Wanky Corporate Speak Thread

[Chil1234]

Inspired elsewhere a thread for your direst examples of wanky corporate speak..... Come ladies, let's run it up the flagpole and see how it flies. For, as one of my old bosses memorably put it 'if we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure'...

have to work smarter not harder aka managers putting their feet up whilst the rest of us pick up their caseloads as well.

develop leaders for the future

Partnership working

and don't forget all the acronymns - just so you have to ask them what they mean

Hahahah at all this.

Esp at Quattro and the corporate lawyers top trumping with 'values'.

I'll add 'hearts and minds'. To win them, obviously. Yech!

'I hear what you say' is a favourite of hippy meetings - translation "You're talking bollocks, but I can't face saying so".

And the meetings I go to now never have a chairman/woman (or even a chair) and a minute taker - always a 'facilitator' and a 'scribe' (who generally uses a pad of paper or a laptop, rather than a piece of lovingly prepared parchment, as it might imply).

Having said that, I rather like all the hand signals palaver (wavy hands, sad hands, technical point etc) - speeds things up & gets everyone home earlier.

We use quite a few of these but there are definitely some new ones on me - particularly the monkey ones! The mind still boggles at the stretchy monkey phrase.

I hate "revert back" in particular; but I reckon some of the words / phrases are worth having so long as they're effective shorthand that is understood by all. And some of them are pretty evocative too - I've never heard the birth pangs / baby one before but it's crystal clear (I disagree with the concept behind it but it is clear!).

Never used crunchy & granular but I'm quite happy to talk about a greater level of granularity.

Price Point, they were forever saying this on the Apprentice. I presume they meant retail value but it was like nails down a blackboard every time one of them said it.

'Price point' does have a specific meaning though. It's something like -the price at which more people are willing to buy a particular category of product'. So for example if you are marketing shampoo can sell it at the 99p price point, or £1.99 or £2.99 or £3.99, after that the next price point is probably something like £10.99 (I don't know I never buy the really posh stuff).

So if you are producing shampooo there is no point selling it at £4.49 - it will be too expensive for most, and not premium enough for the high end. Or if your shampoo works out at £1.12 it is better to make the bottle smaller and compete at the 99p price point.

...not sure if that is how they were using it on The Apprentice though.

Hah!

We don't have 'lessons learned', we have 'learnings' WTF??

Also at the end of meetings we are asked if anywone thinks there have been any 'missings'? So do you mean to say 'did we miss anything then?!

I am mocked at work for my hatred of corporate made up words, if people hear them they save them up to tell me sometimes

We are always hearing going fucking forwards aaaaaaaah

and breathe.

Actually at work, not many bosses at weekend though so may be safe form the wittering.

'Vanilla' also means 'blank' or in the case of software or a system 'out of the box' ie with no modifications. So it's sometimes used to indicate new, unchanged, blank canvas etc

Aw, we have a lovely lady at work who comes from a corporate mnagement background and she lovingly crafts statements out of corporate speak:

"I hear what you're saying....and thanks for that...and....I think what I am reflecting is...." etc ad infinitum.

It makes me as she is nice so I let her off. It's very noticeable.

In public sector most talk centres on 'target-driven', 'outcomes' and 'delegation' - budgets never get mentioned but 'value' and 'ethos' do a lot, but we all know it means deliver as much as you can on the cheap.

Ooh we have builds too, I was hoping it wasn't just us.

"So does anyone have any builds on this topic we've been discussing for an hour?"

We have one manager who 'captures' everything.

Minion :"X has happened again today".

Boss: "Make sure we capture that" (AKA write it down/record it.)

I always imagine them with a big net going about capturing stuff all day.

I once worked on a massive international project team where one of the partners would scribble on reports WTFDTM in angry red in down the margins - at least twice a week non-native English speakers would be baffled by that one .

I also worked with a lot of Americans who were forever inviting me to 'reach out' to them if I need more information!

Once discussing with my boss a particularly irritating person who was refusing to do what was needed, she looked at me sympathetically and said 'well yes Ace you can lead the horse to water...' to which I replied 'yes and tragically I believe there are laws in place which frown upon me holding the fucker under until he drowns!'

I do a lot of capturing and horizon-scanning! I do work in the third sector, and we seem to steal from both private and public in terms of jargon.

Never heard of hand signals though Takver - I'm intrigued!

I hate the phrase "unforced errors" - you actually mean a mistake, but you think someone will take offence at that.

"let's run with that" - yes, I could, but don't you think that email would be quicker?

"let's see if this one has legs" - er, no, it's an application to borrow money to expand a business. It doesn't have legs (unless he's an artificial limbs manufacturer)

Streatch targets.

We had far too much 'win-win' speak and a feng shui'd office with water features tinkling in every corner (running water = properity apparently)

I was forever in the loo so probably not 'adding much value' or helping prosperity.

You lot would piss yourselves laughing in a university meeting.

"There are ontological issues with that statement" (i.e. you're fibbing)
"Yes, but that idea has an epistemological bias" (i.e. you're not a feminist and I am, so shut up)
"Pedagogically that doesn't make sense" (Dey ain't gonna learn nuffink)
"There's a cognitive dissonance there" (i.e. you're making the assumption people can walk and chew gum at the same time)

I could go on.

Let's take a helicopter view of the situation

Let's put the wheels on the trolley and see which way it rolls

Managing customer expectations - hate that one. Just say no, it can't be done, you can't have it etc.

We need to eat a reality sandwich

It's foot on the ball time

Financial services - it's rich in wank-speak :)

Have had a quick read through the thread, but have not seen this one yet - apologies if already said.

My most hated corporate-speak term from my corporate days is 'cadence'. Every fucking call or meeting we had (and there were a lot of calls and meetings, usually back-to-back) was pre-fixed with 'cadence'.

My old boss used to talk of the 'art of the possible'. As in, "yes Rinders, but what is the art of the possible?". Which actually I rather liked

Oh let's not take a helicopter view of the situation. Can't we take a view from 20,000 feet instead?

Whenever I've been at 20,000 feet, the only view I had was of fucking CLOUDS

We have "agile working" which means you don't get your own desk anymore. (What does that make the rest of us: clumsy?

"A step-change is required." Say what?

This one is a bit last decade, but I loathe 'in an increasingly global world'.

What was the planet before, a dodecahedron?

From The Consultants:

think out of the box, get the blue sky view, fill the white space, pop the envelope, bake a results cake, tarmac the thought yard, grapple the mind skin, re-methodise the focus loops, grease the poo magnet...

How about "I would like to hold a balloon above this meeting and see if anyone would like to let it go"
Or...
calling blinds "brise soleil" and saying that "there is a flutter option on the brise soleil which I would like you to use"
Or...
"as the Lead Professional in this school I would ask that you treat me with respect and that we can approach this matter in a collegiate fashion"
Or...
calling a mobile classroom a "demountable"
Or...a particularly hilarious update on a broken statue of Mary outside the school...
"I am pleased to say that Mr Aven (the caretaker) last night managed to completely fill Our Lady's crack with his foam".!!!!!

'Face time'.

Anyone who emails me to request 'face time' can fuck right off.

An old boss/the company owner said (during my review) with palpable excitement...
'We are all about to start living our dreams'. Oh yes, I've spent my whole fecking life dreaming about her getting richer.