<<< HUMANE::DISK$SCSI:[NOTES$LIBRARY]DIGITAL.NOTE;1 >>> -< The Digital way of working >- ================================================================================ Note 3668.0 CLICHE'D CONVERSATIONS FROM HELL 39 replies BSS::C_BOUTCHER 61 lines 2-FEB-1995 14:41 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This month there is an article in Fortune Magazine that I believe will be interesting to many organizations within Digital. I'd like to share the article (it's a quick read) without commenting myself. Also, there are a number of other articles that I believe some might find valuable - I'd recommend making the investment to get a copy. "CLICHED' CORPORATE CONVERSATIONS FROM HELL" "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to recognize that corporate America is a leading-edge recyler of tired phrases. It's a no-brainer. Pitch artists swearing they walk the talk, bearing offers of win-win situations, are legion. But the bottom line is that you don't want to be left out of the linguistic loop while colleagues who are a bit slower on the learning curve throw out slews of mouth-bitten cliches' every time they touch base with you. That's why we ratcheted up our very own Devil's Dictionary - to take you through the worst of the worst just one more time. Our nations buldging inventory of business cliches' is spun out by pundits, picked up by senior executives and regurgitated by pilot fish imitating their bosses. The explosion of management tomes and seminars in the past 15 years has fostered a top-down commitment among business folks to pepper their vocabularies with the latest business jargon. As the pace of work becomes lightning-quick, people condense complex historical events into flashy insights. "Just as reading diet books is a substitute forlosing weight, reading management books is a substitue for good management," comments Vanderbilt University professor Terrence Deal (whose own LEADING WITH SOUL is due in bookstores soon). In this age of cliches', meaningless reigns. Does anyone truly know what the "value chain" is? Or exactly what is "empowerment"? Avers Ralph Kilmann, professor at the University of Pittsburg's business school: "People feel comfortable with these concepts. They think they understand them because they use them in conversation, memos, and publicity statements, but there is virtually no substance to these words. Now that's vision!" The Devil's Dictionary TEAM PLAYER - An employee who substitutes the thinking of the herd with his/her own good judgement REENGINEERING - The principal slogan on the Nineties, used to describe any and all corporate strategies. VISION - Top management's heroic guess about the future, easily printed on mugs, T-shirts,, posters and calander cards. PARADIGM SHIFT - A euphemism companies use when they realize the rest of their industry has expanded into Guangdong while they were investing in Orange County. RESTRUCTURING - A simple plan instituted from above in which workers are right-sized, down-sized, surplused, lateralized, or in the business jargon of days of yore, fired. EMPOWERMENT - A magic wand management waves to help traumatized survivors of resturcturing suddenly feel engaged, self-managed, and in control of their futures and their jobs.