In previous posts and blogs we’ve worked our way alphabetically through the management lexicon (see Double-talk Thesaurus and Double-talk Dictionary, November 2016). Now we complete this sequence of short definitions the real meanings of business terms.
An alpha leader is the dominant one, the Type A (as in the capital of Taiwan), the top dog, the psychopath, the sociopath, the narcissist, the one with the least empathy … the one who actually gets things done … whatever the cost. They’ll never be your friend, so avoid disappoint by lowering your expectations. Be happy by being mildly pessimistic.
governance n. A useful way to blame the Board of Directors for management mistakes.
long-term adj. The next reporting period.
management n. What managers do until they become leaders.
marketing n. Matching impossible market desires with unlikely organisational capability.
matrix n. A way of making words look like numbers; particularly useful if you are trying to hide data.
mentoring v. To gossip nostalgically.
merger n. Synonym for acquisition.
policy n. The answer to why we do what we do around here, when there’s no reason for it.
presenteeism n. The syndrome of having people take a day off without drawing on sick pay.
proactive v. To think about the future before it happens.
qualitative adj. Incomprehensible, word-heavy analysis.
quantitative adj. Incomprehensible, number-heavy analysis.
research n. Shared subjectivity masquerading as objectivity.
schadenfreude n. The joy of watching your competitors fail, even if it doesn’t help you.
strategy n What we’re doing next week
tactics n What we’re doing tomorrow.
transitioning v . A person or service or product on the way out.
transparency n. The style of accountability to adopt when you’ve spent the whole PR budget.
user-friendly v. phrase You can figure it out for yourself, without technical support.
values n. Something to fall back on when the cashflow doesn’t.
win-win adj. One of the four planks of our platform: the others are win-lose, lose-win, and lose-lose.
world class adj. phrase We’ve been on the internet, and have copied the very best.
world first adj. phrase As far as we can tell, if you buy this, you’ll be going where no-one has gone before.
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