Stanley Bing enumerates a decade and a half of business buzzwords.
Business does this. I remember when I started out in business, you had to have excellence. Everybody had to have a (usually pristine and unread) copy of Tom Peters and Robert Waterman’s lengthy, repetitive, preachy tome on the subject, In Search of Excellence, on proud display on their desktop. No meeting was complete without a segment in which people talked about excellence, the drive to achieve excellence, and a lot of cheering and hand-clapping in recognition of those who had in some way quantified or demonstrated extreme excellence.
Not long after we all searched for and found excellence, we moved on to Quality. We had Quality circles and Quality focus groups and Quality meetings to achieve Productivity. For about three years we had so much Quality everywhere that we actually killed it. Now nobody can talk about Quality without getting a pretty good laugh at the mention of the word.
As I noted, Quality was often a screen for the process by which Productivity was achieved. In case you didn’t know, which I’m sure you do, Productivity was a euphemism for firing people and making other people do their jobs. When you have fewer people doing more, you ipso facto have more Productivity. That is why I have always hated Productivity. Speaking personally, when I am achieving maximum Productivity, I am usually exhausted. > Stanley Bing
I remember the whole Quality thing. We had to point where we were in our job satisfaction on a thermometer. I told my section head I couldn’t because it didn’t read in - K.
Anyone get caught up in 5S? That was a fun one.
And I really, really hate work and development plans. I wanted to put “stock price of over $100 with two more splits” in the long term goals, and wasn’t permitted to. Well, dang it, that IS what my long term goal is - retire with the stock price high!
We have something going on here called a “Service Array.” In meetings like these, I always designated myself the official notetaker at these type of endeavors.
I take copious notes on my laptop, making sure that those present are listed first. This is followed by important notices or even who brought snacks (that my dear folks, increases the quality and quantity and frequency) and although the notes make the superiors look important, if you read the notes, nothing is ever accomplished. During the lulls in the meeting, I am fixing my typos and grammer and I have the notes e mailed minutes after the meeting is over. Oh yes, here’s the kicker, because I’m typing away, I rarely have to contribute. My version of the notes becomes the official word too.
Mission statements. That’s the one that pisses me off. I’ve been sitting in a staff meeting, waiting for the import announcement, only to learn that the new chairman of the board had called a board retreat, and they’d spent 48 hours or so giving birth to a mission statement!
We were all supposed to be impressed. And motivated, by golly!
