The Editorial, this month, finds itself once again getting a bit tetchy! I was chatting with Leo D’Angelo Fisher from the business publication “BRW” about a number of communication issues when conversation turned to an old bugbear for both of us – management speak. Management speak is the turgid, ridiculous language used by senior executives to turn simple concepts in to completely unintelligible nonsense. For some organizations it almost seems compulsory.

Leo wrote about this problem in BRW earlier this month and quoted the following gem from Kimberley Clark Australia: “Talent management is under the leadership and culture umbrella of the change roadmap” but by sheer coincidence one of our loyal readers has sent us something far worse.

So lets take a moment to examine the issue of otherwise intelligent people going out of their way to sound like complete prats!

Lion Nathan… we have a problem

Duncan Field is a senior executive at Lion Nathan in New Zealand who sent out the following email under the subject title: The Pride – Vehicle Access & Parking Effective 18 January 2010. The mind truly boggles:

We are currently in an intensive phase of activities at The Pride with migration of Lion Nathan staff and transfer of plant & equipment as production continues to ramp up. Concurrent with the above the Project team are completing the civil & buildings work packages notably roading, peripheral buildings, CCTV cameras and access control systems etc. To facilitate the completion of civil & building works within our agreed timelines of end March while minimising the impact on staff, contractors, suppliers and visitors we need to restrict vehicle access which will have an impact on staff working at or visiting The Pride.

Please see attached

Effective from 6 AM Monday 18 January LN staff, Beca, Krones and their sub contractors will enter and exit via the Ormiston Road gate and park in the yellow area.
Mainzeal and their sub contractors will enter and exit via Heritage Way and park in the red area.

Concurrent with the above ADT Security will establish on site, initially working in tandem with MCL security who have been the service provider through the construction phase. Security has been briefed to only allow access to areas other than the yellow and red zone to those who have an essential need to be there and have made prior arrangements through the project team.

Please bear with us as we transition through this phase and be aware that as Ian Roberts and his team become established on site there will be new operational procedures for staff, contractors, suppliers & visitors rolled out.

Regards,

Duncan

Duncan is on to something here and I suspect it is an overindulgence in the good product of his own company. For those of you struggling to follow what Duncan is saying it is basically this:

“There is a lot of work going on and to make sure it gets finished on time we are going to have to muck everyone about for a while. If you really need to be there let us know and we will let you in – otherwise… sod off! Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for helping out.
Your mate,

Duncan”

Why does Duncan, or anyone for that matter, feel compelled to write such lengthy dribble and in doing so seem hell bent on confusing and agitating the poor people who have to read it? I suspect the answer is because most people have in their heads a certain way they are supposed to sound when communicating – a very formal and complicated way that they think is commensurate with their title. The truth, of course, is that great leaders communicate very simply. Small words and less of them is key to effective communication but the Duncan’s of the world remain blissfully unaware of this. Will someone please tell them to stop getting off on big words or, if they look confused, to “stop being intoxicated with the exuberance of their own verbosity.”

Buzzword Bingo

A way to get your own back is to play Buzzword Bingo. Buzzword Bingo was invented in 1993 by Tom Davis (a Principal Scientist at Silicon Graphics) in collaboration with Seth Katz. It was then popularised by a Dilbert cartoon in 1994 that had the main characters playing during an office meeting.

The way it works is to prepare your own bingo cards full of buzzwords of your choice like “moving forward”, “take offline”, “best practice” etc and tick them off as they are uttered during a meeting or speech. The goal, of course, is to tick off the words and be able to yell out “Bingo!”

Now it is best to play in situations where you think that the speaker, in an effort to mask a lack of actual knowledge, is just spouting off a bunch of buzzwords rather than providing information or ideas of actual value. Business meetings led by guest speakers or company bigwigs from higher up the pay scale are often a good opportunity.

An important element of the game is having the courage to actually yell "Bingo!" In order to avoid the reprimands that would likely result from doing so, participants may resort to looking at one another and silently mouthing the word "Bingo". An alternate variation requires the person who has achieved bingo to raise his or her hand and use the word "Bingo" within the context of a comment or question.

Have a go!