What's your most hated management word?

[dolgoruky]

It's not a secret. I despise middle management and everything they stand for. I particularly loathe the meaningless language they use. The asshole who tries (unsuccessfully I might add) to manage me is guilty as sin of overusing wanky management terms. Amongst my most hated are:

1) "Solution" - everytime it is used I can help thinking of the "final solution", another management term.

2) "Action" - Everything is a fuckin action. I wonder if he considers taking a piss an "action"?

3) "Meeting" - I fuckin dread seeing or hearing this word. It means I'm in for two hours of monotony with a bunch of drones with no social life.


What management words do you hate?

[DS1]

1. "customer"

That should come with little surprise around here.

[Snow]

48. Client....

everybody's pretending to be a lawyer, or a (another unfavorite word) "professional"

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Issue

It used to be a verb, with the approximate meaning "to put forth".

Now it's the all-purpose bad-thing noun.

--bkl

[Nlighten1]

59. I couldn't agree more.

Magazines have issues...my network doesn't and neither does your spread sheet...

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Play Bullshit Bingo!

Perfect for the next meeting you have to "take".

http://maths.une.edu.au/~norm/bsbingo.cgi

--bkl

[WilliamPitt]

4. Proactive

[SOteric]

16. That was gonna be my vote.

[jumptheshadow]

28. Another vote for "proactive"

We need to "deep dive" this issue.

Also:

We need to "wrap our arms" around the issue.

We need to "make it happen."

"Who's going to own it?"

"Don't be linear in your thinking."

"Ask yourself."

"I am going to escalate this issue."

(These contributions come from my partner, who hears them all the time at one of the world's biggest corporations.

This is the company with "lifecycle managers." If you recognize this job title, you know what company it is, unless some other corporation has embraced this euphemism.)

[otohara]

5. Next Level

what ever that means? Can't tell you how many times I wrote press releases when radio evil empire hired a new GM/VP - and that person was going to take the stations to "the next level"

[OneBlueSky]

6. actually, I find phrases more offensive than single words . . .

things like "total quality management" and and "force reduction" drive me up the wall . . .

[mhr]

7. Mindshare

A marketing term meaning that you have captured the imagination of a prospect and have significantly displaced your competitors in the hunt for the same customer(s).

This is partly what branding is all about.

[wtmusic]

8. Energize

energize THIS!!

[Ignoramus]

9. "Team player"

Ack.. I misspelled sompthing again

No, you're not a worthless cog, you're a team player...

[peekaloo]

44. bah!

I had a boss who constantly stressed the importance of being a "team player", yet at every given opportunity she would undermine and double cross all of our efforts and selfishly take credit for all of "our" achievements.

[mhr]

10. Individual Contributor

This lovely phrase is meant to diffirentiate between management and employees.

Seems an oxymoron because even managers are individual contributors in the final analysis.

[populistmom]

11. "Brainstorm"

:shrug: WTF?

[Maddy McCall]

12. perusal

[DS1]

13. best-of-breed

ROI

[cosmicdot]

52. OMG, ROI

caveat: if the CEO has 'a goal' of increasing ROI ... especially a whole lot ... start making back-up plans ... something's gonna happen ...

[Jim Sagle]

14. Downsized, rightsized, transitioned - all pseuds for fired.

:puke:

[wysimdnwyg]

41. I'm right there with you.

I got "downsized" last year.

No, I don't have any hard feelings. Why do you ask? :mad:


On edit: I can't type this morning.

[mhr]

15. Outsourced

We all know where this leads!

[lpbk2713]

58. Translation for "outsourced".............

......... someone in Bombay now has the job you used to have. At 1/4 the salary with no benefits.

[guitar man]

17. "Multitask"

"we are going to need you to multitask on this one...."


Great,I get to do my job as well as someone else's job this week.Do I get their pay too? Fuck no!

"Diversify"-see "Multitask"

[cosmicdot]

53. but, just think of the cross-functional training you get

you really didn't need that 'quality time' with your outside life, now, did you?

[caledesi]

18. Downsizing. Hello? It's called a lay-off. You are out of a job.

I also hate "Outsourcing"....your job is going overseas. Get it? Don't "candy-coat" it. You are unemployed. Bastards!

[Interrobang]

19. "leverage" used as a verb

As in, "We're going to leverage our branding strategies proactively to create mindshare." That one drives me nuts because not only is it corporate bafflegab, but it's *bad effing grammar* too!

My ex-boss used to say "blow off" all the time, with the approximate meaning of "throw out" or "get rid of," when I'd only ever heard the phrase "blow off" meaning something like "rebuff" or "slack off." As in, he'd say, "I have to blow off some of these e-mails."

Being a job hunter, "fit" has gone right back up there to nearly the top of my list. My ex-boss actually said to me (as he was escorting me out the door), "Well, the position wasn't a very good fit for you anyway." When I'm facing corporate trolls who seem to care more about how you'll conform to the Corporate Culture(TM) than whether or not you can *do the job well*, I feel like I've never left high school.

Also, besides "outsourcing" there's also "offshoring" (moving work overseas) and "nearshoring" (moving work to Canada or Mexico from the US; moving work from Canada to a US "right-to-work" state, etc.).

I also think the word "equity" gets tossed around so much it's practically lost all meaning. Don't even get me started on odious, not-necessarily-work-related phrases like "executive communities" and so on...

[Pale_Rider]

20. "At the end of the day"

Like anything is going to be different today, tomorrow or the day after?

[Nay]

25. "at the end of the day" -- yeah, that's the one I really hate.

I want to chew my arm off at the elbow when I hear that one. Like tomorrow's gonna be different??

[NJCher]

21. this thread makes me happy

Happy happy happy. Happy I work in academia and not in these (shudder) hideous places. I put my time in (shudder again).


Cher

p.s. I hate "proactive," too. Whenever I hear it, I say, "Are you trying to say "INITIATE?"

[BiggJawn]

29. I work in Academia, too, the IT arm...WE have a "roadmap"...

And I think the VP for IT and all his little AVP's AND the Provost learned everything they know from a "Dilbert" book.

The U brought in these private-sector IT drones with all their work-o-holism and buzzwords, so now we're expected to perform at private-sector levels for the same low public-sector pay (this is no shit, my pay is only about 60% what it would be out in ulcer-land) and same private-sector stress levels...

Last year's big thing was "THE Roadmap". Everyone from mid-mgt. level up wasted a huge amount of time in these "roadmap strategy meetings". Where's the roadmap today? beats me, nobody talks about it anymore. "The Enterprise" and "Infrastructure" is this year's Hot Thing....

[cosmicdot]

55. *george had a road map

didn't work for him but using the term was so corporate trendy

[cosmicdot]

51. this thread makes me sad - even though I find myself laughing out loud

at how ridiculous they are

the bad memories these 'words' bring back - ugh

all the buzzwords in the world and Corporate America and its "management" suck and, in general, are a big failure

process map this: it's like putting lipstick on a pig

cordially,
your associate at DU,
cosmicdot

p.s. are the 'specialists' of the 90s still around? we had specialists and I dealt with specialists who barely knew basics ... or is everyone an 'associate' now (the company I used to work for lead the way of much of this corporate gab ... Six Sigma and all that jazz ...

team lead(er) was up-and-coming

I think PetSmart now has "Lead Cashiers"

[annagull]

22. "Pro-Active"---yeesh, doesn't that one break some rules?

the opposite, I guess is "Non-Active", which is kinda redundant when there are words such as "lazy" . I just hate that word, it's such a dumbass way of telling someone, "We need you to work harder, er I mean, be pro-active."

[area51]

23. Most hated management word ...

... "team player." Give me a break, too many in mgmt don't act like they're "part of the team", anyway.

[annagull]

24. In business, TEAM has an "I" in it

for sure. Just look at the CEOs, most of them are robberbarons trying to pass as smart.

[Cheswick2.0]

26. "a culture of"

a culture of is a bullshit management phrase that bush uses and so do those lame ass corporate motivational consultants. That phrase even trumps "thinking outside the box". Oh FO please..... and don't give me any of your phony inclusion crap either.

[demnan]

34. Think outside the box

what I tell my cat not to do.

[BiggJawn]

35. "Culture of High Tolerence for Mistakes"...What bullshit!

This from a "Culture" that told me last year that I "would not be allowed to get 2 poor reviews in a row..."

a "Culture" is some nasty shit growing in a Petri Dish....

[cosmicdot]

54. my last employer had, at least, 5 conflicting cultures due to

mergers, buyouts, etc.

and, at one time, had a Mac culture AND an IBM culture ... though that eventually, but not quickly, went away ... talk about a house divided ... we couldn't even dialog with each other ...

"dysfunctional" -- which is my favorite word ... along with confluence and angst

[Nihil]

27. "Hello" (when followed by "my name is ...")

I get on fine with my boss, we can work or chat, agree or disagree.
I can work on my own or with colleagues, no problem. I'm not even
as anti-social as I sometimes appear on these forums either :-) but
I find that most people who walk up to me and start with "Hello, my
name is ..." turn out to be tossers from some other part of the
company who then follow up the introduction with a dumb, irritating
or simply rude demand to drop whatever I'm doing now and sort out
the mess that they've found themselves in.

Yes, the fake words that they use can be annoying but I particularly
dislike the "you can't be doing anything as important as this" attitude
that seems to be getting more common in middle-management these days.

Nihil

[Darth_Kitten]

30. disciplinary

as in "meeting" as in bullying an innocent person who saved their asses time and time again, as in "resolving" the "conflict" caused by a pathetically stupid, unattractive female who looks like Jabba the Hutt who is in charge of you who spent weeks and weeks of lying about you and trying to ruin you, and "hearing" as to what you drag this good employee to to "talk things out" :eyes:

I'm rambling on and on.....:crazy:

I'm babbling..... I know....just HATE phony, hypocritical,jealous, vindictive, and incompetent people and the phony, hypocritcal, jealous, vindictive, and incompetent people with questionable qualifications that everybody knows about who need to make an example of you because they HATE good people. :(

[RobinA]

31. "Skill Set"

Absolutely drives me up a tree.

Also:
synergy
leverage
"task" used as a verb

"I've been tasked to hire somebody with the skill set to leverage synergies so we can grow the business."

"interface" used as a verb
"dialogue" used as a verb

I have to stop thinking about this, it's too early in the morning for my blood pressure to be this high. Thank GOD I'm out of the corporate world.

[greatauntoftriplets]

32. Paradigm shift.

:wtf:

[Robb]

33. It's just laziness...

Mrs. Robb works with these really progressive thinkers on management and brand issues, and they develop their own little language as shorthand with one another. I don't see any of their little words and phrases here, but I suspect every industry does it. It's just easier, if everyone has been to the same seminar, or read the same book, to talk about X-ing something, and everyone knows what you mean.

Until, of course, someone who hasn't is in the room. I made fun of this practice, and now everyone on Mrs. Robb's team is catching themselves -- "no, don't say that word... what're you really trying to say?"



There's no "A" in TEEM.

There's no "I" in "my son has cancer".

[Missy Vixen]

36. Ohhhhh, what a great thread

Let's see:

1) "component"

We have a council member who has to work this word into every sentence he utters. It's absolutely insane.

The overuse of "component" has become apparent to one of my colleagues as well. Mr. "Component" was fairly unhappy when we both broke into uncontrollable laughter when he used it twice in a sentence recently.

2) "smart", "raising the bar"

My opponent makes frequent use of both of the above terms. She's a buzzword-uttering trainwreck. Of course, she thinks that the terminology marks her as an effective businesswoman. I think it shows that she doesn't have a great command of the English language.

3) "paradigm shift"

It's been my experience that every person using the above term was in desperate need of a swift kick in the ass.

Death to buzzwords!
Julie

[ScreamingMeemie]

37. Goal setting strategy. Streamline. Agenda.

Blicky blicky blicky...

I am one who can never set goals and surely can't put an agenda together.

[Tyler Durden]

38. EMPOWERED is by far the worst...

Followed by the catch phrase (with add ons as required) "We have to be more COMPETITIVE."

[TEXASYANKEE]

64. You took my word!

"Empowered" is definitely my most-hated management word. It almost always means that the company is going to take something away from you.

Timebank sold as an "empowerment" to the employees still makes my blood pressure shoot thru the roof.

[GOPisEvil]

39. How about "Guiding Principles"?

We have 7 (oh joy!)

- Accountability
- Best Busniess Decision (like we've made worst business decisions in the past)
- Client Focus (who ARE those people we served for years again?)
- Continuous Improvement (Or, let's just change for the hell of it)
- Candor and Honesty (Yeah...)
- Proactive (There's that word again!)
- Respect (Aretha?! Is that you?!)

[kodi]

40. "We" which is commomnly translated to "You"

as in "We will increase productivity." Commonly said by a member of the managment team who him/her self has nothing to do with increasing prodcutivity and never will.

[greendog]

42. Associate

According to management we weren't "truck drivers", we were "associates". Of course this was supposed to make us feel better about working 100 hours a week for 40 hours pay.

[bif]

43. Opportunity

As in--"Here's an opportunity for you." Which usually means, "This is a real shitty project no one else will touch."

[dwckabal]

71. Opportunity

instead of "problem"

[Terran]

45. Excellence!

Excellence in memo writing! Excellence in coffee making! Excellence in adding up meaningless strings of numbers! New and ever higher levels of excellence are demanded of you NOW!!

[FlaGranny]

46. I hate the word "commensurate"

in help-wanted ads. I have no idea why. It just annoys the heck out of me.

[OldSoldier]

47. Customer Delight

That was the big one a while back: do everything in your power to make the customer so delighted, he forgets all the other people selling the same thing you have and comes only to you.

The problem is, I sell shingles to contractors, and the only way I could delight anyone with those is to make a bundle of them weigh 40 pounds. (They weigh 90 now.) And so far, the asphalt-helium shingle is not working out so well.

[BiggJawn]

50. So, THAT'S where my boss got that one...

Didn't think he thought it up by himself...It fell out of favour in a meeting where your's truly said "No, I didn't 'delight' anyone this week....I tickeled a few customers shitless, though..." and "Delighted? Hell, she offered to do me right there on the bench..."

Yeah, I'm a nasty little fart...:evilgrin:

[absyntheNsugar]

57. Sounds a bit like "Afternoon Delight"

Perhaps they could buy that song and turn it into a jingle?


Ahhhhhhhhh Customer Delight

[Snow]

49. "Key players" really grates on me.....

and of course, they all have to be "around" or "at" "the table". I've worked with public advocacy people on occassion, you see.

[VOX]

56. "Thought leadership," "intellectual capital" and "relevant knowledge"

Who came up with this crap -- George Orwell?

[info being]

60. Headcount

or "bodies"

[Scott Lee]

61. "Proactive"

Another bullshit modern management term. They could just say "aggressive".

[dolgoruky]

62. Self management!

Fuck! how could I forget this one.

"You need to improve the self management side of your job, Peter"

In other words, you need to be totally compliant and do exactly as we say without us having to say it.

I'm not Pavlov's fucking dog so go and and fuck yourself!


"Don't be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even if there's no poverty to be seen because the poverty's been hidden. Even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you. Don't be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there's no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they'll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces."

Jean Paul Marat

[Kolesar]

63. Settle down already!

These terms do mean something if presented in the right context and by somebody who has a good grasp of what they are presenting.

A few of these terms are hideous euphemisms, like "downsizing", but most of the terms in this thread actually describe methods of analyzing and improving business methods.

(Maybe everybody is just burning off some steam, and that's ok. Happy Holiday)

[BiggJawn]

65. "The right context"...

That's just it, Spike..
Theyr're NOT used in the right context, they're tossed out like they came out of the fabled Internet Mission Statement Generator by people who have not a CLUE about what they're trying to say......

Some HR drone regurgitates them in a "training meeting" and the middle-managers bring them back to the department like Golog the caveman bringing fire to the tribe, and everybody sees right through the farce, except for the butt-leeches, who take them for THEIR own in hope that they too will soon be favoured by the Peter Principle...

The only thing I've ever seen 'improved" by "Management by Buzzword" is the tenure of incompetant ass-kissers

[RobinA]

There IS No

"right context" to "leverage synergies." There just isn't.

[ThomWV]

66. Reinvent

If I here one more fuggin' idiot say either he or someone else either did or will or needs to REINVENT anything, and I mean anything at all, I will commit murder.

[RobinA]

70. Don't Forget

"We don't want to reinvent the wheel." If I had a dime for every time I heard somebody at a meeting not wanting to reinvent the wheel...

[Jim Sagle]

67. And don't forget "best practices".

[grannylib]

68. going forward...HATE that one....

[Undemcided]

69. Synergy and Heterogeneous

Awful.

[proud patriot]

72. "Supervision"