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Is Corporate Speak Invading Your IT Department?
Worse than Political Correctness asks: "With several years of system administration under my belt, I am moving toward a slightly different role at my company. I am going from a straight system administration role to more of a high-level systems architect for a mid-sized company. There have been several promotions in our department recently, and use of this slang is growing faster than a Dave Chappell bit. Right now, I feel like unless one studies and masters the use of these pretentious buzzwords and phrases, he/she will be run over by people with worse ideas but a nicer-sounding delivery. Is corporate speak a necessary evil? "
"I have noticed that as I deal more and more with upper management, selling them on products and direction, as well as with hardware/software vendors, the dreaded corporate speak slang is becoming part of my daily life. No longer is there more work to fill an already full plate, now there are 'opportunities for growth'. There are no company layoffs, there are 'realignments'. Difficult people are merely referred to as 'more challenging' than others. I dislike this non-speak as much as any person bred from a technical background. However, in order to match my new colleagues in the give and take of business life, phrases like 'functions', 'deliverables', and 'value-add' are finding their way into my vocabulary."
Is this just something one has to cope with in order to climb the corporate ladder? If you've found yourself in this position, what things did you do to cope?
Is this just something one has to cope with in order to climb the corporate ladder? If you've found yourself in this position, what things did you do to cope?
I feel like unless one studies and masters the use of these pretentious buzzwords and phrases, he/she will be run over by people with worse ideas but a nicer-sounding delivery. Is corporate speak a necessary evil?
No it is not, in fact, it should be resisted at all costs. Corporate speak is the opposite of language. Language is used between people to discuss ideas and express their emotions to each other. Corporate speak is used for precisely the opposite, to cloud ideas behind a vineer of self assumed intellect. Often coporate speak can be decomposed in to concepts so simple that they're essentially obvious.
An example from one of my previous rants on this topic: "You can use the leviathan forces of attention and enthusiasm that are swirling around Web 2.0 these days as a powerful enabler to make something important and exciting happen in your organization."
This is a fairly typical management-speak sentence but what does this actually mean? The sentence essentially boils down to a simple statement: You can use new technology as an opportunity to improve the operation of your business. I think most would agree this is an obvious, uninteresting statement and this is precisely the point I'm trying to make. People who use this language are trying to sell you something that's obvious; to sell the emperor his own clothes. If somebody can't make their point in plain english then they likely don't have a point that's worth hearing at all.
So how do you fight it? I find the following techniques work:
I love our language and I love the mutual heritage shared across the many countries that speak it. Work with me to remove this cancer from our workplaces because our language is part of who we are. We simply can not allow something so abhorent to become part of our definition.
Simon.
I find a martini helps.
Seriously though, I can remember when I was in my early adult life calling my older brother a yuppie and a sell out as I heard corporate speak creep into his vocabulary. Now, years later, I am as bad as any one. We all learned geek speak and tech speak in order to communicate with our peers. This is just another vocabulary to learn. If you want to be understood by non-IT coworkers, you have to speak their language.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
Take 'deliverable', for example. Nothing double-speak about that term, it's a business technical term with a specific meaning. 'Function' - though this one has the possibility for misuse, again it's a specific technical term to describe separation of responsibilities if applied to people, or specific capability if applied to a computer system (which may include both hardware and software).
Don't dismiss all of it, because some of it is exactly the kind of jargon you'd be used to in, say, programming. But keep an ear open for someone who's plainly speaking gibberish though.
Cheers,
Ian
While it makes for great material for Dilbert, the fact is that a lot (not all) management speak does actually have a purpose and meaning.
Let's look at some of these examples:
There are no company layoffs, there are 'realignments'.
Very rarely do layoffs simply mean reducing the number of people performing a particular function. Often, there is a fundamental change made to an existing business process, so people and organizations do indeed need to be "realigned" to support the new environment.
"Functions" should be pretty obvious - what activity is an individual or group performing in support of a given process?
"Deliverables" - these are the tangible results that are to be achieved through a given project or activity. Nobody cares whether you're 67% of the way done, or 72% - they want to know when the Deliverable can be expected, so they can then act upon it.
"Value Add" - this is when you take a strip down a process to its bare bones and examine where the benefit to the company or customer is truly being applied. Steps along the way that don't increase that benefit are candidates for elimination or automation.
These are actually pretty powerful terms, and it's important to have a common vocabulary that can be used when bringing together managers from varying fields like sales, IT, operations, finance, etc.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Unfortunate? Yes. Ugly? Absolutely. And some folks are aware of just how bad it can get. But it may also be unavoidable in the rarified air of the management environment.
Communication is, among many other things, using terms and phrases that others understand. And some management-speak ("deliverables," "work-products," etc.) has precise meaning within the work environment. Not everyone knows what those terms mean, but in the shop that uses them regularly, not only will they be recognized, but for instance if you ask them what the difference between deliverables and work-products are, they can tell you. (I picked those two because, having worked in the office of a process improvement consultancy, I know what the difference is too. Or at least, I know a reasonable-sounding set of definitions.)
It may be an odd dialect they speak, but they don't do it just to confuse people. They do it to communicate, and it's worthwhile to learn it even if it does sound stupid.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Read the Wall Street Journal for guidance on how to talk about business. The Journal covers most aspects of business, yet there's very little "corporate speak". If you follow their style, you'll come across well to upper management, all of whom, unless totally incompetent, read it daily.
When you listen to two people chattering away in corp-speak, all they're doing is trying to convince each other and/or themselves how great they are or this option is or whatever.
Sometimes it is used to pretend that the problems aren't really problems, or that they aren't as bad as they really are.
Finally, it is used to assign blame for failure (althought "blame" and "failure" are not the words used).
A. You can talk about exciting opportunities to align the company with industry leading visionaries
B. Or you can say "it will cost $5,000 and take 2 people 3 months to implement and increase our sales by $2 million a year".
When you don't have "B", you talk "A".
It's all about selling, inside your company, outside your company, your project, yourself, your soul, your loyalty, you ideas, your lies, your co-workers down the river.
Corp-speak is what they use when they don't have anything else and they need to persuade themselves and others.
Is this just something one has to cope with in order to climb the corporate ladder?
When you are just an IT guy, speaking with other IT guys, you can say, "Alice is lazy." or "Bob is a selfish asshat." or "Charlie is overworked." without any fear of reprisal. Who cares what you think?
Once you become a suit, however, you can't say things like that to your fellow suits (at least not in public) because when Alice, Bob or Charlie gets fired, doesn't get a promotion, files a greivance, or feels their bonus is too small, your comments will be held against you. So, Alice becomes "externally motivated". Bob becomes "independent and self-reliant". Charlie becomes "a key asset". Who the heck talks like this? More importantly, who the heck would *want* to talk like this?
Why, other suits, of course. Suits want to be able to communicate with each other, but not necessarily communicate with non-suits. So, they use a thousand words of double talk to avoid answering a simple question, because if they were to give a real, informative answer, it would get them in trouble. What do you say when any answer, including dead silence or "No comment." would cause wild rumors in the department and mass defections, or cause your stock to dip, or make the IT guys revolt, or otherwise tie your hands at some point in the future? Why, you use a weighted cost benefit analysis strategy to rationalize the ROI for all the relevant options, and leverage those key insights into a forward looking strategy for addressing the primary mission tasks in a teamwork-based approach.
And while everyone is trying to figure out what you just said, you slip out the side door.
When your words carry more weight, you use them more carefully.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Kettle Meet Pot...
As much as you apparently abhor "corporate speak"... its just slang (as you point out) specific to a particular culture. You seem perfectly comfortable using euphemisms ("an already full plate" vs. "too many things to do"), these are just new ones. Every culture and group has it... think of how many you use in the IT world. Would one of your non-IT corporate wonks understand if you told him you'd ping someone and get back to him?
Oh stewardess! I speak jive... Jus' hang loose, blood. She gonna catch ya up on da' rebound on da' med side.
(and don't even get me started on Gladiator movies)
No man is an island, but Gary is a city in Indiana.
Each of those phrases, and many others you run into, have real meaning. Others in this thread have already commented on the specific phrases you bring up.
The reality is that people speak in terms that are common to their field. If you read any of the literature that your business peers reads, run in the same circles that they run in, and even think about the same problems they think about, you'll find yourself adopting their terminology.
It will make sense to you to do so, for the terms they use are actually more precise in their intended meaning than the replacements you give. You are tending to describe the main action or effect of a particular phrase, but the phrase actually encompasses much more. A realignment is exactly that - it may have the effect of layoffs, hires, and other movement of people, but it doesn't necessarily involve all or any of those things.
When they speak to you about a realignment, and you say, "Oh, you mean layoffs?" they will simply tune you out.
If they were to come into your field and choose not embrace your language you would certainly feel as though they don't really understand, and you would subsequently marginalize them and their work.
-Adam
You do NOT have to start speaking corporatese yourself, at least, not mostly. You may occasionally have to demonstrate the ability to do so, but on the whole you should express yourself clearly in plain English. However, not being able to decipher the unclear speech of the higher-ups would be a significant problem. However lame their lingo may be, you'll nonetheless want to learn enough of it to be able to understand them at least as well as they understand one another. And, I should note, this sort of language is not very hard to learn. It's much easier to deciper than e.g. legal verbiage, or even some of the weirder corners of academia.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
A lot of people like a straight talker. People who avoid flowery language give the impression of honesty and reliability. You don't need realignments. You need layoffs! Otherwise you're lying to people. Which is completely pointless because you're not actually deceiving anyone, so you're a bastard and a liar rather than just a bastard.
Avoid buzzwords, and avoid metaphor. Use jargon if neccesary, but only if it's absolutely clear from context or general use that everyone knopws what the jargon means. Learn the difference between jargon and buzzwords.
Bob is of course an idiot.
But this is precisely what you shouldn't do. Bob is going to hate your guts for making him look like an idiot, the Friends of Bob around the table are also going to hate your guts for making their fried look like an idiot, and the ones left are going to think your a smartass and hate your guts in case you do it to them next. And they'll all be looking for a way to take you down a peg or two next time they get the chance - which as you're going to have to use techie jargon at some point is likely sooner than later.
If you don't understand basic human nature at a level that can anticipate this then there's no way you should be let out of the techie corner except under close supervision. Charismatic? Ha.
What is happening here is that people are terrified of failure. Usually it comes from the top, as managers and manager's managers set the tone and culture and reinforce it by their actions. But if you work in a Culture of Fear, everything most be portrayed in a positive light or people become fearful and then they start scheming to protect themselves, which in turn causes fear in others around them and then it snowballs.
Most people can't take the truth. Most people will not get far in life because of it. In work, in martial arts, in every aspect of life, you will see the people that are terrified of fucking up, and then you will see those that are not. And you will rarely--very rarely--see those two kinds of people together.
Those that take mistakes in stride and realize that a mistake is a real growth opportunity and is desirable, will avoid the risk averse because the risk averse are suffocating to them. Those that are risk averse will avoid those that thrive on the learning opportunities provided by mistakes because they are terrified by anyone that makes mistakes in their vicinity and even worse will own up to it, confront it, and deal with it.
If you work for a corporation, you have to speak their language. But you can choose which corporation you work for. Not all corporations are Cultures of Fear. If you don't want to speak that language, seek out a corporation with management and leadership that speaks your language. If you see these things now, your eyes are open to it, and when you speak with new companies you will see what you would not have seen before.
You will recognize fear and you will recognize courage. Your choice.
If you work in a Culture of Fear, yes you have to speak their language. Otherwise you are going to terrify them with your openness and honesty and that is going to be bad for them and for you. If you decide to stay in that environment, your best bet is to find those that are courageous and work toward bringing them into your circle of existence (there are always wonderful people at a company, even if it is not readily apparent).
From a practical approach, if you can take it. Speak the language, get the promotion and the experience that goes with it, and then go find a great job at a company that is based on courage rather than fear.
Welcome to how corporate types have felt for years about techie jargon.
Management-speak, like tech speak, is a specialized jargon which, when properly used, simplifies and clarifies communication between peers. However, just like geek talk, it can be abused by the pretentious and self-promoting.
You know how you always cringe when someone in a movie talks about reversing the binary encryption bus, and everyone around you nods? Well, that's how (real) management types feel when they hear someone talking about synergistic upmarket brand dilution. There are poseurs in all fields, and fakes *love* jargon.
Just like some geeks actually know what they're talking about and can communicate in english when needed, if you give it some time you will find that there is a place in the world for management speak.
And, just like geek speak, don't hesitate to ask for an explanation. Just like pretentions geek wanna-be's, smarmy management wanna-be's can't explain what they just said because they're just buzzwording. And if they *can* explain, they're knowledgeable enough that you can stand to learn from 'em.
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
But this is precisely what you shouldn't do. Bob is going to hate your guts for making him look like an idiot, the Friends of Bob around the table are also going to hate your guts for making their fried look like an idiot, and the ones left are going to think your a smartass and hate your guts in case you do it to them next. And they'll all be looking for a way to take you down a peg or two next time they get the chance - which as you're going to have to use techie jargon at some point is likely sooner than later.
Sounds to me like the kind of people who aim for failure. If you find youself in that position, it's best to walk away. But still calling people on it. "Hey, you guys are trying to take me down a peg or two because of what I said to Bob. Look, you can't do that and expect to survive as a company. I'm afraid I have to go look elsewhere..."
WHY? Because there ARE companies that exist that don't have these kinds of silly politics and infighting. They DO exist, I have worked at them, they make money...
Of course, they might be in Japan.
Well... I guess I am in the position to comment on this one. Depending on your viewpoint, I may be a corporate sell-out, a nerd without spine or just someone who goes where the challenge is.
I'm a CCIE, so I have at least some credibility in the tech department. I spent years working on some of the most interesting projects a CCIE could dream of - network planning, (re)design, troubleshooting, working with Cisco and other vendors to develop next generation features... Yeah, it was interesting and 98% tech-related. After a few years, though, I kind of lost interest. I found that the "next generation" complex system after BGP wasn't RPSLng but instead systems of people. Once you get the RFC, working with the system is simply a derivative. However, there's no RFC for "how companies work" - and there are so many more facets to understanding the system of how people work within a company than within even the most complex network. Maybe it's different if you program java, but for me, I found the interesting challenge elsewhere.
Most of us wonder why the heck our stupid managers make some of the decisions they do. Yes, maybe they are plain stupid. Maybe, though, "they" understand something that we do not - and I wasn't going to let the arrogance of "knowing better because I am a geek" tell me that managers are stupid. I wanted to find out what made them tick.
I am now enrolled in a part-time MBA program at a good institution (and recently recertified for two more years of CCIE-dom while doing it). I've had a job as a "pre-sales consultant" so I could begin to understand how this whole evil sales process actually takes place. I've always wondered why someone with money to spare would give it to someone who, to us geeks, obviously has so little brain as a sales guy.
No, the answer is not that people with money to spare are by definition stupid. The answer is not that sales people are necessarily shallow. The answer is not that earning money is evil. The answer from the IT department should not be "I READ YOUR EMAIL! FEAR ME!", as this is probably the best excuse I can think of to recommend outsourcing to the next CIO I meet.
I'm now at the point where I have taken up a relatively new concept within my company and can make it work partially because I understand the technological concepts underlying it AND because I can explain to companies why it is important for them to invest in my concept. This requires me to speak some of the lingo - and yes, I do talk about adding value to a company's core business processes with the use of our business solution. I talk about the benefits of RFID for supply chain management. I wear an expensive suit and describe the opportunity for growth in a certain market which can be enabled by this-or-that network solution. So, yes, the 'speak' is important if you want those who are likely to make decisions to hear you.
However, having said that, the 'catch' is that there is a lot of BS going around in the corporate-speak-world. If you discuss a routing protocol, there can be no dispute - in the end, look up the RFC or reproduce whatever you're trying to prove. Discussing a company's marketing strategy or trying to make a business case for unified messaging is a lot more shaky. There's no undisputable book or testlab to point to and say "look, you're wrong, see - that's not how it works!". I can quote the latest book or article I read about the latest trend in strategy. I blurt out page numbers of Harvard Business Review articles. This is not proof, though. The guy to which I am talking can always blurt out some Sloan Managment Review article which declares exactly the opposite. Or worse, he will pretend to know it better - and he just might. There's no way to prove it. Professors have been wrong - unlike a routing protocol, which just "is".
This is exactly why corporate BS'ers get away with BS'ing - and why it's so difficult for most of us with a technical background to work with a system that apparently allows tolerance for nonsense.
Once it was used to describe systems that were mission critical, where failure could lead to significant financial losses, property damage, injuries, or loss of life. Remember the part of the MS Windows EULA about Java?
That's what I call mission critical. Also, that's some world-class snark on Microsoft's part. Java-based weapons systems? Sounds reasonable to me.
But instead of being restricted to, say, the oxygen tanks on Apollo 13 or the software that controlled the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine, the definition of mission critical has been extended to corporate networks. True, there can be financial losses if a corporate network is down or its security is compromised, but significant financial losses?
No, what really happens when the network's down is this: the salesdroids have to work the phones instead of having their noses in Outlook all day (or Solitaire), the CEO is pissed because his niece can't e-mail him pictures of her new kitten, and everyone else is thrown off their routine of chatting on AIM or playing stupid Yahoo! games all day.
Okay, maybe a system whose failure ends up with the whole company massing with torches and pitchforks outside the door to the IT department counts as "mission critical". But I still lament the devaluing of these words.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
I have worked as a professional educator and "eduspeak" is exactly like "corporate speak."
:-\
"Risk averse" seems to explain it quite well - it's basically a way of being really, really nice when speaking about students who may occassionally encounter cognitive challenges when attempting to complete their coursework.
I don't think eduspeak is *all* bad; it's basically an expression of the belief that all students are worthwhile human beings, and that all people need each other.
The problem comes when you build up a child's self esteem too much. I worked in a school where 100 was good, 99 was ok, and 98 was perceived as "failure" to many students. My fear is that when they finally do ever encounter a genuine difficulty in life, they are going to fall apart.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Deliverable would mean (roughly) a unit of work in a project which, when completed, can be delivered to the customer and be useful to them. Product in no way means the same thing. It is also a word whose meaning could be pretty quickly derived even if you hadn't heard it used in that context before.
It is the only word I picked up on in the article summary that wasn't just a longer word that 'laypersons' wouldn't understand used in place of a shorter word that everyone understands, which is what corporate speak is all about.
"Corporate speak" in technical companies is often due to the speaker not having much understanding of the technology, and not wanting to learn.
Corp speak is also used when the person being addressed does not have much understanding of the technology, and does not want to learn.
The problem starts with nepotism and cronyism.
Funny thing, of course, is not that Bob is an idiot, but that "you" (the speaker) aren't.
Frankly, I am just as pissed at hearing someone described as "an idiot" as when he is described as "challenging" or "externally motivated".
Both of these descriptions seem to share something - viewing people as flat cartoon things.
Everything is mowed down to the level of the speaker. All too often, _whatever_ Bob does it is explained as done _because_ he is an idiot. Or "challenging", or "challenged", whatever you prefer.
And it doesn't matter which of these he is called, as long as the speaker make the assumptions automatically, it's just as bad.
I don't think we should fawn over people who do stupid things - we do what we got to do about them. However, all too often I can see and hear fellow people written down carelessly, by people who are not really any much better - but probably need to feel they are.
they sure as hell aren't in Japan.
But your 'I'm much smarter than all of you' attitude will get you quickly fired from any company, clear communicating or not. Not because you were wrong in calling people on their fuzzy talk, but because you choose the most aggressive and antagonistic method of doing it.
CIA Industries - Running the world for fun and profit
There is a big difference between field/industry specific "technical" jargon and buzzwords. The former is NOT obfuscation at all.
Myocardial Infarction has a fairly specific meaning, and is very useful for _concisely_ conveying that meaning to medics. Whereas saying someone has a heart problem isn't specific enough.
Same goes when you are saying a benchmark is an OLAP benchmark and another is an OLTP benchmark to some IT guy.
Whereas when those people say something like "leveraging disintermediation paradigms" they are usually using a lot to say very little.
I wouldn't even say it's the difference between info compression and info decompression, because often with business buzzwords, there is very little info.
To me it's more like these people are expected to open their mouths and move them. But they know the more they actually say, the more they'd get in trouble (either because they don't really know much, or because they don't want to be pinned down on what they say later on), so they have to talk and say nothing much. Same for printed material - they have to fill column inches of a PR release or press interview.
There's a significant difference between saying someone has Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, vs Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
Whereas AFAIK there is very little difference in practice between:
"envisioneer compelling synergies" and "architect impactful initiatives".
Everyone with sense just watches what the person saying that sort of stuff actually _does_ after that. e.g. who gets sacked, who gets promoted, who gets dead-ended, and what policies change.
And none of that might actually be related to what was said.
The problem usually starts with an MSCE and ends with an MBA.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
I don't know - do you have to learn the secret handshake to join the Buffalo Lodge? Of course you do. Back in highschool, a friend of mine was angry about a perceived slight. See, she had interviewed for Yale and the next day a friend of hers interviewed with the same guy. Her friend had mentioned her and the Yale guy was like "Ohhh, the girl with the um..." and then pointed at his nose, referring to her nose stud. I related this tale of bigotry to my father who replied, "Hey, you don't try to join the Hell's Angels wearing a tuxedo." And that's the point: We humans naturally band together into clubs, packs, guilds and cohorts. Most professions have their own lingo - doctors, engineers, lawyers, waitstaff, etc. If you want to get into the higher-paid management "clique" in your company, you should probably emulate them to whatever extent the extra money is worth the whoring of your "true self".