by Rodney Marks | Dec 11, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Here continues the episodic publication of The Management Contradictionary (Benjamin Marks, Rodney Marks, and Robert Spillane. Michelle Anderson Publishing: Melbourne).
It’s available in all good libraries, and quite a few bad ones, too. It’s in alphabetical order, so feel free to keep reading the blog posts until you get to z, or zzz.
The Management Contradictionary defines the real meaning behind management terms.
action
A delegated task.
activism
The belief that campaigning to bring about political or social change will bring about political or social change.
actors
Managers: those who strut and fret their hour upon the stage, then are heard no more.
actuary
Someone who tells your insurer when you should die.
added value
Something substituted for deducted value.
adhocracy
Any organisational unit other than your own.
administrivia
A management task imposed on you.
advertisement
- An untruth tolerated as entertainment.
- A glowing endorsement organised and paid for by the endorsee.
advertising
Creating demand for something by highlighting its worst feature.
advertising standards
The ethical benchmarking of paid public persuasion.
advisory panel
A pane in the glass.
affairs
Intra-corporate entrepreneurship.
affiliate
noun: A person or organisation with a hierarchical ranking somewhere between an associate and a partner.
verb: To align your values with another’s by disregarding any that are not shared.
affirmative action
Discrimination against the successful.
affluence
Your personal assistant has a PA.
after-sales service
Mythical organisational process, sometimes located in an imaginary, eponymous department with a toll free number.
ageism
The belief that all ages are the same – even in their differences.
agenda
Secret list of outcomes unknown to all meeting participants.
agent
A commissioned friend.
aggression
Part of the managerial power game, compensating for a lack of technical expertise.
AGM (Annual General Meeting)
Yearly public book-ending of apology and astrology, where top management attest they have read what they signed.
agreement
Reluctant, begrudging, antipathetic acceptance.
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by Rodney Marks | Dec 10, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Here begins the episodic publication of The Management Contradictionary (Benjamin Marks, Rodney Marks, and Robert Spillane. Michelle Anderson Publishing: Melbourne).
It’s available in all good libraries, and quite a few bad ones, too. It’s in alphabetical order, so feel free to keep reading the blog posts until you get to z, or zzz.
The Management Contradictionary defines the real meaning behind management terms.
ability
The capacity and competency to prove potential capability.
abnormal
Not like me.
about-face
A 180 degree policy reversal. Often revolutionary; that is, 360 degrees.
above-the-line
Paid promotion that you agree is a gamble, such as TV, radio and print advertising.
absenteeism
See presenteeism.
academic
The most insulting word in any language.
accident
Lack of belief in predetermination or the divine providence of coincidence.
account executive
Semi-permeable listening device.
accountability
An out-of-fashion concept that refers to people being held responsible for their own actions. Pre-dates, and made redundant by, the concept of blaming, which is central to organisational behaviour.
accounting
The rewriting of history, in columns and rows, to justify to shareholders what you did with their money.
accounts payable
Money you’ll eventually pay those supplies whom you’ve selected to keep in business.
accounts receivable
Money that’s owed to you by customers using you as their choice of bank, due to your preferred terms: no loan application fee, no interest, no credit rating downgrade. Best located in the marketing department.
acccuracy
Precisely.
achievement
Abandoning a larger task.
acquisition
See merger.
acronyms and initialisms
Short-cuts to obscurity.
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by Rodney Marks | Dec 8, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Here are four word groups that sum up the corporate mood of the day.
Whenever you find yourself trapped in an insolvency, operations, sales or marketing meeting, be sure to look out for these weasel words.
If you hear five or more of these from any group, shout Buzzword Bingo! and go home.
Insolvency
acquisition, merger, Chapter 11, circling the drain, contingency, debt recovery, down the tubes, endgame, exit interview, exit strategy, exposure, fire sale, learning opportunity, legacy firm, let go, liquidation, merger, negative growth, negative profit, optimism, outplace, release people, rightsizing, moving forward, transitioning.
Operations
actionable, activity, ballpark, built to last, critical, cycle, data dump, data mining, drilling down, decision, disambiguate, drill down, guesstimate, Just In Time, Just Too Late, metadata, meta-decision, obsolescence, Plan B, post mortem, problematic, queuing, roll out, scope creep, subject creep, value chain.
Sales and Marketing (each other’s natural enemy)
administrivia, bio break, brandalism, cannibalise, channibalise, client-centric, customer, cutting edge, high-impact, high-yield, hot-desking, incentivise, infotainment, edutainment, entertraining, leading edge, long-term, low-risk, mindshare, mind full, preferred, pseudo, street cred, the market, user-centric, value-added, world first, Best Practice, global, cosmic.
Weasel Words (these can occur in any meeting)
behaviours, CEO-speak, cliché, cold-call, demystification, diplospeak, double-talk, eclectic, ellipsia (that is, the tendency to overuse: ‘…’), embedment, flagpole, hybrid, impactful, jargon, journalese, meanderthal, motherhood, atherhood, parenthood, tribal, non-concur, obfuscate, prebuttal, premumble, psychobabble, reverbiagise, trial balloon.
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by Rodney Marks | Dec 7, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Excuses for doing non-work related activities on your work computer:
- All work and no play …
- Connecting with the outside world is motivating, and therefore your productivity actually increases, so this apparently irrelevant web-surfing or emailing or job application writing is, in fact, in your employer’s interest.
- You need to find out what inappropriate activities other people are doing so that you can ask them to stop it.
- In an holistic cosmos, everything is inter-related, and you resent the implied distrust.
Excuses for arriving home late
- The boss needed someone from the team to attend an executive meeting about the group’s future viability, and I was selected as the most persuasive member.
- You met an attractive salesperson, had a few drinks, booked a room at a hotel, made passionate love and then had a romantic, candle-lit dinner, though not necessarily in that order.
- You had a consultation with a marriage guidance counsellor.
- You went to the kids’ school, as you thought it was parent-teacher night.
Excuses for having children
- My partner and I were bored with each other, and we felt that kids would keep the relationship alive, and there seemed little downside in testing the theory.
- We did a cost-benefit analysis, and they seemed better value than renovating the house.
- They would be company for the dog when we were at work.
- We needed the aggravation.
- It wasn’t solely your fault.
- It was an investment decision: we hope that parenthood will pay off during our retirement.
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by Rodney Marks | Dec 6, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Empower yourself. You can construct a thousand different, three-word buzz phrases about strategy. You’ll become a master of waffle, a pioneer of piffle, a doctor of spin, a leader with linguistic dexterity.
Choose one word from each of the three groups. Bravo! You’ve just created the name for your organisational philosophy, corporate culture, positioning statement or leadership style.
Group (a)
dual, full, input, macro, micro, qualitative, quantitative, quasi, semi, total
Group (b)
categorising, corporate, e-commerce, holistic, internet, mathematical, mentoring, partnering, policy, synthesising
Group (c)
analysis, benchmark, calculation, classification, idea, interface, nexus, re-engineering, report, research.
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