by Rodney Marks | Dec 1, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Want to be a management consultant, corporate counsel, strategic advisor, or expert for hire? It only requires the ability to create 1,000 different three-word buzz phrases. Choose one word from each of groups (a), (b) and (c), and you’re off and running up billable hours.
Group (a)
- commercial
- competitive
- conceptual
- cyclic
- global
- intelligent
- positioning
- strategic
- tactical
- worldwide.
Group (b)
- alignment
- based
- climate
- culture
- infrastructure
- leadership
- reinvention
- re-purposing
- synergy
- throughput.
Group (c)
- advice
- change
- clarification
- focus
- knowledge
- matrix
- model
- paradigm
- shift
- template.
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by Rodney Marks | Nov 30, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Here is a syndrome of sinful synonyms and an anthem of antacid antonyms for literally, and figuratively, a handful of management terms … and conditions. The writing is in Q&A format, to emphasise the assertion that many manager have in mind the answer prior to asking the question.
throughput
- What actually happens in the process of creating a service or product. Senior managers do not know how things are manufactured or created, so this useful wastepaper basket word can be applied to make them look knowledgeable
- The process between input and output
- Transformation, often on a transcendental level
Answer: 4. What you put through something.
synergy
- Two + two = five
- Marketing + finance = operations
- Company a + Company b = you lose your job
- Coal + solar = wind
Answer: 5. Only venture capitalists and lawyers make money through mergers.
customer
- An annoying individual or group entity whose sole aim is to interfere with perfectly good processes, systems, products and services
Answer: 1. There is no other experience.
direction
- Where we’re heading, as determined by the straight line from where we’ve been, through where we are now, and into the infinite future
- Something that you give, but never receive
- An excuse for a conference ever since some Roman said Quo vadis?
Answer: 4. Management consultants’ raison d’être … the reason for our debt.
expert
- A well-credentialed and expensive person from somewhere prestigious, who says the obvious eloquently, and at great length
- Someone better paid than you
- Someone who stayed at university one degree longer than you
- Someone who claims to be
Answer: 4. which is self-explanatory.
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by Rodney Marks | Nov 29, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
You don’t need a ton of knowledge to play a bigger game. Here’s a tonne of keywords to help you on your way. Play buzzword bingo with 100 examples of clear gibberish, garbled gobbledygook and today’s clichés from the fantasy worlds of Strategy, Management and Leadership.
Strategy buzzword bingo
- alliance, big picture, brainstorming, case studies, caveat, market entry, business ethics, management fad
- fit, game plan, game theory, gamification, gap analysis, corporate governance, high-level, intellectual, intelligence
- partnering, reduction, re-purposing, restructuring, strategic (etcetera), synergy, value stream, visioning.
Management buzzword bingo
- benchmark, best practice, capability, catalyst, change, dotted line, downsizing, effective
- efficient, empowerment, environment, feedback, flexibility, granularity, heads up, high-quality
- infrastructure, scaffolding, insourcing, matrix, megadigm, model, multimedia, next level, offline
- offshoring, onshoring, org chart, org tree, outsourcing, paradigm, presenteeism, preward
- proactive, responsibility, results-driven, rightsizing, schadenfreude, scope creep, self-managed, shift
- silos, templatised, traction, transparency, values, vision, win-win, world class, global reach
Leadership buzzword bingo
- adhocracy, chaos, collaboration, consultation, continuous, dialogue, direction, discourse
- empty suit, role holder, excellence, fast track, functional, herding cats, integrated, knowledge, leverage
- mindset, organisation, rankism, strategic business process re-engineering, reinvention, responsive, robust, stress, thought leadership.
When you hear one buzzword too many, shout ‘Bingo!’ and go home.
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