Lol, Management Speak

[Booldawg]

at a meeting this morning. Someone reported a fire alarm incident and the H&S manager said 'What was the causation of this'?

is 'causation' even a word?!

[Sqad]

Yepp....it is a legal term.

[Bbbananas]

H&s bores me rigid. So much of it is just common sense and its all now bordering on the ridiculous.

[Bbbananas]

But yes, it is a bone fide word

[AB Editor]

Maybe it was the correlation of people in that meeting which caused the alarm to go off? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation (or maybe not!)

[Booldawg]

I'm 44 and have never heard it used before! you DO learn something new every day!

I remember once working with a manager who loved using the word 'formalise' and she would drop it into as many sentences as possible.

[humbersloop]

ah, but were participant stakeholders able to lever in the key competencies and drill down to resolve the presenting issue going forward, I wonder?

[Hopkirk]

Have you ever tried meetings bingo?

You each have a card with a load of management speak phrases
(EG .. think outside the box, take ownership of, walk the talk etc etc.)

If the phrase is used, you cross it off.

The first person to cross off all the phrases has to stand up and shout 'House'

[sunny-dave]

Low Hanging Fruit anyone?

[Sharingan]

My one brother used to work as an assistant manager at a well known phone shop. He and the manager went on a management course and were told that every morning they had to go into their store and give their team 'Soul Food', which apparently is telling them how marvellous they are to boost morale and thus make them feel good about themselves, projecting a more positive image and resulting in more phone sales. Fair enough.they both thought it was tedious rubbish but it was company policy.
My brother said his Manager walked in the following morning and said 'Right you lot sell some f*cking phones'- lol.

[Booldawg]

lol shari - thats the no-nonsense method rather than applying some 'blue sky thinking'

[FredPuli43]

lol, shari. That's the spirit ! That's in the Brian Clough mould, and his players loved playing for him. One remembered Clough saying "Well done" to him, an event so rare,unique in his experience, that he cherished it for the rest of his life!

Causation, is, indeed, a lawyers' term. They talk of "a problem of causation", meaning that it is difficult to ascribe some result to the action or default of one of the possible parties to an action.

[sunny-dave]

I still relish the memory of one of my old managers saying (without an iota of self-consciousness)

"They're thin on the ground at the top of the tree, as far as it goes"

[DinloDan]

I was in a pub in Petersfield on Saturday night and some bird we were with kept saying "Shut the front door" after someone recited an antidote.