Senior officer unoriginality

[OCCWMF]

You, like me, may have noticed a distinct lack of original management vocabulary amongst our senior officer cadre and I think it behoves us to manage upwards to ensure that they do not become stale.

Take piece as an example. Mentioned once it is acceptable, e.g. "we need to reduce the delta on the afghan piece". When senior chaps start piece-ing all over the place it is simply incontinence.

The pressure is now on us to show that we will not tolerate such vocabularial laziness. Loquaciousness and prolixity without reason are not to be encouraged. We must however ensure that our leaders have a broad knowledge of the lexicon which they can employ in both extemporaneous and prepared speech.

I suggest a zero tolerence pigzing policy policed by the junta, at presentations, briefs and especially at shareholders. Keep a record of each use of a tired word or phrase and announce the scores at the end. Pay special attention to those on a career push and punish them harder. We may have to give the older ones up for lost but we need to catch the young ones before it spreads.

[ORAC]

Ah, a piece de resistance perhaps.
But I wouldn't make a meal of it..... :p

[talk_shy_tall_knight]

Like this you mean?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=buzzword+bingo&meta=

[Union Jack]

Such as "zero tolerence pigzing policy" for example?:)

Jack

[Shack37]

OCCWMF,
Your piece has flagged up an interesting example of thinking outside the box in a lateral manner during a brainstoming session as part of a senior management level bonding adventure weekend. If only they would swap the paintballs for the real thing:ouch:
s37

[talk_shy_tall_knight]

BINGO!!!!!

[An Teallach]

Piece in a Bull****-Bingo context is a new one on me. That's probably because no manager up here would dare use it. I can imagine the chorus in response:

"Piece? Effin' piece he says!? Ahm gaggin' oan ma effin' piece so wull ye jist git oan wi' it ya numpty!"

For the uninitiated, a piece in Scotland is a sandwich vide Jammy or Jeely Piece - a jam sandwich. By extension it has come to mean any packed lunch one's wife sends one out with in the morning.

[UnderPowered]

OCCWMF, you child,

Perhaps you'd like to approach OC29 or Stn Cdr Leeming for some new big words. I hear they have a few up their sleeves...

[Wycombe]

Think yourselves lucky you don't work in the high-flying world of business - "piece" is a part of everyday lingo, along with "talk to" (as in "I'm now going to talk to our key numbers for the last Quarter") - I have resolutely vowed not to use these terms, and leave the senior management to make linguistic arses of themselves....

Editted to say I forgot one - "space", as in "We need to understand what's going on in this space" - makes me cringe every time I hear it :yuk:

[Toxteth O'Grady]

To which piece are you referring? The overarching or underpinning one? :ugh:

:cool:

TOG

[Pontius Navigator]

Got a piece today about the new E&D policy proposals and the great plan to deliver it in the first two weeks in August.

Full of big words meant absolutly zilch apart from the piece about ID cards and burkas.

[Green Flash]

Piece.

Off.

I thank you.:ok:

[BEagle]

Here's a nice 'piece':

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a341/nw969/KK.jpg

Well, that's what it used to mean in the pre-PC RAF - as in 'a nice piece of stuff!'

[Downwind.Maddl-Land]

Do keep up! - doing this or that "going forward" or "taking it forward" are the latest pieces of Management Bo££ocks doing the rounds of the bazaars at the mo'..........

[PTT]

"we need to reduce the delta on the afghan piece"
I'm more concerned about the use of "delta" in this context. Surely we want the "delta" to continue towards a more stable country? :8

[OCCWMF]

PTT - that was a direct quote. Luckily not referring to the stability of the piece.

Jack - thank you for your your vigilance dagnabbitrassafassagrrrrrthought I'd gotten away with that one.

Underpowered - That's the second time I've been called a child in as many days. Perhaps it's time to address the delta inwith my maturity piece.

TOG - perhaps a combination of both. We need a word to describe something that is both u/p and o/a. Discuss;)

[Captain Kirk]

From Max Hastings in today's Guardian:

There are constant complaints that decision-making is too centralised and cumbersome in the hands of the huge corps of MoD civil servants. These people have embraced management-speak in a fashion that promotes fantasy rather than efficiency. The MoD's formal mission statement describes Bill Jeffrey, the unimpressive permanent secretary, as "not only leading the workstream process, but driving it". This gobbledegook is characteristic of a mindset preoccupied with process rather than the pursuit of clear objectives.

Priceless.

OCCWMF - relieved to find I was not too guilty!

Now I need to drive my Bristol Groundschool workstream forward....

[Wensleydale]

Current Role of the RAF:

Piece Keeping!:}

[OCCWMF]

Looking at BEags pic 'taking it forward' does indeed spring to mind.

CK - I think we'd managed upwards well enough to prevent staleness!;)

[Samuel]

There is a theory, well-supported in my experience, that many senior officers , and especially direct entry types with MBA-itis now write in a style which sets out to confuse rather than enhance. They have created a way of writing which not only redefines the conventions of good 'service writing' [do they remember that at all?], but sets out to say as little as possible that can come back and bite them. The fact is they don't want you to understand!

I seem to recall Winston Churchill : "Pray tell this day, on one side of a sheet of paper, the current state of the British navy". You'd get a bloody book today, and it would end up as a doorstop somewhere.

I was always taught the good old JSP of Service Writing was to be followed, and that all those good things in it like avoiding slang words and vernacular were there for a reason. It sounds like noone reads it these days.

Why do they write such gobbledegook?; because it's snobbery, that's why. By writing in a complex language only they can understand, they hope to exclude the rest of us. It also means they haven't worked their own ideas through, so dressing up weak arguments hides the fact they don't know what they're talking about!

They really get up the hair-lined passages leading to the respiratory tract through the cartilaginous prominence on my face.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

"we need to reduce the delta on the afghan piece"
I'm more concerned about the use of "delta" in this context. Surely we want the "delta" to continue towards a more stable country?

Perhaps the delta was a canard.

Read almost any DLO, correction, DE&S publication and it abounds with this sort of bollox.

[An Teallach]

I'm intrigued by this Delta business and am content to show my ignorance. I'm aware that upper case Delta = diagnosis and am aware of the Delta market trend prediction tool.

WTF is the delta in a Service context?

[Gainesy]

WTF is the delta in a Service context?

See the numerous Vulcan threads.

I remember when VSO speech was an annual: "Got enough socks?"

[Wensleydale]

I always thought that the Greek letter "Delta" was a symbol for a change of rate (or is it rate of change.....). It now appears as "script" delta because of the lack of an obvious mathematical symbol on the keyboard.

Much the same as "Three kittens sliding off a roof - which one stays up the longest? The one with the greater mew of course".

[Occasional Aviator]

Misuse of 'Delta' irritates me greatly. In science, delta is used to denote a change that is very small, perhaps too small to measure. People ignorantly using it to mean ANY difference are all too common: "There's an enormous Delta..." Why not just say difference?

Pedant.

[Strictly Jungly]

On the same theme...............the word "absolutely"...is so overused. (GMTV ratings close up)

Why not just respond in the affirmative...a simple yes will suffice!

[An Teallach]

On the same theme...............the word "absolutely"...is so overused.

How absofeckinlutely right you are, SJ. :}

While we're on jargon and my ignorance, can anyone explain BRAVO ZULU to me? I've only just got my tongue round BRAVO JULIET! :E

[OCCWMF]

In science, delta is used to denote a change that is very small, perhaps too small to measure

Capital Δ refers to a generic difference while the lower case δ denotes a small change or amount.

I would now go and sit in pedant's corner were it not for the fact that a corner is a straight vertex and thus, having only 2 dimensions, has no inside.

[Gainesy]

BZ is a navy thing from the signal flags B and Z meaning Well Done. Dunno why they just didn't use W and D though.

[Shack37]

And here was I thinking it was something to do with Rourke's Drift where Michael Caine and Stanley Baker gave the locals a seeing to:confused:

[aspinwing]

Bravo Zulu originated in a NATO naval signals publication - can't remember the ACP (Allied Communications Publication) number. 165, 185 or something.
The book contains a series of flag codes - "England Expects" etc. The codes are used for flag hoists when ships are in visual range, at sea or in harbour, however, the code can be, and probably more often is, used on R/T.

"Bravo Zulu" decodes as "Well Done.":D

The code book is broken into various sections to do with specific warfare areas; minehunting anti-air, etc.

The book was reconstructed in the '80s, IIRC, and alot of codes had their meanings changed - except BZ which was so ingrained in the naval lexicon / jargon that it then appeared completely out of sequence. There were a few other codes that were so well known that they were / are used as jargon.

Hope this helps.

[Corrona]

It's good to hear that I'm not the only one in the Royal Air Force that is sick and tired of all these knob heads (my peers and above) using increasingly crap words and reinventing age old acronyms. For example in the air environment I always understood ILS to mean Instrumented Landing System, but it seems the knobbers have reinvented it as Integrated Logistic Solution - bull**** detector says shut up clown!

The examples are unfortunately endless - I guess we'll just have to manage the risks...

[aspinwing]

One might find this interesting.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19999629/site/newsweek/


Which comes first? Sloppy thinking or Sloppy writing.

I happen to have an MBA and detest the jargon crutch.:ugh:

[Toxteth O'Grady]

TOG - perhaps a combination of both. We need a word to describe something that is both u/p and o/a. Discuss
Let's not talk about it.
Instead, we need a sea change to take a different tack, using a blue sky approach, by thinking outside the box to engage in a synergistic root and branch review to determine a holistic solution to such usage.
:cool:
TOG

[Melchett01]

How many of these have you seen in use by the High Powered Help???

That's very interesting -
I disagree.

I don't disagree -
I disagree.

I don't totally disagree with you -
You may be right, but I don't care.

You have to show some flexibility -
You have to do it whether you want to or not.

We have an opportunity -
You have a problem.

You obviously put a lot of work into this -
This is awful.

In a perfect world -
Just get it working and get it out the door.

Help me to understand -
I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't think you do either.

You just don't understand our business -
We don't understand our business.

You need to see the big picture -
My boss thinks it's a good idea.

We're going to follow a strict methodology here -
We're going to do it my way.

I didn't understand the e-mail you said you sent -
Can you give me a quick summary? I still can't figure out how to start the e-mail program.

Cost of ownership has become a significant issue in desktop computing -
We want all of the benefits and none of the costs. (C4I ..... you have been rumbled you knobs!)

We have to leverage our resources -
You're working weekends.

Individual contributor -
Employee who does real work.

Your project is on hold -
We've put a bullet in it.

Wrong answer -
You didn't tell me what I wanted to hear.

You needed to be more proactive -
You should have protected me from myself.

I'd like your buy-in on this -
I want someone else to blame when this thing bombs.

We want you to be the executive champion of this project -
I want to be able to blame you for my mistakes.

We need to syndicate this decision -
We need to spread the blame if it backfires.

We have to put on our marketing hats -
We have to put ethics aside.

It's not possible, it's impractical and it won't work -
I don't know how to do it.

It's a no-brainer -
It's a perfect decision for me to handle.

I'm glad you asked me that -
Public relations has written a carefully phrased answer.

I see you involved your peers in developing your proposal -
One person couldn't possibly come up with something this stupid.

There are larger issues at stake -
I've made up my mind so don't bother me with the facts.

I'll never lie to you -
The truth will change frequently.

Our business is going through a paradigm shift -
We have no idea what we've been doing, but in the future we shall do something completely different.

Value-added -
Expensive.

Human Resources -
A bulk commodity, like potatos.

The upcoming reductions will benefit the vast majority of employees -
The upcoming reductions will benefit me.

[Wader2]

Thank you for bringing that to my attention-
So FTF do you expect ME to do?

Thank you for sharing that with me-
P:mad: off I have better things to do with my time than listen to you.

Here are the proposals for XXXXXX, brief me tomorrow on the salient points, 5 minutes should do-
Here is a 20 page document not a clue what it says and I couldn't care less. Tell me what I need to know and a minute's brief would be fine.

No rush-
anytime by 9 tomorrow

If you've got a moment can you pop up?
why aren't you in my office now?

Can I just have a word?
I don't care if you are busy just listen to me now.

[PlasticCabDriver]

To fully appreciate the finer points of today's lexicographical excesses, please make use of the following interweb site:

http://www.cynicalbastards.com/wankometer/

Considering some of the posts on this thread, it's not actually that wanky!

[Wader2]

To fully appreciate the finer points of today's lexicographical excesses, please make use of the follwing interweb site:

http://www.cynicalbastards.com/wankometer/

Staggering accuracy. I entered in a work website address and got over 6. Three other sits all registered 0.5 :}

[An Teallach]

PCD

What a handy piece of kit! I also liked the Web Economy Bull**** Generator (http://dack.com/web/bull****.html).

Got a presentation to do? 10 minutes on that site and you'll be talking bolleaux with the best of them!

[Melchett01]

To fully appreciate the finer points of today's lexicographical excesses, please make use of the following interweb site:

http://www.cynicalbastards.com/wankometer/

Considering some of the posts on this thread, it's not actually that wanky!

The scores on the doors so far:

RAF Website - Wank factor 0.72 - low
Army Website - Wank factor 0.79 - low
RN Website - Wank factor 6.42 - high wankyness
MOD Website - Wank factor 6.42 - high wankyness

So what's the opinion - what does this say about the state of play? Have to say I am shocked by the RN scores, but completely unsurprised by the MOD's!

[Melchett01]

To fully appreciate the finer points of today's lexicographical excesses, please make use of the following interweb site:

http://www.cynicalbastards.com/wankometer/

Considering some of the posts on this thread, it's not actually that wanky!

The scores on the doors so far:

RAF Website - Wank factor 0.72 - low
Army Website - Wank factor 0.79 - low
RN Website - Wank factor 6.42 - high wankyness
MOD Website - Wank factor 6.42 - high wankyness

So what's the opinion - what does this say about the state of play? Have to say I am shocked by the RN scores, but completely unsurprised by the MOD's!

[OCCWMF]

Heard you the first time me old.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

An Teallach, I believe that "delta" used in that context is transatlantic beaniespeak for "deficit". Very popular in the DoD it seems.

I see that your BZ question has been well answered.

G BZ

[OCCWMF]

Well done to all those who dedicated time and effort to reducing unoriginality in our senior officer cadre. I'm hearing reports of a 67.4% reduction in piece and delta use at SO2 and SO1 levels brought on by new levels of self awareness and indeed even self policing in some cases.

But don't rest on your laurels - we need to keep our beady eyes on this worrying trend and stamp on any new words or phrases as soon as they surface.

[Hammer Head Too]

Little thread creep, however.....
The high operational tempo, which requires some Forces to exceed their agreed Annual Flying Task and others to exceed Harmony guidelines, allied to the reduction in trained strength ahead of the disestablishment of associated posts has created a demand for TG1 manpower in excess of availability. To meet the manpower demands, the RAF TG1 Manpower Placement Plan has been developed to prioritise the allocation of TG1 manpower :\
Anyone care to translate ??:*
HH2

[Kitbag]

The high operational tempo, which requires some Forces to exceed their agreed Annual Flying Task and others to exceed Harmony guidelines, allied to the reduction in trained strength ahead of the disestablishment of associated posts has created a demand for TG1 manpower in excess of availability. To meet the manpower demands, the RAF TG1 Manpower Placement Plan has been developed to prioritise the allocation of TG1 manpower :\
Anyone care to translate ??:*

We F@<*ed up!

[Hammer Head Too]

Thought so , just wanted a second opinion :ugh::ugh:
So why go into spin-speak management bollo......
Sorry. How naive was that ?? ;)
HH2

[serf]

And TG1 is?

[insty66]

Assuming this isn't a waaah! And TG1 is?

In general all the folk who repair and service your aircraft!

So We F@<*ed up! is about right.

[Hammer Head Too]

This was a pre-amble to a letter stating how up to 20% of manpower currently working away from the war effort are about to be re-deployed (posted) to help bolster the flagging troops on the front line.... and God knows they need it !!
First they say we can reduce our manpower dramatically and still remain as effective
Then they offer 3 rounds of redundancy packages to reduce the numbers
Then they are surprised when the PVR rate is so high with the personnel left behind to paper over the cracks :ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:
Then they offer 3 year extensions to current contracts
Retention bonus's in the New Year ??? ;)
Good job we're not a war or this could end up as a right clutter **** !!
If this wasn't so pathetic it would be laughable:mad:

[snapper41]

Sorry; I'd love to contribute to this thread, but I have other crocodiles closer to my canoe...

Or wolves closer to my door...

or...

[cafe society]

So what has happened to the great opener, when talkinf to JEngo or even Sengo? " with all due respects Sir!"