Nobody admits to liking ‘management speak’, yet the cads and bounders who perpetrate this heinous crime by ensuring we all ‘sing from the same hymn sheet’ and ‘throw enough darts so some will stick’ are still everywhere.
Personnel Today is well-known for its campaigns, but this is possibly the noblest of all – Guru’s ‘Death To Management Speak’ Campaign.
With help from management training and development company, Extensor, Guru offers you the cut-out-and-keep Buzzword Bingo table.
The aim is to cross off all the words in one row and then interrupt your meeting by screeching ‘Bingo!’ at the top of your voice. But, Extensor is keen to point out ‘you may like to devise a more subtle means of announcing your victory’.
Guru believes the linguistic criminals will never learn unless the message is loud and clear. We’ll leave it up to you.
If you fill in this one, go to www.extensor.co.uk/buzzword.php and get another.
Together we are strong, and we can put an end to this ‘blue-sky thinking’.
Awards are stripped down to bare basics
Award ceremonies spring up to honour people for great and not-so-good activities. There is even an awards awards ceremony – honouring the company with the best in-house back-patting session.
However, Guru believes the saucy send-off that disciple Elaine organised for a retiree who had been with the company for 44 years, is the best by far.
‘Not only did we present an Oscars-style award ceremony using the most interesting elements of his working life, but the women in the office had a very tasteful photograph taken around the board table, with their tops off and bra straps slipped down (aka Calendar Girls) with our annual report being displayed for modesty purposes only.’
Now that’s good people management. Can you do any better? E-mails to the usual address.
So many acronyms, so little purpose…
Talking about winning things for your efforts – the groups in the following press release must be up for ‘Greatest Amount of Acronyms in So Few Paragraphs’:
‘One of the largest PCO organisations in Europe, the Association of British Professional Conference Organisers (ABPCO), has joined the European Federation of the Associations of Professional Congress Organisers (EFAPCO). EFAPCO was formally launched at the ‘IMEX 2004’ exhibition.
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Zacharias Kaplanidis, president of EFAPCO and of the Hellenic Association of Professional Congress Organisers (HAPCO), said: “Members of EFAPCO’s Executive Board and I greet British participation in EFAPCO. It will strengthen the Federation and, as a result, help us achieve the objectives we set for EFAPCO”.’
By ‘eck!
