FMS-Blog : The Wildly Whimsical, Mostly Musical WebLog
Monday, November 06, 2006
Corporate Dishonesty
What I've always hated about working for private companies over the years has been the sheer lack of clear, honest communication between management and the workforce - while they tell you that you're working for a company that is right behind you what they mean is that they're in the ideal position to stab you in the back. It works in shades of grey - those on the first or second rung of the management ladder start to learn that they get places by being deceitful and dishonest, mainly at the cost of those who work beneath them, and the more they rise the thicker the lies have to become.
The BBC news website today features a classic example of how this all starts off: with corporate jargon. Here are some corkers that I bet you've heard your manager come out with in meetings =
Blue-sky thinking: Idealistic or visionary ideas - not always with practical application
Push the envelope: Improve performance by going beyond commonly accepted boundaries
Joined-up thinking: Taking into account how things affect each other - not looking at something in isolation
The helicopter view: An overview
Low-hanging fruit: The easiest targets
Of course, it's all utter nonsense designed to make managers feel intellectually superior and baffle the bejeezuz out of everyone else. This use of jargon-phrases like "joined-up thinking", in fact, epitomises everything that makes working in a business environment in the 21st Century a thoroughly degrading and unhealthy experience. Your choices are either to buy into the system, inventing new and sillier ways of saying perfectly straightforward things, or else get pushed out of the ring, either by some of the more aggressive jargon-talkers or by your own sense of decency and self-preservation. The latter case is how I came to be a freelance music teacher, and there's no way I would ever look back!
The BBC news website today features a classic example of how this all starts off: with corporate jargon. Here are some corkers that I bet you've heard your manager come out with in meetings =
Blue-sky thinking: Idealistic or visionary ideas - not always with practical application
Push the envelope: Improve performance by going beyond commonly accepted boundaries
Joined-up thinking: Taking into account how things affect each other - not looking at something in isolation
The helicopter view: An overview
Low-hanging fruit: The easiest targets
Of course, it's all utter nonsense designed to make managers feel intellectually superior and baffle the bejeezuz out of everyone else. This use of jargon-phrases like "joined-up thinking", in fact, epitomises everything that makes working in a business environment in the 21st Century a thoroughly degrading and unhealthy experience. Your choices are either to buy into the system, inventing new and sillier ways of saying perfectly straightforward things, or else get pushed out of the ring, either by some of the more aggressive jargon-talkers or by your own sense of decency and self-preservation. The latter case is how I came to be a freelance music teacher, and there's no way I would ever look back!
