7 most overused business phrases
June 5, 2008 by Shane BorerPosted in: "Seemed like a good idea at the time", "Would you want this person in Finance?", In this week's e-newsletter, Latest news & views
Forget going back for that MBA: With this phrase-by-phrase breakdown, you’ll be talking like you taught at an Ivy-league school in no time.
- Bandwidth. “We don’t have enough bandwidth to get the project done.”
Translation: “Since we’re basically breathing computers, we can’t be productive without an Internet connection.”
- Proactive. “We’re encouraging more employees to be proactive with their responsibilities.”
Translation: “For Pete’s sake, will someone please do something?!”
- Spinning our wheels. “Maybe it’s time for a break — I feel like we’re spinning our wheels at this point.”
Translation: “This discussion has been a complete waste of time.”
- Let’s not reinvent the wheel. “Think outside-of-the-box, but you don’t need to reinvent the wheel or anything.”
Translation: “To make sure we don’t end up ’spinning our wheels,’ let’s just steal someone else’s work.” - Self-starter. “This team needs a real self-starter to get things moving.”
Translation: “I hope you know what the %$@# you’re doing, because we’re clueless.”
- Work-life balance. “When searching for the right people to fit our Finance department, we strive to choose those with a strong work-life balance.”
Translation: “If you’ve got kids, we won’t fire you.”
- Hit the ground running. “Tom, you really hit the ground running on that Acme report.”
Translation: “Good thing you’re competent, because we had absolutely no time to train you.”
And these are only the beginning. If you could banish business speak from your company, what phrases would get the ax first? Sound off in the comments section below.
Tags: Business speak, Communication problems, MBA, Top Ten
June 6th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Enable. “The team’s mission is to enable our sales department.”
June 6th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Customer-centric. “We have to align our resources to be a more customer-centric organization.”
June 6th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Down size or right size
Translation: You are fired.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I’d like to BANISH the phrase “touch base” forever! It annoys me very much when I hear it anywhere…not just at work!
June 6th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I’m with Jenn. I’ve seen companies that have formalized the use of “touch base” in their policy manuals to describe a specific type of meeting. One employee will schedule a “touch base” with another.
June 7th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
LOL - When I hear “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel” again, It will be hard to keep from breaking out laughing!
June 9th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I am tired of the phrase “Think out of the box.” It is so old and overused.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
How about “granularity”? That one kills me.
June 10th, 2008 at 6:48 am
I’ve always liked buzzwhack.com, a site that lists the latest business jargon.
Editor John Walston included this great seasonal one recently:
staycation: A stay-at-home vacation. Thanks to high gas prices and the sluggish economy, that’s all most of us can afford.
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:05 am
I’m tired of hearing the word “phenominal” applied to everything from sales to customer response.
July 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
At the End of the Day. “At the end of the Day, we all have to ask ourselves - what is the risk?” Yeah really, At the End of the Day? What about ‘First thing in the Morning’? or ‘Next week Sometime.’ Works better for me. Once that phrase is used in a meeting, it’s all over for me. . .
July 7th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
The one that gets my “hackles up” is “Work Smarter, Not Harder” If I knew how to work smarter, would I be working here?
July 18th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
“It Is What It Is”. When I was a kid, this phrase was “Like it or Lump it”
Maybe it depends on what the meaning of “Is” is. lol
July 18th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I worked for a company that often used the phrase, “Just do the best you can.” It became the company mantra for a while. ME: “I’ll need more staff to complete this on time.” VP, Dir, ect: “Well, we can’t accommodate that. Just do the best you can.” ME: “We don’t even have the software to do this. Will you approve this purchase.” Them: “No. Just do the best you can.” (That one probably included a “Think outside the box.” along with it.) It wasn’t just me, you would actually hear it on conference calls.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
“In a timely manner” I despise that experession.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
“In a timely manner”, I don’t like that expression! How else would you do it?
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I hate the ” Let me run the numbers” In other words, “I don’t know yet but I am going to drown you in details”
September 5th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
State of the art
Thinking outside the box
Give a “shout out”….sounds like high school from the 90’s
pro-active
September 19th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
“Share” as in I’ve got some information that’s useful to our discussion, but you’re too low on the totem pole to know this, but in an act of great benevolence I’m going to let you know it. And you should be very grateful, you ignorant peon.
“At thirty thousand feet” You know what you see at 30,000 feet? Clouds, nothing but clouds!
September 19th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Feedback…reminds me of a feedbag!
September 19th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
When someone says that “Everything is Copesthetic,” you know it isn’t! It drives me crazy!