Corporate jargons…what, why…and why not ?

Years of corporate life teaches you that you shouldn’t take most of what is said on its ‘face value’. It’s important to understand these jargons, what they convey and also when & where to use them. The trick is that as a ‘recipient’, you are expected to take it in your stride and wait for you to use these on someone who steps in your shoes…or is already there.

‘Let’s take it offline’ said my previous boss in an internal meeting, when a colleague unexpectedly put a counter point to the proposition being put (by the boss of course!!). We looked at each other, knowing fully well what it meant – a polite shut up, with an overtone of ‘now you had it’ embedded in it!!

Any sentence starting with ‘with due respect’ often indicates complete lack of ‘respect’…and is said to make you feel better. Similarly, do not readily trust a statement starting with ‘while’ where usually the first part of it not to be taken seriously. For example – ‘while I understand where you’re coming from, I think we should do it like this’…the first part of the sentence is redundant…the person doesn’t understand your point…and doesn’t want to…

Same with ‘hmm, it’s an interesting idea…’ or ‘I see the point but…’

If you have to communicate someone that he sucks in what he does, you say something like ‘find a way to add value’. Taking about value, it can be used in variety of ways like ‘value creation’, ‘value drivers’, ‘value identification’, ‘value discovery’, ‘value proposition’ and ‘value enhancement’. More often than not, people using these don’t understand what they mean and so does the audience….but they sound good…and you feel like adding ‘value’, which finds a place in credential document or brochure of almost every corporate.

If the other person can ‘add value’, you can shrug away your responsibility by ’empowering’ them but with ‘buy-in’ from your bosses, provided the other person has ‘core competency’ for the task and keeps an eye on ‘best practices’ available.

Anything which you find complicated needs to be invariably ‘rationalized’, like tax rates, bank interest, imports from China, expectations from governments and so on.

You also use some fancy words or phrases instead of usual stuff.

For example:

You don’t	But
Think ahead	Be proactive
Make use	Leverage
Change	Transform
Talk/ E mail	Connect
Combine	Synergize
Think or give an idea	Evangelize/ Reflect/ Conceptualize
Get fired	Are eased out
Experiment	Innovate
Donate	Undertake CSR obligations
Discuss/ Discuss again	Pick the brain/ Circle back
Have resources	Have bandwidth
Try to do something very difficult	Boil the ocean

Then there are statements wherein you can use some of these and always get away. For instance, speaking on any topic, you can say things like ‘it needs structural changes’ or ‘this is just a beginning’ or ‘there is reason to be hopeful’ or ‘there are two sides of it’ or ‘the whole ecosystem needs to change’ or ‘lot has been done but lot still needs to be done’ or ‘all stakeholders need to come together’ or ‘India’s demographic dividend will play out at some stage’ or ‘it’s obviously not perfect’ and several others.

In summary, let me just say – with due respect to all corporate folks, while I appreciate your point, but everyone now knows about it…ultimately…it may be pointless !!