I came across this article the other day about the slide into jargon that the military and so many Amercian businesses have gotten into. I think Mr. Marr has a point. In the article below-he mentions the worst offenders. Several drinking games come to mind seeing this list.
By Bernard Marr
I reckon every office or workplace has one of those people that are just
full of jargon-ridden management drivel. Does this kind of 'management
speak' remind you of someone at your work place: "Before going forward we
have to touch base and reach out to our key stakeholders so that we can
drill down into the key issues that are not yet on our radar and catch the
low-hanging fruits…"
Are you surrounded by people who annoyingly can't get enough of the
management gobbledygook and who utter one jargon buzzword after another? Are
your meetings buzzing with so much management lingo that you find it hard to
get to the real meaning of what is being said? The problem I have with these
phrases is that they sound so pretentious and often are counter-productive
because they irritate people so much and deflect from the real meaning.
Below are my top 30 most irritating and overused phrases we hear at work. I
am sure you have others that you can add to this list. Let's make it the
most comprehensive list of unnecessary management drivel ever – Please add
your ones using the comment field!
For me, these are my top 30 most irritating jargon phrases and words used at
work:
1.Going forward
2.Drill-down
3.End of play
4.Touch base
5.It's on my radar
6.No brainer
7.Best of breed
8.Low hanging fruit
9.Reach out
10.Dive deeper
11.Think outside the box
12.Positive momentum
13.Execute
14.Milestones
15.Run the numbers
16.Touch points
17.Keep your eye on the ball
18.Back to the drawing board
19.Get the ball rolling
20.Bang for your buck
21.Close the deal
22.Leverage
23.Shift paradigm
24.Move the needle
25.Game-changing
26.Move the goal post
27.Value added
28.Win-win
29.Across the piece
30.All hands on deck
What do you think? Do you agree? Are these the most irritating phrases?
Please let me know which ones you would add to this list!
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Bernard Marr is a best-selling business author and enterprise performance
expert. Make sure you click 'Follow' if you would like to hear more from
Bernard Marr in the future and feel free to also connect via Twitter,
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