places I've worked...
I've worked or consulted at several different places since beginning my professional career 10+ years ago - everything from multinational corporations with 40,000+ people to startups that employed fewer than 10 people. One thing I noticed is that "biz-speak" is much more prevalent in the larger shops, but I still got a healthy dose of it in most of the other places I've been.
For people who are not familiar with biz-speak, I've prepared a handy translation guide.
biz-speak word or phrase
real-world meaning
"What is the status of this project?"
"You're now three weeks behind on this project that I just got around to assigning to you today."
"Management-track position"
"Yeah, so-and-so definitely drank the kool-aid." Remember that the only difference between brown-nosing and ass-kissing is depth perception.
"That's a big red flag - you'll need to make fixing that your top priority."
"Something got fucked up and unless it gets un-fucked, it's your ass in the meat grinder."
"This issue is a show-stopper."
"We just wasted six months on this project only to find out it's not going to work."
"You need to assert yourself more effectively."
"You have carte blanche to be an asshole more often."
The word "leverage" used as a verb.
...translates to "use", in a nutshell. "Leverage" is one of those over-used crutch words to make something sound more impressive than it actually is. Equivalent in its overuse and annoyance to "LOL" in IM and text messages.
"Take this as an action item."
"Congratulations, this project is yours now."
"Team-building exercise"
"drinking or going to a strip club"
"Management Retreat"
"drinking or going to a strip club, with some golf possibly thrown in"
"Executive Briefing"
"drinking AND going to a strip club, with golf and hookers included"
Overuse of the words "maximize" and/or "minimize"
More overused crutch words. Useful for forcefully overstating the obvious, i.e. "We need to maximize profits and minimize wasteful spending."
"Overhead"
"Corporate jets and executive benefit packages."
"Leadership role"
"Make the boss look bad and you'll be in the unemployment line."
"Key performance metrics"
"Shit we're supposed to be doing anyway.
"Core competencies"
"Shit we tell ourselves we do better than anyone else."
"Synergies"
"Shit from column A that matches up with someone else's shit from column B"
"Processes"
"Shit that looks pretty impressive in a flowchart, but is relatively useless in getting things done."
"ASAP"
"Two weeks from now"
"ASAMFP"
"ASAP - as soon as m-f'ing possible"
"Reach out to so-and-so."
"Call and/or email this person."
"Ping this person."
"Call and/or email this person."
"Give me a ball-park guess on what this will cost."
"It better not cost more than however much you just said."
"Plug and play"
"Spend the next two hours figuring out why this piece of shit doesn't work."
"Our deadline got pushed up."
"Kiss the next three weekends goodbye."
"Lateral move"
"I couldn't fire them, so I punted them to another department."
"'Come to Jesus' meeting"
"Bring this person into the conference room so we can yell at them for an hour."
"Process improvement"
"Remember all of that shit we told you to do differently six months ago? We have a totally different way for you to not do it now. It's all documented in this nice new memo that you probably won't read."
"Value Engineering"
"Someone who has no idea what the hell you're talking about decided that you don't need half of the shit you said you needed to do this project and decided not to tell you that you don't need it."
Here's a little exercise. Translate the following dialog from biz-speak into pseudo-plain English. To help, I've underlined the biz-speak phrases.
From: Your Boss
To: You
Ping Bill to see if he's available for a Come to Jesus with Vendor XYZ. The new status from them is that their latest red flag could indeed be a show-stopper. The VP pushed up our deadline so the project is now due ASAMFP. I'm making this your top priority so I need you to take this as your main action item. We need to leverage our core competencies to maximize our opportunities to realize improved synergies and processes across all of our departments. I'm looking to you to assume a leadership role in this process and if need be, don't be afraid to do some value engineering to minimize costs. Pull this off and I'll see to it that the next management-track position is yours.
Don't hesitate to contact me if you run into issues. I'll be assuming a leadership role in some off-site team-building exercises through the end of the week but will be checking email periodically.
Sincerely,
Your Boss
For people who are not familiar with biz-speak, I've prepared a handy translation guide.
biz-speak word or phrase
real-world meaning
"What is the status of this project?"
"You're now three weeks behind on this project that I just got around to assigning to you today."
"Management-track position"
"Yeah, so-and-so definitely drank the kool-aid." Remember that the only difference between brown-nosing and ass-kissing is depth perception.
"That's a big red flag - you'll need to make fixing that your top priority."
"Something got fucked up and unless it gets un-fucked, it's your ass in the meat grinder."
"This issue is a show-stopper."
"We just wasted six months on this project only to find out it's not going to work."
"You need to assert yourself more effectively."
"You have carte blanche to be an asshole more often."
The word "leverage" used as a verb.
...translates to "use", in a nutshell. "Leverage" is one of those over-used crutch words to make something sound more impressive than it actually is. Equivalent in its overuse and annoyance to "LOL" in IM and text messages.
"Take this as an action item."
"Congratulations, this project is yours now."
"Team-building exercise"
"drinking or going to a strip club"
"Management Retreat"
"drinking or going to a strip club, with some golf possibly thrown in"
"Executive Briefing"
"drinking AND going to a strip club, with golf and hookers included"
Overuse of the words "maximize" and/or "minimize"
More overused crutch words. Useful for forcefully overstating the obvious, i.e. "We need to maximize profits and minimize wasteful spending."
"Overhead"
"Corporate jets and executive benefit packages."
"Leadership role"
"Make the boss look bad and you'll be in the unemployment line."
"Key performance metrics"
"Shit we're supposed to be doing anyway.
"Core competencies"
"Shit we tell ourselves we do better than anyone else."
"Synergies"
"Shit from column A that matches up with someone else's shit from column B"
"Processes"
"Shit that looks pretty impressive in a flowchart, but is relatively useless in getting things done."
"ASAP"
"Two weeks from now"
"ASAMFP"
"ASAP - as soon as m-f'ing possible"
"Reach out to so-and-so."
"Call and/or email this person."
"Ping this person."
"Call and/or email this person."
"Give me a ball-park guess on what this will cost."
"It better not cost more than however much you just said."
"Plug and play"
"Spend the next two hours figuring out why this piece of shit doesn't work."
"Our deadline got pushed up."
"Kiss the next three weekends goodbye."
"Lateral move"
"I couldn't fire them, so I punted them to another department."
"'Come to Jesus' meeting"
"Bring this person into the conference room so we can yell at them for an hour."
"Process improvement"
"Remember all of that shit we told you to do differently six months ago? We have a totally different way for you to not do it now. It's all documented in this nice new memo that you probably won't read."
"Value Engineering"
"Someone who has no idea what the hell you're talking about decided that you don't need half of the shit you said you needed to do this project and decided not to tell you that you don't need it."
Here's a little exercise. Translate the following dialog from biz-speak into pseudo-plain English. To help, I've underlined the biz-speak phrases.
From: Your Boss
To: You
Ping Bill to see if he's available for a Come to Jesus with Vendor XYZ. The new status from them is that their latest red flag could indeed be a show-stopper. The VP pushed up our deadline so the project is now due ASAMFP. I'm making this your top priority so I need you to take this as your main action item. We need to leverage our core competencies to maximize our opportunities to realize improved synergies and processes across all of our departments. I'm looking to you to assume a leadership role in this process and if need be, don't be afraid to do some value engineering to minimize costs. Pull this off and I'll see to it that the next management-track position is yours.
Don't hesitate to contact me if you run into issues. I'll be assuming a leadership role in some off-site team-building exercises through the end of the week but will be checking email periodically.
Sincerely,
Your Boss