Slashdot Mirror
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 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
If you've found yourself in this position, what things did you do to cope?
I cursed a lot. Instead of calling somebody "more challenging", say he's an "asshole". It helps.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Start thinking "outside the box". You need to take a more solution-oriented approach to your problem and focus on your deliverables.
I think you'll find that if you shift your paradigm a little bit, your growth intensity will increase by orders of magnitude.
Just create a win-win big picture for yourself and you're success strategy will manifest itself with "positive team margins" for everyone around you.
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.
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.
Rubbish.
If someone doesn't know what TCP/IP means or what a CNAME record is, I can direct him to appropriate RFCs that define them.
Now, I wouldn't actually direct an MBA to an RFC, because his eyes would glaze over about the time he got to "this memo has unlimited distribution." But what matters is that I can direct him to such a document, because such a document exists. Tech-speak is done with well-defined terms that have standardized meaning, and it is used to clarify how we talk to each other.
If you can point me to a document or documents standardizing terms like "Web 2.0", "enterprise", "solution", "mission-critical", "partner", etc., then I will admit my criticism of corporate speak is wrong. However, I don't think you will be able to, because those documents don't exist. Because these words' meanings are not standardized. They mean to the speaker what he imagines he means, and they mean to the listener what he imagines he hears. That, I think, is what business types don't understand when they compare themselves to techs: what we say means something, because we had to learn something objective, verifiable, and repeatable to get where we are, while they didn't.
All's true that is mistrusted
You forgot "And look like a totally hot MILF the entire time." I think that HP might have downsized, but I certainly was feeling upsized whenever I got a gander at her. Yummay.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
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.
And this is quite standard in most current SLA contracts that I have seen. So, while the OP and you think that these are buzzwords, in well-run IT shops they have very specific and very precise meaning.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
I'm glad you pinged Slashdot about this messaging challenge so we could touch base and send a heads up. This kind of meme is gaining mind-share. The metrics are showing more than just a blip, it's a sea-change!
Moving forward, I think it's clear that we need to leverage our wins and make them part of the overall story. I know that we can wrestle this problem to the ground and dominate several emerging ecosystems if we prioritise and deliver best-practices through the channel. Execution is key.
I really need your front-end alignment on this! Can you get your people on board?
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.