Language Devoid of Meaning

I have always detested management speak since it first raised it’s ugly head. It is used by those with little of any use to say and less still to contribute. A sort of code where those of limited ability come together to make themselves seem important whilst doing nothing for those who they supposedly lead. When you look at modern management you see those with great self promotion abilities overshadowing their lack of actual abilities. The words they use are often meant to be deceptive and to disguise a lack of progress. I will pick the two phrases I hate the most but they are simply two examples of an impoverished language used by impoverished people.

Going Forward – absolute nonsense! In the context in which it is used, it means in the future, but I am sure it makes the users of this useless phrase feel like they are dynamic in some way. They aren’t! The people who use phrases like ‘In the future’ or ‘From now on’ have far more of practical use to contribute. They are, in essence, old school managers who are more interested in those they lead rather than those they are joining on the top table. At an interview, those who look at the ‘big picture’ and parrot the correct phrases are far more likely to get the job than those who focus on their much more significant role of helping those they lead achieve their potential.

Cascade – as in ‘please cascade this information to your staff’, is another abomination that does not exist outside of self important types who are only interested in their own position. What’s wrong with ‘Can you let the staff know?’ As far as I can see, there is nothing wrong with it. As with going forward, cascade provides the illusion of movement and urgency and gives the user a spurious impression of actually achieving something. I remember shocking a member of an inspection team when he asked us to cascade the results of a meeting to our teams if we had supervisory duties. I replied that I would never cascade anything but that I was quite happy to write an email letting them know what happened!

I really dislike language that is designed to protect those that use it and to mislead, perhaps in both senses of the word, those who they are responsible for. Management Speak is guilty on both counts and is the symptom of the disease of increasingly poor, and occasionally nasty, management that we have seen spread across the world into every sector like a plague over the past 25 years or so. When I first started working, all of our management team had worked their way up through the organisation and were respected for their knowledge and their experience. I was a very poor insurance clerk in my first job, despite their attempts to guide me, but before I left a couple of them gave me advice and encouragement even though I had been there less than a year. When I finished full time work after over seven years of excellent work for my final employer, my office manager never said thank you to me as a person or asked me what I was doing next. She presented me with a pointless trophy and an insincere public thank you to make herself look good, having not said a single word to me for the duration of my three month notice. That encapsulates modern managers as does their language of self importance and obfuscation.