Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Business Speak
For those of you who work in Corporate America, you're probably familiar with concept of business speak. This is where you try to sound more intelligent than you really are by throwing out business terms and topical management concepts when you speak to others. Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoon series, has paid off his mortgages by poking fun at this practice.
If you're like me, as you listen to the different "intellectuals" from work speak, you try to count how many times they misuse or overuse some of these popular business words and phrases (i.e, strategize, synergy, stretch goals, etc...). Then, you laugh a little inside by how silly they sound.
Here's a concept that is not silly though.
You want to have some fun?
Let's start interjecting poker phrases and terminology into business speak.
There are a couple of pretty basic ones that have been around for a while:
"holding the cards close to the vest" - being secretive
"play the cards you've been dealt" - doing the best you can
"upping the ante" - introducing more risk
I'm thinking we should come up with some new ones.
When you've been the victim of bad luck, try this one. "hey boss, the reason I missed my sales objectives for April was due to the bad beat from these high oil prices"
When you want to scrap a loosing project, try this one. "hey boss, this initiative to move the Sacramento office to the Philippines is a bad idea. We should muck it"
When an adversary gets a Little lucky, you might try "hey boss, I was on track to be the sales leader for the 3rd consecutive month if it wasn't for Mary sucking out on me by landing that miracle account with Accent Lumber"
If you need to make a decision about an important topic without much data, you can justify your actions by saying, "hey boss, I just needed to go with my read on this one."
Or, if you make a bad decision because you weren't really thinking straight, you can defend yourself by saying, "hey boss, I don't know what went wrong. I guess I was tilting a little from the bad beat laid on me when Mary sucked out on me by landing that miracle 2 outer with the Accent Lumber account"
C'mon. Let's do this. I've already introduced the terms "bad beat" and "going with my read" and they seem to be catching on. I'm going to need my poker brothers out there in Corporate America to support me though. What do ya say?
If you're like me, as you listen to the different "intellectuals" from work speak, you try to count how many times they misuse or overuse some of these popular business words and phrases (i.e, strategize, synergy, stretch goals, etc...). Then, you laugh a little inside by how silly they sound.
Here's a concept that is not silly though.
You want to have some fun?
Let's start interjecting poker phrases and terminology into business speak.
There are a couple of pretty basic ones that have been around for a while:
"holding the cards close to the vest" - being secretive
"play the cards you've been dealt" - doing the best you can
"upping the ante" - introducing more risk
I'm thinking we should come up with some new ones.
When you've been the victim of bad luck, try this one. "hey boss, the reason I missed my sales objectives for April was due to the bad beat from these high oil prices"
When you want to scrap a loosing project, try this one. "hey boss, this initiative to move the Sacramento office to the Philippines is a bad idea. We should muck it"
When an adversary gets a Little lucky, you might try "hey boss, I was on track to be the sales leader for the 3rd consecutive month if it wasn't for Mary sucking out on me by landing that miracle account with Accent Lumber"
If you need to make a decision about an important topic without much data, you can justify your actions by saying, "hey boss, I just needed to go with my read on this one."
Or, if you make a bad decision because you weren't really thinking straight, you can defend yourself by saying, "hey boss, I don't know what went wrong. I guess I was tilting a little from the bad beat laid on me when Mary sucked out on me by landing that miracle 2 outer with the Accent Lumber account"
C'mon. Let's do this. I've already introduced the terms "bad beat" and "going with my read" and they seem to be catching on. I'm going to need my poker brothers out there in Corporate America to support me though. What do ya say?
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I think you could probably use "Getting the Pot Odds" or "Pot Committed" in a few circumstances??
Great post!!
JB
Great post!!
JB
So, "at work the other day, we had a meeting regarding our call center in the Phillipines. Several managers wanted to muck the whole operation. I said that we've invested too much time and money in this project. We are pot-committed to making this a successful venture. I said, we need to play the cards we've been dealt."
This works JB!. I'll start using it right away.
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This works JB!. I'll start using it right away.
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