Management Terminology: Do You Even Understand Yourself Anymore?

It has become commonplace in corporate language to replace direct and straightforward expressions with difficult to understand and impossible to measure terms. Here are some examples:

Reduction in force, downsizing, eliminating redundancy, rightsizing, smartsizing, redeployment, workforce optimization, delayering, off shoring and outsourcing.

Meaning : You no longer have a job

Learning agility

Meaning : The ability to adapt to different situations quickly and learn from previous mistakes

Reach Out

Meaning : To contact or attempt communication with. Used in the same context as “to call, phone or email.”

Example : “I will reach out to our clients in Singapore.”

Internalize

Meaning : To learn, remember, absorb

Ideation

Meaning : To think or come up with ideas

Socialise

Meaning : To share a matter or bring an issue up (i.e. “Let’s socialise this issue with the stakeholder community”)

Stakeholder community

Meaning : Anyone who is affected by the organisation’s decisions, from the lowliest to the highest in the organization. However, this term mostly seems to signify bosses, investors or regulators.

So this:
“I have an idea that I want you to consider about potential lay-offs. We should talk to the boss about it.”

Becomes:
“I have conjured ideation to mutually internalise concerning workforce optimisation that needs to be socialised with the broader stakeholder community.”

(Sources: TLNT, Business Insider)

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