Office Gobbledygook

I found a Forbes article entitled, "The Most Annoying, Pretentious and Useless Business Jargon" that is comical but so true.  According to the article, business jargon masks real meaning. People use it as a substitute for thinking about their goals and the direction that they want to give others.  Here are some of MY personal pet peeves that made it on their list:

Core Competency - Being competent is not the standard we’re seeking. It’s like core mediocrity.

Buy In - Asking for someone’s buy-in says, ‘I have an idea but I didn’t involve you because I didn’t value you enough to discuss it with you. I want you to embrace it as if you were in on it from the beginning, because that would make me feel really good.'

Empower - This is what someone above your pay grade does when, apparently, they would like you to do a job they do not wish to do.

Corporate Values - Corporations don’t have values, the people who run them do.

Think Outside The Box - This tired turn of phrase means to approach a business problem in an unconventional fashion. Forget the box, just think.

Learnings - Most educated people know how to conjugate a verb. That’s why most people cringe when the word “learning” is used as a noun. As in: “I had a critical learning from that project,” or “We documented the team’s learnings.” Whatever happened to simply saying: “I learned a lesson from that project?” Aspiring managers would do well to remember that if you can’t express your idea without buzzwords, there may not be an idea there at all.

Reach Out - Jargon for “let’s set up a meeting” or “let’s contact this person.” Just say that - and unless you want the Human Relations department breathing down your neck, please don’t reach out unless clearly invited.

Giving 110% - The nice thing about effort, in terms of measuring it, is that the most you can give is everything - and everything equals 100%. You can’t give more than that. To tell someone to give more than 100% is to tell them that you failed second-grade math.