a final four by choosing the winner from each group) would be: Thought leadership, Organic, Change management, and Take ownership. What are yours?
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Comments:
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Please, please, can't they all win?
Sep '10
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Going forward should be:
Go forward basis. In a meeting my blood pressure rises so much that blood vessels begin to burst in my eyes like the suspenders holding up Chris Christie's pants.
May '12
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Guilty of using some of this drivel in the past week. My apologies.
Jan '11
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
What if I said, "Stop wasting time on this and get back to work?"
Mar '11
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
I'll be shocked if Going Forward doesn't face off against Deliverable in the finals.
Dec '10
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Ideate is a word that doesn't belong anywhere outside of a mental ward - and maybe not even there.
'Come to Jesus' moment is far too grandiose for the subject at hand.
Punch a puppy is a stupid metaphor, flavored with sadism.
Onboarding is a noun turned into a verb turned back into a noun - it's painful to see.
Mar '11
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Whoa wait... Punch a puppy? Use that one in a sentence please.
Jun '11
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
A list without "best practice" isn't worth the interweb it's printed on.
May '10
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Rock star: fast track phony leaving messes for the actual workers to clean up, as she ascends the corporate ladder
Pivot: impulsively change direction, with no more reason than lay behind the original trajectory
Client-facing: momentarily acknowledging that we have actual, you know, customers
Sacrifice: something to be given up, without choice or discussion, by the person not speaking.
Edited on February 9, 2013 at 7:27amMay '10
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Put them all together and they are very synergistic, coming through in concentric circles...
Jun '11
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Whomever wrote the Forbes piece is a bit out of the loop: de-risk, sustainability, green, cloud, monetize, gamefication, etc. is some fresher jargon.
Sadly, half of the Forbes list has been around so long that it has been onboarded by the OED already.
Edited on February 7, 2013 at 2:35amMay '10
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Hey, wouldn't it be nice if the content editor world on the iPad? Just sayin'.
Mar '11
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Handshakefulness — where’s handshakefulness?
May '10
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
That should be "worked", but of course I can't edit.
Jul '12
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Rock Star, Adult in the Room, Deliverable, and Share of Wallet. I guess Circle Back didn't have a good season.
Sep '10
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Punch a puppy; kick a cat; wrestle a rabbit.
Dec '12
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Bingo, Sir. There are lots of free "Buzzword Bingo" generators on the net. Print out a few cards and pass them out before your next meeting.
There are a lot of words I'd like to see banned. “Impact” should be reserved for physical impact and for wisdom teeth. It should not be used for “effect.” And the advertising executive who invented “moisturize” should have had a Webster's Third International dropped on his foot.
Feb '11
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
Rock Star - says the flaky hotty or the dense jerk to the poor person who has no way of escaping the pile of work just dumped on them. And this is supposed to smooth things over!
Fail - harsh and unproductive condescension if that assessment is at all justified, otherwise simply an empty attack.
Ask - is it really so cumbersome to say "request" instead? In the same category is "spend", as in "what's the annual spend?" I'm actually surprised that spend isn't on the bracket in place of ask.
Come To Jesus Moment - melodramatic indeed. Such moments rarely happen the way users of the phrase imagine.
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
The Air Force had strong corporate tendencies when I was in, but the jargon at the time was from the language of Total Quality Management. It included such gems as, "benchmark" (I thought only animals did this to mark their territory), "paradigm shift," "World Class(!)," "continuous improvement," and, life's enduring question, "What are your processes?"
This led to the creation of Total Quality Bingo Cards, which people would check off when they heard sundry phrases and words during staff meetings. Gee, I sure do miss all that.
Jul '10
Re: Battle of the Corporate Speak
One of the most despised words I heard are
Synergy
a meaningless cool sounding word the first time you hear it
Coordinate/Coordination
Usually used in defense of continuing incompetence. ("Well state and local law enforcement are coordinating their efforts....I've been coordinating with so-and-so to get this done")
Going Forward
Preferrably from the conversation in which this evil phrase is used
Push the Envelope
Makes about as much sense as 'Lick the Door.'
Think outside the box
The person that says this probably isn't.