Lean in, reach out, collaborate your ticket to success
If the boss says she wants a multi-disciplinary tiger team to conceptualize our initiatives, what do you do? Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says, say yes and ...
Are there days at the office when you think you’ve been transported to another time, planet or language group? Do you sometimes/often leave a strategic planning session where everybody was in agreement, but you don’t know what the heck the plan is? You may understand the goal, but the road map/GPS is blank. Do you wish there was a what-the-@#&*$-are-you-talking-about-button you could push to translate what somebody just said to you?
Welcome to the brave new world club, where lots of time you have no idea what people mean. You understand the words, but not the meaning. Or goal.
Last week we ran with a bunch of GovSpeak words, phrases, calls to action and rallying cries that are popular with some people in some agencies. We bring the curtain down on the subject — for now —with these contributions from readers:
“The latest buzzword at the Department of Homeland Security is ‘Lean’ as in ‘Lean Process Improvement,’ the latest tool/process to analyze how one does things.
“Years ago we had ‘TQM’ — ‘Total Quality Management’ — borrowed from the Japanese, where employees had a say in how to improve the work process. It was so popular with management here that they changed it to ‘TQE’ — ‘Total Quality Environment.’ It finally died a quiet death after a valiant try by some employees to embrace it. Quality always runs in circles. ;-)”
IRS’ Joe O’Bryan says, “I’ve always winced at the term ‘proactive.’ What’s the opposite— anti-active? Meaning doing nothing. And I’m always suspicious when someone at a meeting wants to ‘share’ something — can’t they just tell us what they want to say?”
Al with the Bureau of Land Management says, “I don’t know where the expression thanks for sharing that with me came from. It either sounds like you have given somebody half a sandwich or told them something very intimate that you probably shouldn’t have told them.”
”It Is What It Is. This one drives me crazy. My wife uses it to the extreme. Fortunately, she doesn’t use it every time something is what-it-is or I probably would have strangled her.” Mike Name Withheld To Save Marriage
Deborah S., at the IRS, nominates-for-extinction the phrases ‘Same difference.’ What? I cringe whenever I hear this!”
“I love it when a politician describes him or herself as a Progressive. What does that make the rest of us. Regressives?”
Enough venting. For now. But we’ve still got a long list from readers and we shall return!
Thanks.
Nearly Useless Factoid
By Michael O’Connell
The medieval costume design of and character name of Robin the Boy Wonder were inspired by The Adventures of Robin Hood.
Source: Wikipedia
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Mike Causey
Mike Causey is senior correspondent for Federal News Network and writes his daily Federal Report column on federal employees’ pay, benefits and retirement.
Follow @mcauseyWFED
