Say what you mean and pass on the jargon

I think the professional woodworking community in general is a pretty straightforward and plainspoken bunch, but there still are plenty of folks, especially in the corporate and consulting world that love to fill their speech with jargon. You know the type, the ones who are constantly going to the next level by thinking outside the box and leveraging their core competencies. So, I just had to share this piece from Forbes that takes a shot at all this business language nonsense. Not only did they highlight the worst offending phrases, but they even put up a "Jargon Madness" bracket competition like a basketball tournament to let people determine what the absolute worst business jargon phrase was. The final came down to Leverage vs. Drink the Kool-Aid. I'll let you click the link to see which phrase won.

The whole point is this kind of language is intended to obfuscate and impress, but it frequently shows a lack of original thought. Michael Travis, an executive search consultant, sums it up well. He was quoted by Forbes: “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.”

A great example of that was someone I worked with for a number of years who would regularly bring his management team together to explain we were doing something "for all the right reasons." That usually meant we were going to have to do something objectionable or definitely not for high-minded, completely ethical principles. These talks were often followed by the admonition that we should be "good soldiers," in other words, do or die, to use another cliche. It made many of us want go out and drink something other than Kool-Aid.