Know Your "Management Speak"

This week we thought we would take a look at some of the eccentricities of English when used in the business world. Over the last few years a number of phrases have become very common in business “management speak”, which can be very confusing when you hear them for the first time! However, fear not; our handy guide to “management speak” will help you navigate these obstacles with ease.

Firstly, let us take a look at how you think. Modern businesses are always striving to find new ways to do things. For this reason you are constantly asked to “think outside the box”. This means you should think about the issues without being restricted by the way things have been done previously, and not be boxed in by old fashioned ideas. On a larger scale, you may be encouraged to use “blue sky thinking”, particularly when discussing more strategic ideas. Blue sky thinking implies that everything can be possible if planned properly.

While we are up in the blue skies, it is worth mentioning another modern phrase, “helicopter view”. This suggests that a problem is being viewed in its entirety from above, again with the implication that the view is unrestricted, and therefore allows for a better understanding of a problem. However, to get to the root cause of a problem you may need to change your perspective, and “drill down” to find exactly what the issues are. This means that you need to examine the small details to find out where things are going wrong.

Once an idea has appeared, you should “run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it”.  Discussing the idea will let you know how popular it is, and who will support it.

After examining the problem, and having reached a decision, it is important that everyone then “sings from the same song sheet”. With its connotations of a large number of people all singing the same words to the same music, this phrase means that everyone will say the same thing about the decisions or strategies, whether they agree or not! Those who disagree will be required to “toe the line”, or not to publicly display their objections.

Let us now move on to putting the decisions into practice. The first thing to ensure is that you are operating on “a level playing field”. If you imagine a sports field that slopes steeply towards one end you can see that the team playing down the slope has a distinct advantage over the team playing uphill! This is the same in business, and the “level playing field” euphemism indicates that you are not starting at a disadvantage.

Once you are operating it is important to “pick the low hanging fruit”. This very visual image suggesting a farmer collecting apples in an orchard actually means that you should go for the easy results first, and leave the more difficult targets until later. This concept is also reflected in the “Eighty Twenty Rule”, which suggests that you achieve 80% of your results with 20% of your efforts, but the remaining 20% of your results will take 80% of your work.

There are far too many examples of “management speak” for one blog, and we will return to this subject in future blogs. However, be aware that this type of usage of the English language (some might term it abusage!) is widely seen as humorous by those who have to endure it. These phrases are commonly called “buzzwords” and it is not unknown for employees to play a game called “Buzzword Bingo” in management meetings or presentations. This game involves a number of colleagues preparing lists of the buzzwords they expect to hear. As the meeting progresses the lists are ticked off as each word appears, and the first person to tick off their entire list calls out “Bingo”, and is declared the winner. Well that is one way of dealing with the boredom of most management meetings! Such is the popularity of this mild form of employee anarchy that Buzzword Bingo cards are now available online!

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