June 13, 2012
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Corporate Speak
I sometimes roll my eyes when I listen to people at work. I prefer to keep my vocabulary simple and straightforward. But I am conversant with my company's corporate language. Here's an imaginary conversation.
*****
Bob: Matt, if you want to make these changes then you need to interlock with Mary, Jeff and Mark. By the way, Jeff is dotted line to Mark.
translation: you need to get agreement with Mary, Jeff and Mark. Jeff doesn't report directly to Mark but takes direction from Mark. The dotted line is what it would look like in an organizational chart.
Matt: That sounds good but as you know getting time on their calendars is not easy.
Bob: That's true, what you should do is socialize this with their Jason first. He works very closely with Mary and Jeff and understand their priorities and should be able to help.
translation: meet with Jason first to discuss the changes I would like to make.
Matt: Ok, I'll do that. By the way, I wanted to let you know that Bill from sales has been driving me nuts on his SAP proposal. His analysis is incomplete, the presentation is a mess and he simply reused an earlier proposal from a deal he lost.
Bob: You're not the first to complain about this. As you know we missed our targets for 2 straight quarters so this drives behaviours that you normally won't see. Is the value prop clear?
translation: we're under a lot of pressure for revenue which is why Bill is acting like an idiot. Value prop is Value Proposition.
Matt: No it isn't. I think the client will be very confused. But Bill doesn't care, he just wants to get it out the door by the end of the week.
Bob: I'll talk to Bill. I know the client escalated this issue to the VP. They wanted this proposal urgently.
translation: the client complained to the Vice President about the delay in getting the proposal delivered.
Matt: I'll do what I can to help. Here's the pricing that Bill put together, you'll need to review it.
Bob: You're right, we need to make some major changes. The optics is not good. They've already complained twice about our high prices.
translation: The client will have a very negative view or perspective (optics) on the price in the proposal.
*****
Is your work like this too?
Comments (20)
Gosh, this doesn't sound like a fun conversation! Corporate chit chat indeed it is.
Haha, that's hilarious! Sounds familiar....
At my workplace, everyone talks to each other as if they're having a jug of beer in a bar.
Well, if you add the occasional Chinese thrown in by my boss it sure does
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My job doesn't require 'formal speak' but I really dig formal speech whether it's journalism jargon, court/police procedural or real estate blather. Call me weird, I know.
As part of my job, I create training materials and also manage a lot of internal communications. It feels like a constant struggle to resist the corporate-speak. We don't "leverage" anything, we don't "utilize", and we don't "onboard".
I guess the jargon at my work involves talking about ganglions and invertebrate body parts haha
Since I'm part of a management team I hear these things A LOT! LOL
isn't it funny how every field has this? is it a force of habit? tied to the ego? inevitable? sometimes i have to stop my brother from talking to me like this to remind him that i'm his little sister and that we're not in a business meeting! before i got into mine, i once had lunch with a bunch of people in medicine. i was bored to tears and thought they were such dorks to talk in that lingo. now i'm sure that's what other people think when they hear my work jargon. the thing that drives me crazy is when some people get pretentious and use this jargon on patients and expect them to understand.
Awww. such stress. Hugs to you Matt. I am glad I have retired.
thank goodness, NO. but yeah, there are always a need to read between the lines.
... :I Waking up at 8am AND this boring talk? It'd put my straight to sleep like nyquil
At my work it's worse because we are a German company and use a lot of English terms (or versions of an English term that doesn't exist as such in English). In addition, the closer one gets to HQ, the weirder the talk gets. In HQ, they worry about issues that we underlings in the field office never think of. I regard this corporate language as a form of brainwashing - not so much different from the way the military talks.
nope
@CurryPuffy - a typical conversation ... sad but true.
@ed408 - it does sound strange.
@KevEats - lots of f bombs too? We don't get that a lot at our work place except when you're with folks that you trust.
@Fatcat723 - hahaha... there are quite a few Chinese people at my company. A lot of the technical terms don't have a Chinese word so it's funny to hear a conversation in Chinese liberally sprinkled IT technical terms.
@MzKeekz - there's probably a need for some level of precision required by each profession (e.g. legal).
@christao408 - omg, we use those words a lot. "We should leverage our relationship with the client." The other one that is fading away (thank goodness) is low hanging fruits. I almost died laughing the first time I heard it. Same with "trial balloons".
@sturslug - I'm guessing you're a biology / medical student?
@oxyGENE_08 - oh no Gene, I hope it's not too late for you to change. lol... p.s. Can you imagine a romantic conversation using corporate lingo?
@caki730 - I'm fortunate that my doctor uses plain simple words. It gets the message across very quickly.
@ZSA_MD - I feel like I want to retire.
@rudyhou - I once held up my 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers together to someone and told him to read between the lines.
@Devilzgaysianboi - welcome to my world.
@beowulf222 - you're right - the closer to HQ, the worse it gets.
@yang1815 - oh you're lucky Andy. Good to see you again.
@ElusiveWords - You as well!!!
@ElusiveWords - Romantic? How bout erotic? LMAO
Oh god, I didn't get that at all! Haha. Um, at the call centre, we constantly complain about customers.
That sounds kind of painful. Glad we do not blog that way.
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