If you've been in a group meeting at your place of employment in the last handful of years you've no doubt encountered the phenomenon of "WorkSpeak". WorkSpeak is the fairly recent addition to the American corporate landscape whereby corporate climbers accomplish a duality of purpose when addressing a group. The group can be a group of subordinates, peers or high-level executives. The first purpose remains unchanged from presentations of fifty or seventy-five years ago in boardrooms and hotel ballrooms around this country. Information that is relevant to some common topic to all workers needs to be imparted and someone has to impart it. A presentation has to be given to enlighten all present as to the new policy, the new procedure or the latest quarterly results. The secondary purpose is where we'll focus and where the change has occurred.
Gone are the days when a presentation would be given and the CEO of the company would exclaim, "You know, Gibson did a great job presenting the quarterly results. He seems to be a smart one. Let's keep an eye on him for the future." In today's economic climate a climber can't wait for his or her turn to shine in a group environment. He or she has to carpe diem and do it fast. This has given rise to a new language -WorkSpeak. Since WorkSpeak serves a purpose all the way up the company ladder it can't be stopped. It's meant to convey a secondary message to your audience while you are simultaneously conveying the first. The message changes slightly depending on who is doing the talking but the purpose is still the same.
If you're a "C" level executive and you're speaking to a room full of well, anyone that works for your company, you need to convey your unspoken message to them. You can't simply tell them that you're an extremely important personage in the world of business, a man to be reckoned with, that in the hours that your mind is still while sleeping the world is worse off because of it. You can't come out and say that you're a big hitter that goes to meetings in India and Japan, that you're a global juggernaut whose opinion is courted by thousands. You want to tell them that you fly fist class to Mumbai and stay in hotel suites that have three bedrooms even though you're traveling alone. So you write pensive posts to the company blog or global e-mail distribution list from 37,000 feet to keep the little people informed of the important work you're doing and hope they get the message. But you need more. WorkSpeak provides the self-important executive with selected buzzwords that will convey his lofty status to his audience without him having to come right out and declare it. The thought process goes something like this; "Wow, our CEO uses words and phrases that I and my peer group don't understand and are not part of our daily vernacular. He must have learned those whilst cavorting with other captains of industry. We are truly in the presence of a brilliant and important man." Message received.
But WorkSpeak can't be the sole province of high-level executives. Climbers climb and WorkSpeak is far too valuable a tool to be wasted on those who've already arrived. If you're a junior executive or a mid-level manager who is gunning to be the youngest VP or SVP or C in company history you too can utilize the magic of WorkSpeak. Although the message from a Regional VP to the masses sounds similar to that of a C level executive, the message is altered slightly. What the hearer should get from the presentation is this; "I'm going places. This position is a stepping stone on my way to the top. I'm already being invited to participate in meeting with the big bosses and I regularly rub shoulders with them. As a result of my close association and grooming for greatness I have learned these buzzwords that all important people know and use. You should respect me and probably try to hitch your wagon to me while it's still sitting still."
The message is a little bit different when a junior person is presenting to a group of more senior people but obviously the words remain the same. "I'm a climber. I've been watching you. I have a laptop computer and I've Googled the buzzwords that you use in order to discern their meaning. Now I'm going to use them in my presentation to you so that you'll understand that I'm dialed in. Using these buzzwords instead of other, possibly monosyllabic words is my way of giving you the wink and nod that I'm your guy. I'm willing to be your minion and make doing your bidding my life's work. I am malleable and impressionable and will do nearly anything to get to the top."
With that backdrop in mind let's take a look at some of the most commonly used WorkSpeak words and phrases. I probably don't need to tell you that more are being added all the time.
Influencer - an influencer is someone who works at an organization that is currently either a customer or a prospect for your organization. They don't have any money and they don't have any authority to buy anything but they seem to like you and you enjoy taking him or her to lunch. In order to keep from having your expense reports rejected for spending money on people who can't say yes and can't say no, a new term is needed to make these people seem more important than they really are. Influencer.
Stakeholder - you desperately want to believe that the people that you're trying to sell your products to need you just as badly as you need them. They don't. There are other companies that offer pretty much the same products and services that you do despite collateral and white papers written by your Marketing and Product Management people to the contrary. It's called competition. In order to convince yourself and others in your company that they need you as much as you need them a new term is created that implies that everyone involved in the process has an equal share invested in the process and that no one is in the catbird's seat. Stakeholder.
Glide Path - this aviation term is most often used by higher level executives. It's supposed to convey the slow, sure, smooth descent of a project to completion much like the highly controlled landing of a large aircraft. The pilot calculates the path of descent and knows when to bring the plane down in altitude at specific increments to touch down with the runway at the the best possible time to insure a smooth landing. The implication here is that the C level is portraying himself in the role of the confident, sure-handed pilot bringing the big project in just as he'd envisioned. If you imagine that the executive picked up this metaphor during his frequent trips jetting here and there that's perfectly okay with him. It's important to note that terms like wind shear, water landing, May-day and controlled crash have never been adopted into WorkSpeak.
Circle Back - it's just not good enough to tell someone that you'll follow up at a later time or call them back with an answer when you get one. Clearly another phrase was needed to convey this.
Reach Out - same as above. Saying that you called or emailed someone simply isn't good enough. You actually extended your arms and attempted to bring this person into your bosom for a loving embrace. They haven't called you back yet.
Metrics - because statistics just isn;t good enough.
Optics - so the CEO got caught canoodling with the seventeen year old babysitter that's eight years younger than his daughter. Poor optics just sounds less troublesome than "our leader is a nasty old pervert who's most likely going to jail and divorce court, not necessarily in that order. The stock price has dropped by a third in less than a week and Geraldo Rivera has built a tent outside the building."
Disruptive - we fell asleep at the switch and got caught with our pants down. Our company was flat-footed and our competitor has launched an updated product that's better, faster and cheaper than ours. Product testers will extoll the wonderful new features of this product and customers will write reviews on Yelp saying how much better it is than the old one. We're going to buy a bunch of advertising saying that their product isn't any good and that our competitor rushed this new launch to market. Yep, we planned it this way all along.
Individual Contributor - you work here. You are at the very bottom of the food chain and no one takes orders from you.
Empower - we are open-minded and progressive. We are modern. We are decentralized. We give our entry level managers authority to make major decisions. We grant interviews to magazine reporters to discuss our forward-thinking, unconventional work culture. We don't have titles here. Everyone is equal. We have a day-care center and a gym. Our IT people ride their bicycles directly into the building and park them beside their desk. We don't demand a set work schedule. We hire the best and trust them to complete their assignments as professionals. We don't conduct performance reviews and we have a masseuse and a yoga instructor on campus. Oh yes, and we call our building a campus. We also serve vegan food in the cafeteria. The minute we have a bad quarter all of this secular humanist crap will go out the window and we'll re-org and fire a third of our workforce in a week. Including the masseuse and yoga instructor.
Early Adopter - we've reduced the number of programmers and code writers by a third in a re-org. Thankfully we have a few really stupid customers who will find all of the bugs and defects in our software for us.
Thought Leader - in spite of the fact that we feel threatened by actual smart people and get rid of them whenever we can because we're afraid that they'll expose how inept we are and possibly take our job we still have a few who have managed to remain employed. If a customer asks a question we shove them out in the lion's den. This does not sound like something from 1984. This does not sound like something from 1984. This does not sound like something from 1984.
Stephen Walker writes blog articles on a wide range of topics. He is a novelist and short story fiction writer who writes for the Erudite Aardvark and other online concerns. He can be reached at stephen.walker@eruditeaardvark.com.
This article is the intellectual property of The Erudite Aardvark, which reserves all rights to the content. It may not be copied or re-transmitted in any fashion without the express, written permission of the owner.
No comments:
Post a Comment