Dilbertonian Obfuscation and BizSpeak Bingo

I am a cynic and a skeptic through experience, and this last week's litany of corporate emails did not help to moderate my position. We received a little note from one of the uppity-ups the other day, and although obviously I can't quote you the entire thing, I can give you a fair idea of the gist of the presentation.

As I read the note, the first thing that popped into my head was a game we used to play back in the good old days at Boeing (early 90's) during department meetings when a guest speaker - an executive from Up On High - would drop in for a few words of encouragement, which generally sent office morale into a tailspin.

Here's a sample of the type of tedium which passes for Corporate Encouragement these days. I've tagged the BizSpeak phrases in red. Extra points if you can figure out what they mean!

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The Executive Team has completed our working session where we discussed and reviewed our collective Goals & Objectives (G&O's) for this year. Our chief acomplishment was aligning our division-level G&O's with the corporate G&O's to ensure a common framework of expectations and deliverables throughout the organization. So here are the G&O's for this year.

• Metrics
  
  • Exceed operational & financial targets with unyielding integrity and compliance.
  • Focus on Enterprise Risk Management.
  • Implement operating rhythms with all teams.
  • Focus the teams on communications and joint accountability in the matrix.
• Execution
• Drive the execution of product development, technology, new product innovation (NPI) and our service model.
• Focus on productivity and margins.
• Global Business Growth
• Accelerate and drive business growth, both organic and inorganic.
• Talent and Transformational Learning
• Deliver on talent acquisition plans.
• Implement a transformational learning and development agenda across the organization.
• Culture and Engagement
• Build a purpose-focused culture of engaged employees that rewards collaboration, competence and competitiveness.
• Encourage winning solutions.
• Focus on action planning and implementation of actions.
• Highlight and celebrate progress.
• Accentuate the benefits (health, environment, rewards).

The year ahead has a number of opportunities and challenges, so it is important that we leave our mark and secure our collective future.

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And here is my witless attempt at a translation, based on my vast years of experience.

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This year, we executives went offsite to a really nice hotel to talk about our goals for the year. We ate a lot of great food and spent lots of Company money to figure out how to make even MORE money so we could continue these fun exercises while the “rank and file” are trying to figure out if they still have a job.

We started by copying the corporate goals that our bosses handed down. Of course, that doesn't make any sense, but since our bonuses are based on affirming everything our bosses tell us, we ran with them. Here they are:

• Keeping Track of Where We Are
• The status charts are meaningless; just make sure that they show us ahead of budget and schedule.
• Don't do anything risky, like spending money on equipment, training, or better planning.
• Don't allow changes to the processes, even if it would reduce waste or increase efficiency. Maintain status quo.
• Schedule lots of meetings to make management look active and involved; it may interrupt the worker bees, but that way we can blame them for not making any progress.


• Actually Doing Something
• Find more development contracts for technology that doesn't exist yet. We can make lots of money up-front on promises. And afterward on repairing stuff we didn't get right the first time.
• Get stuff out the door whether it works or not, because our profit margins shrink if we spend too much time getting it right.


• Getting a Piece of the Global Pie
• Find partners in emerging economies who are willing to give us money based on a bunch of paper promises. These partners don't actually have to be companies that produce anything, but they must have lots of money.


• Staffing
• Get rid of the older staff because we have to pay them too much; hire new staff right out of college because they're cheap and desperate.
• Put a lot of training stuff on the website so the staff think they can keep themselves up-to-date and marketable.


• Morale
• Come up with lots of "fun" events and forums and activity groups to convince the employees that they are part of some global community.
• Write up a lot of propaganda emails and website news that makes it look like we're winning lots of contracts and delivering stuff on time.
• Have lots of parties and awards and certificates so the staff feels like they're actually accomplishing something worthwhile.
• Remind the staff how lucky they are to have any benefits at all in the current economic environment; make them grateful to even have a job.

If we play our cards right, the year ahead might result in some serious bonuses for those of us here at the top, but we’ve got to stick together. Remember our common purpose: to boldly make more money than anyone has a right to make in these economic times while pretending that we’re just like the rest of the ‘common’ folk, so they don’t suspect that we couldn’t care less what happens to them. We want to leave our mark and secure our future, collecting more money than ever before!

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