• Britain’s HR departments are obviously awash with "sequentialised
processes" and "helicopter views" judging by the deluge of
management jargon Guru has been on the receiving end of again this week.
Guru can’t blame readers for wanting to remain anonymous in their donation
of jargon. Some of these examples of double speak would make even the most
earnest "facilitator" blush.
• Critical mass (Support, as in, ‘I don’t have the critical mass to
carry out this project’)
• I’m behind on the power curve (I haven’t caught up with everyone
else yet)
• Leveraging synergies (Stealing good ideas from other sites)
• Break the glass mentality/Out of the box (Be entrepreneurial)
• Supplier Deflation (Pay less for more)
• People Pipeline (Succession planning)
• Operationalisation (Integrate)
• Takeaway (The summary at the bottom of a viewfoil)
• Drive Cycletime (Do it quicker)
Finally, thanks to Matthew Thomas of Recruitment Vérité for providing the
most jargon-laden job advert ever:
"Dynamic, quality-focused, results-driven teamplayer needed to capture
and park ideas, run them up the flagpole to see which way they fly then grab
them by the scruff of the neck and run off with them. This is a senior core
role within our strategic cultural change management initiative, requiring
someone of graduate calibre with vision, commercial acumen and excellent
interpersonal sensitivity/ communication skills. Package is competitive, though
not set in stone as this isn’t rocket science, moreover there is no point
re-inventing the wheel. In the first instance, touch base and we’ll make a
window for some down time."
Research you can really trust
• Research by the Open University Business School has managed to prove what
a lot of us knew already – that no one trusts a politician.
The OU surveyed nearly 600 managers and professionals on their views of the
trustworthiness of various groups. Politicians managed to grab the hallowed
last place followed closely by… er… journalists and sales people.
The study found that managers thought the most trustworthy people were
friends and family.
Still the managers surveyed don’t come across as the sharpest tools in the
box, as they collectively fingered themselves as the fourth least trustworthy
profession. Upfront they may be, but smart they ain’t.
Bitter and twisted
Guru has to admit that he knew he was asking for trouble when he asked
readers last week if they could spot any inanimate objects earning more than
them.
Patrick Tolson came back with "how about the Cabinet?" – boom
boom! And one reader, who for some reason prefers to remain anonymous, replied,
"Our HR director".
God squad of fathers in arms
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• Guru was intrigued to read last week that the Army is spending £2m on
recruiting chaplains. The idea is to give every unit its own cleric to look
after the moral and spiritual development of the soldiers, who too often these
days are, apparently, motivated by a "mercenary and self-interested"
approach to the job.
Guru thinks the Adjutant General’s department (personnel) deserves a medal
for a clever bit of skills redeployment – although it might want to tone down
commandment number 5 a bit – and looks forward to the creation of the first
crack units of God Squaddies.
