Management speak... a new language?
Management speak... a new language?
(OP)
Appoligies to the figures of speech thread but let's just see if we appreciate the "non-butchered variety" of management speak... phrases heard everyday from the board-room, but what do they mean?
Low hanging fruit (taking what's easily accesible, though npoyt necessarily the most profitable, but not to be confused with Cherry picking...)
Cherry Picking (taking only the best and leaving the rest, usually because they have no idea how to get anything else)
At the end of the day....
Level playing field
The bottom line
Downsize (we messed up, go sack some productive workers)
Rationalise (ditto)
Restructure (ditto)
Harmonisation (after a merger, the practise of getting all the employees to accept the least favourable conditions)
Let's run it up the flagpole and see who salutes (yuk!)
Any ideas or more suggestions?
Low hanging fruit (taking what's easily accesible, though npoyt necessarily the most profitable, but not to be confused with Cherry picking...)
Cherry Picking (taking only the best and leaving the rest, usually because they have no idea how to get anything else)
At the end of the day....
Level playing field
The bottom line
Downsize (we messed up, go sack some productive workers)
Rationalise (ditto)
Restructure (ditto)
Harmonisation (after a merger, the practise of getting all the employees to accept the least favourable conditions)
Let's run it up the flagpole and see who salutes (yuk!)
Any ideas or more suggestions?





RE: Management speak... a new language?
corus
RE: Management speak... a new language?
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/games/career/bin/ms.cgi
Example: Our mission is to synergistically utilize economically sound content and enthusiastically pursue progressive leadership skills to set us apart from the competition.
Butchered or not... management-speak leaves a lot to be desired if the goal is clarity in communication.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Inevetably they put buzzword names on things you knew intuitivly, and often draw far reaching conclusions by useing facts without qualification.
eg, they learn the fact that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers, or from 20% of your products. They conclude that you don't need the 80% of customers that give you 20% of your turnover. They don't consider profit margins, growth, effects on economies of scale etc etc etc.
They then come back all fired up, go around justifying rash decisions with these buzzwords, get top marks from like minded senior managers (because they learned a lot from the short course that the senior manager chose, and became instant experts). These guys get promoted, so a culture evolves that rewards those that seem to take on most from these one week "degrees" that are free of substance, but jam packed with buzzwords. The cycle repeats and grows until financial disaster is iminent.
Regards
pat
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
I agree with the substance of your message. However, considering the forum in which it resides, it is ironic how many misspellings are contained within it.
Cheers!
Cory
RE: Management speak... a new language?
As posted today in a nearby thread, to my regret, I never paid near enough attention to boreing subjects like english and spelling.
I also had a change of primary (elementary) school on average of more than once a year which did not help my early basic education.
Also the Oxford dictionary does vary noticably from the Webster version, and a bit from the Macquarie version.
This site does not have a spell checker, which is a device I have come to depend on. I do not see it as being worth the time to draft in Word, spell check then cut and paste my posts.
Last, but not least, I have broad shoulders and a thick hide, so if this forum want's to have fun at my expense, no problems here.
Regards
pat
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
Of course, having created this dictat, it could be wished that he had chosen some more rational approach to the matter. Now, unfortunately, "correct spelling" is an excuse to persecute young children (and old engineers).
Now there there is a rule against selling on this site, but an inordinate number of rival brands of dictionaries are being touted to such an extent that it is more like a book fare than an engineers forum, but what is the official language on this site? and by that i mean which version of English (unless we are allowed to post in any language we like), so, bitte sag mir, kann ich hier mein deutch mehr besser lehren? I mean, i doubt i will benefit from spelling lessons and intend to invole the same freedom to spell the words my way in the absence of any legislative decree to the contrary in any of the English languages currently spoken on the planet. I have no doubt that at some time the Europeans Parliament will decide that this is an area where they feel a compulsion to meddle and when they do i shall declare myself a colonial and spell the words any way i like. And, probably, adopt some fanciful pronounciation to go with it.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
I am going to have a bet each way here.
I defend the British version as they invented the language.
I use (or abuse) the Australian version as i was born and raised here.
I will succumb (I just checked that on the spell checker) to the American version due to the overwhelming influence of Bill Gates and team.
It can be said that language is only a means of comunication, and so long as the communication is successfull, nothing else really matters.
But, while english is a live language, and can and does evolve, if no standards are set, it will evolve quickly into different dialects, so different that we will not be able to communicate with those from other english speaking regions.
Maybe the controlled flexability of the language is why it is the most common second language, but it is probably more to do with the industrial and military power of the english speaking nations over the last 200 years.
Regards
pat
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
Again, I agree with your words. I did not mean any offense in my previous post. I don't think you took offense, although maybe jwm did? :)
Cory
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Likewise, various speakers of stereotypical Brooklynese dialects must re-train their speaking to conform to the mainstream in order to advance outside of New York.
English survived Cockney and American will survive as well, so long as it's the dominant and accepted language.
If another language, ala Esperanto, takes hold, then American will become irrelevant to the workings of the world, much the way French is no longer the lingua franca, despite the attempts of the Cultural Ministry to maintain the "purity" of the language.
I think that the demise of French as the accepted language was due to the difficulty of assimilating new ideas and new people. The reason that English has replaced French is precisely due to the ease by which new terms and new idioms are accepted, particularly since English is a Polyglot with respect to the variety of foreign influences and roots.
In one of the other threads in this forum, "at the end of the day," popped up as a cliche that is a relatively new usage that thoroughly demonstrates the richness and vitality of the English language.
I'm pretty confident that English will survive without the need of a language police and will continue to thrive ONLY if it is allowed to grow and assimilate new features and ideas.
TTFN
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Absolutely no offense taken.
We Aussies are a bit famous (notorious?) for taking the piss out of ourselves, to use a british expression.
IRstuff
Australian dialect is heavily based on Cockney, with a fair influence of Irish, Scott and Welsh. The basis of our foundations were British outcasts.
We seem to have no real problem understanding many english dialects as we are exposed to a lot of American and British TV. I bet you guys have a better chance of undestanding me if you followed "The Crockodile Hunter" and I now understand the Scotts a lot easier since following Billy Connoly and Taggart.
I think TV is the mixing pot that will both drive change, but also homogonise the language.
Regards
pat
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
corus
RE: Management speak... a new language?
http://www.iespell.com/download.php
Just right click in any editable text box and you have a spellchecker.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Is this a better post now.
"I blame all the live in long weekend or one week courses, with components like corporate bonding, professional whatever, whatever by objective, time management, prioritising, communication, handling whatever.
Inevitably they put buzzword names on things you knew intuitively, and often draw far reaching conclusions by using facts without qualification.
e.g., they learn the fact that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers, or from 20% of your products. They conclude that you don't need the 80% of customers that give you 20% of your turnover. They don't consider profit margins, growth, effects on economies of scale etc etc etc.
They then come back all fired up, go around justifying rash decisions with these buzzwords, get top marks from like minded senior managers (because they learnt a lot from the short course that the senior manager chose, and became instant experts). These guys get promoted, so a culture evolves that rewards those that seem to take on most from these one week "degrees" that are free of substance, but jam packed with buzzwords. The cycle repeats and grows until financial disaster is imminent."
Regards
pat
eng-tips, by professional engineers for professional engineers
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
you will find it very very hard to upset me, i enjoy these threads far too much. I do like to poke a little fun here and there and love a good argument. Now if someone could just explian how to get the smileys into these posts when using IE6, i would be grateful. Then i can reassure you all with a smiley that i am quite game to be argued with, made fun off, and put in my place from time to time. No doubt Dave will intercede to say that while it can be done they (staff) don't really condone them.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
The mind automatically does a little hiccup when it sees a word that it does not immediately recognize and has to pause momentarily to identify the word. It does it quickly but the flow of the text is interrupted.
I'd be willing to bet that reading time and comprehension are both adversely affected by non-standard spelling.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Getting back to the theme of this thread... i once had a business manager who had the phrase "Walk before you run" engraved into his brain. This governed his every decision. The problem is that not all situations call for excessive caution. This attitude nearly cost the company $40,000,000 I arrived at this figure by calculating the lifetime lost profit on a new product development but decided this was too frightening a number for the directors to know. I am afraid there are too many managers who have adpoted a philosphy based on some catch phrase or other and it comes to rule their little brains to the ruination of everyone else. His successor has the motto " big goals, baby steps".
There is also an obsession with getting things absolutely perfect before going to the market place. My own favourite response to this would be "I don't want it right, I want it tommorrow" but i don' let this rule rule my thinking. If i have to lapse into logo-speak i prefer to use these expressions to illustrate the particular view i have , and not to dtermine what view i should have. For example, witha "me-too" product the market place will be somewhat less than forgiving if you introduce a product that doesn't work perfectly. If you introduce a "next-generation" "technical breakthrough" product you will never get it right in the lab, you need it out there in the market where you can do some learning. If the product has any potential at all, the market is very forgiving of failures, especially when they recognise the benefits it will bring. Te oy problem is matching your product release to the "logo-speak" of the management. I have had to wait out two business managers before i could get one product launched.... such is life.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
(To get the emoticons, click on the "emoticons/smileys" link just above the submit button for your post. That will bring up another window. Type in the code, including square brackets, to get the smiley that you want. Please note, the code will appear as you write, the actual animation will appear during preview or after submit.)
--Scott
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
[wavey}
RE: Management speak... a new language?
RE: Management speak... a new language?
I give you a star (wish I could give you more) for conveying your heart's feeling and your soul's conviction so clearly - in spite of the (as I understand now) terrible English that you write. I think that I should say "shame on you", but being a total foreigner with a Scandinavian mother tongue, I did not notice your bad language until a lot of people in here came down on it (or you?). Thanks anyhow. And I think that I know the actual meaning of "bad language" . But I am not sure...
Comments invited.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Your smiley is missing because it has a brace } after it rather than a bracket ].
Regards,
Cory
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
My spelling is bad
My grammar is OK, not great, but OK.
My language is good. Bad language actually means obscene or offencive language rather than technically incorrect use.
Spell checked OK. Thanks to Fzob.
Regards
pat
eng-tips, by professional engineers for professional engineers
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
Question: Does poor spelling and poor grammar necessarily mean that this objective is not met?
Question: Does good spelling and good grammar mean that this objective is met?
Question: who can understand a lawyer without another lawyer at $200 a minute to interpret?
RE: Management speak... a new language?
As I said: I think that I know the actual meaning of "bad language". I used that phrase to illustrate how easily things can go wrong when you move across language barriers.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Sorry to pick you up where it was not necessary.
One example of things going wrong across language barriers, was when working with a German colleague. I used the word eventually. Apparently it is also a German word that means something will most probably never be done. He was surprised that it was done after a reasonable delay
Regards
pat
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
I would say that poor spelling and grammar skills detract from effective communication of ideas, although they may not prevent such. Some people simply have difficulty seeing past the mistakes to the message. More frequently though, I would imagine that human factors (i.e., the effect that poor language skills may have on one's opinion of another's intelligence, familiarity of dialects, etc.) affect communication more so than poor language skills alone.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
It's an interesting discussion and, as in most things, demonstrates that the subject is not nearly so simple nor cut-and-dried.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
I bet you thought that you had got away with (sic)Appoligies as the first word of this thread!
You don't need to apologise and apologies are not required!
(Sorry smilies seem to be broken at present)
Good Luck
johnwm
RE: Management speak... a new language?
it just goes to prove my point since no one has reported this as a cause for not understanding me... but it was accidental, I assure you, I'm not that subtle. Will I be caught
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Please guys, can we come back on thread? It seems like every thread in this forum is turning into a debate about which dictionaries to use.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Streamlining
Rightsizing
Reorganization
"Gap Analysis" (maybe unique to my plant... we hear about the Gap between where we are and where we should be).
Also we work in an industrial plant and occasionally have some equipment problems.
But don't say the transformer exploded... it violently disassmebled.
Don't say the diesel generator through a rod, the rod was liberated from it's housing.
Hmmm. I thought I'd have more but I'm running dry. Maybe I'd better go read Dilbert for awhile.
Oh yes - Onelook.com is better.
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
"through a rod" should be "threw a rod"
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
nick
RE: Management speak... a new language?
corus
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Actually, the spelling mistakes can be caught by you english-speking guys on the fly. But it is a pain for we non-english communities, who have to look for new words in a dictionary and are frustrated sometimes not to find it there.
Avoid making mistakes, if you can. English is a powerful language and our own strenghts rest on English as much as on Engineering. "I don't care about the spellings" - is to make the language slight. And we all know, how impossible it is to do to a language, which has covered almost the whole planet. If we non-native speakers of English respect your language, you certainly ought to do so.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
It is a matter of professionalism, and perhaps more to the point of this audience, attention to detail.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
I've generally had a policy against using vendors that have spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors in their promotional materials or specifications.
My reason is simply that it indicates inattention to details and I have to wonder where that inattention stops and whether it might show up in buggy code, poorly fitting parts, incomplete/incorrect documentation, or missing components.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
In MSword or similar, the on-line spellchecker is a boon, when set to the appropriate dictionary, because i get really fed up with red and green squiggly underlines. So much so that my spelling is improving.
However, when it comes to press releases, articles, editorials, presentations, brochures, literature etc. it is always a mistake not to have the material checked and reformatted by proffesionals. This includes the spelling and grammar. A good publicist and a good publicity mamanger is essential. I should add that among other things to be checked is the technoical content. Two heads are always better than one.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
RE: Management speak... a new language?
TTFN
RE: Management speak... a new language?
TTFN
RE: Management speak... a new language?
RE: Management speak... a new language?
But, altough our Teacher was very good at infusing optimism (and "selling smoke", as a perfect Consultant), I remain with the good old realism rules of the "Murphy's Law" and its Corollaries
Bye, 'NGL
RE: Management speak... a new language?
To me, Sigma = stress. (Or is that only in the UK?)
Six Sigma, with the obvious implicit multiplication, must mean:
"Six times the stress".
I ask you, who needs it?? I can barely cope as it is!
RE: Management speak... a new language?
I agree with you... You could also replicate your post on Thread1010-95009 about "Bad Brand Names"
Bye, 'NGL
RE: Management speak... a new language?
You misspelled professional, manager, and technical. Sorry, couldn't resist.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
either you are more observant or less tolerant than the other long suffering members; that is from my March 3rd post!
It isn't all bad spelling, it is mostly poor typing in short posts where editing in word is such a pain.
JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
I frequently have the same problem - pretty good speller but very bad typist. I just found your post amusing. No malice intended.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Let me add some links about Techno-Babbles:
* definition: http://www.fact-index.com/t/te/technobabble.html
* simple example of 3-word techno-babbles generator (from an Italian "Trekkie" website....): http://www.hypertrek.org/etc/generator.html
* list of typical sentences for a Star Trek(TM)TNG Engineer (when reporting to the Starship Commander): http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~pound/w-geordi.sample
Live Long And Prosper, 'NGL
RE: Management speak... a new language?
none taken... keep it coming!
JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
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RE: Management speak... a new language?
If you have a process that produces normally distributed results then three standard deviations each side of the average value produced by the process will give you the six sigma range.
If this range exactly matches the tolerance to which the parts need to be manufactured then you have achieved six sigma quality (Provided the average size produced by the process matches the average dimension you've toleranced of course).
There, just saved you the bother of attending a six sigma course. Unless you like listening to management babble and the implicit (And sometimes explicit) recommendation that you should make your process worse if it works too well because in theory at least it should be cheaper to do a worse job...
RE: Management speak... a new language?
The six sigma must fall inside your avalable print tolerance. (Cpk of 2.0)
You are talking 3 sigma quality (Cpk of 1.0) not 6.
By your definaition you have a 0.3% rejection rate.
Better take the course so at least you can speak the speak.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Will I ever become a Federation's StarFleet Ensign or Lieutenant?
Live Long & Prosper, 'NGL
RE: Management speak... a new language?
RE: Management speak... a new language?
JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
Eng-Tips: Pro bono publico, by engineers, for engineers.
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
Words my wife lives by!
RE: Management speak... a new language?
But then, I always watched in B/W.
RE: Management speak... a new language?
"It's a poor mind that can't think of more than one way to spell a word." -- Mark Twain
Larry
RE: Management speak... a new language?
The toughest I DON'T CARE ATTITUDE spellers I have heard are from two groups:- ONE----factory workers,Construction laborers,Automobile Drivers who are engineers in their own right(And Some are better engineers than us qualified lot!)
TWO----The people at the top of the management. (CEO,DIRECTORS)!!
I sometimes find these two groups very similar in their behavior,speech pattern.
The people in between these two groups worry too much on how to do everything in a right way!!!!
Bye,
cranekiran