Office Neologisms

The real jargon of business.

  January 5, 2009

Trance- ition – The period between the announcement of the sale and the integration of the companies when employees walk around in a daze
 
Viscous circle – same as a vicious circle, only much, much slower
 
Viscoussion- ad nauseam deliberation on familiar issues that has the unintended result of slowing progress
 
Implamentation - the lengthy and remorseful explanation of how extenuating factors and external influences prevented one from successful execution, usually accompanied by chest beating, finger pointing and whimpering
 
Megaphor – used when one metaphor isn’t enough
 
World class ordination - The art of proclaiming one's approach, process, or methodology as being best in class when in reality, it is equivalent to what everyone else in the world already has.
 
Fact founding - The practice of inventing new facts to fill a void in information.
 
Meeting disbrief – conducted after a meeting to disavow everything that was said in the meeting related: meeting rebrief
 
Corporate infrastricture -  technology limitations that  hamper the ability to collaborate and share information, e.g., bandwidth for webcasts, size limitations on emails
 
Emotivate – using utopian visions of the future, dramatic pleas, and dire consequences to inspire an organization to change. related: hamplify
 
Annual abjective setting – the process of developing annual goals that you know are completely unachievable
 
Measuremental – fixating on metrics to manage your business, often at the expense of items that are not so easily measured
 
Blind-sighted – seeing only what you want to see and then being done in by something you really should have seen coming
 
Key performance undulators – the rise and fall in popularity of certain metrics
 
Refuting process – in order to eliminate a massive number of resumes, the process by which interviewers strive to find reasons not to pursue the job candidates
 

October 23, 2008

Sympodium – supposedly a conference  to learn new trends or share best practices, but in practice, a forum for one company to gain a captive audience for its sales pitch
 
Multi-tedia presentation – using numerous ways to present boring information
 
Secession planning – a Senior leadership retirement strategy, whereby the Corporate Officers  plan to sell, spin, or make public the company in order to reap a huge payment that can be used for retirement
related: retire-ease
 
Organizational reflectiveness – a division of HR that specializes in temperature checks, pulse surveys, and employee attitude assessments
 
New hire orientation pogrom – the mandatory, multi-day  session that walks new employees through  training on appropriate business attire, workplace ethics, sexual discrimination, office decoration guidelines, etc.
 
Clobboration – achieving consensus through the use of force
 
Coll-aberration – that rare instance when teams from multiple departments communicate and work together on a common goal
 
Corporate inertiatives – self-explanatory
 
Inte-grating –  the really irritating process of continually divesting, acquiring, and  merging companies that results in lower stock price, lost jobs, and tedious work for all involved
 
New org divine – the act of creating a new organizational structure without actually understanding the business nor knowing or interviewing the people for the positions
 
Verbi-age - the effect in which listening to certain people talk ages one prematurely
Others’ use of jargon and slang that causes one to feel really old
 
 Deportmental – the tendency of business functions to exhibit similar behaviors, e.g., Sales - gregarious, Marketers – disorganized, Finance – detail oriented,
 
Team vynamics – Group behavior wherein individuals at a meeting vie for dominance. Related: vialogue

 October 16, 2008

360 degree needback – obligatory surveys of your co-workers to assure your management that you are not Hitler reincarnated
 
Performance praisal – the act of writing about your yearly accomplishments in the most glowing terms possible
 
Undue diligence – the endless process of collecting more information in order to avoid making a decision
 
Best-in-crass – constantly touting how superior your department is to others
 
Adgenda – the agenda that grows and grows
 
Inunvate – to overload with innovation initiatives
 
Speed-to-make-it – the consequence of wasting time at the beginning of project, resulting in a shortened production timeline
 
Implementation phrase – the handover from the conceptual team to the execution team with the instructions of “just do it.”
 
Implementation faze – realizing that the conceptual design cannot be executed without major rework
 
Idearation – During brainstorming, secretly counting how many ideas each person contributes to determine who is smartest
 
Idealation – praising someone sycophantically for their superior creativity
 
Precedaunt – Knowing that everyone in this position prior to you has failed miserably
 
Expanse account – unlimited budget for pet corporate growth initiatives
 
Six stigma – The belief that getting involved in process improvement programs will stunt your career growth
 
Issue revolution – the serial routing of a  problem or concern to numerous parties so that it eventually ends up back with the originator
 
Problem salving – Holding meetings, calls etc. to discuss, document, and prioritize dire issues so that everyone feels better about not addressing them