Louise McGregor Buzzword

Blue-Sky Thinking

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Blue-sky thinking conjures up open-minded and creative thinking. Thinking that will ideally result in new out-of-the-box solutions to business problems.  When my former boss, an American, used it this was his intended meaning.

But according to Wiktionary, there’s an alternative meaning; Thinking that is not grounded or in touch in the realities of the present. I think my lovely pragmatic Dutch colleagues understood this meaning.

So a boss might be encouraging his team to be creative, to imagine wild solutions, but a pragmatic or cynical team might be hearing “let’s waste some time thinking of solutions that can never realistically be used” and that’s a demoralising thought. Maybe it’s better to include some of the pragmatic limits in your briefing. Perhaps offering to fund a pilot of the best idea would give people the freedom to think creatively and reassure the pragmatists in the team.

Read the room before you use this phrase.

Image:  I wandered lonely as a cloud…  |  D Wright  |   CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Louise McGregor Buzzword

Boil the Frog

boil the frog

“Poor frog” is what I always think when I hear this expression.

The theory behind it is that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water it will jump out immediately, reacting to the heat. But if you put a frog into tepid water and then heat the water very gradually the frog won’t react to the increased temperature.

I don’t know who is boiling all all these frogs but the metaphor works; people will stay in unpleasant or unhealthy situations despite warning signs because they rationalise the warning signs or convince themselves that things will get better -somehow. It’s often used to remind you to take action when you sense things are not going well; as Henna Inam wrote in a Forbes article “Do something about it when something smells funny.  Even if it’s not on your job description, it’s your job.”

But scientists who study frogs (without boiling them I trust) say that it’s a myth.

So the science is off, but the metaphor works.

Image: Frog  | Nèg Foto  |   CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Louise McGregor Buzzword

Unpack That For Me

“Can you unpack that a little for me?”

I gave a blank stare the first time I heard the term. It brought up a mental picture of suitcases and dirty laundry. But this term has a non-literal meaning that has crept into regular language and appears on fora, in books and even in the transcripts of UK parliamentary committees. It seems that it’s not, strictly speaking, new, as it’s been used in computing and in academic discourse for a long time. But it’s jumped the fence into every day conversation.

When I heard the question I understood from the context I understood that I needed to explain in more detail, but I may have been naive.  According to Andrew Friedman, a student at Brown;

Unpacking, as defined by my peers, basically means deconstructing a loaded statement into its constituent parts, putting the statement in context so that it may be better understood.

Yikes, so it’s something you’re asked when you’ve said something controversial or loaded. He gives a couple of examples, in one case he learnt something and changed his view, in the other he was irritated by the question.

You might have guessed I’m not a fan of this term, I still get the suitcase image in my head and have to translate it. I’d prefer any of these alternative expressions;

  • Could you explain that?
  • Help me understand what you mean…
  • Give me a little more background to your decision
  • What do you mean by that?
  • Could you give an example?
  • Huh?

Image: Suitcases  |  Natasha Mileshina  |  CC BY-NC 2.0

Louise McGregor Buzzword

In My Wheelhouse

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“OK,  we’ve found your wheelhouse”

I had never heard this before, despite growing up sailing and having a professional mariner for a father. I would say bridge on a ship or cockpit on a yacht.

It seems to have come into the language via baseball for reasons only known to Americans, although the person I was speaking to is Australian.

It just means your area of expertise and it’s rather literal, think of a ship’s captain and the area where they command the ship – it’s the wheelhouse. So if something is in my wheelhouse it’s in my area of competency and expertise.

It’s a cute idiom, and relatively easy to get from the context. For once it’s one I like, wonder what other nautical terms I can borrow; skeg, gudgeon and walty have potential.

Images: Wheelhouse of the S.S. Eureka, San Francisco, California | Scott Johnson  |  CC BY NC-ND 2.0

Louise McGregor Buzzword

Blamestorming

 

CM2017_01_Blamestorming“How was the meeting?”

“Total blamestorm”

I think we’ve all been in those meetings where the whole point seems to be finding someone to blame; what might start as a reasonable question can become acrimonious, with accusations hurled across the room. This is blamestorming.

Here’s why it’s a waste of time.

When we spend time focusing on who did it, and how to punish them we do not solve the problem for the customer. So there is an immediate impact on one customer, and the longer their issue remains unresolved the more people they’re likely to tell.

But there’s a bigger downside.

Every time we focus on blaming someone we put all team members on the defensive, we make them cautious – even suspicious. Individuals are far less likely to come forward following future “screw ups”. Errors become something to be hushed up, hidden, and suppressed. Potentially they remain unsolved. The culture in the team or organisation becomes increasingly vicious over time.

When we focus on errors made, and punishing those errors, we lessen chance of initiative taking, and chances of innovation.

I can remember going into my boss and saying “I have made a mistake – here’s how I want to fix it, are you happy with that approach?”  Boss’s reaction was to ask a couple of questions, pledge support, and thank me for telling her – perfect response and I’ve modelled my approach on hers.

My working assumption, and it applies to more issues than this, people want to do the right thing. When something big goes wrong at work the first thing we should do is fix it for the customer, then examine what went wrong – with the goal of preventing it happening again. If there are legal repercussions we need to find out who was responsible, but most often “how do we fix this” is far more important than “who did this”. Obviously if your working assumption turns out to be wrong, and you do have a colleague who is deliberately doing the wrong thing you must escalate, and go into investigation mode – and work through appropriate HR and legal processes.

I’m not suggesting that we should abdicate responsibility for our actions, I’m stating that looking for someone to blame as your starting point is counterproductive and bad for the work culture. Go for trusting your colleagues, and working towards solutions.

Image; Storm Clouds Gathering  |  Zooey  |  CC BY SA 2.0

Louise McGregor Buzzword

Game Changer

I’m going to talk about sport. Since I know so little about sport this may be the riskiest thing I’ve done all week.

The dictionary gives the definition as;

  1.  Sports. an athlete, play, etc., that suddenly changes the outcome of a game or contest.

2.  a person or thing that dramatically changes the course, strategy,character, etc., of something:

Link To Sports

I tried to think of examples of things from sports that were genuine game changers. I was thinking of the sport itself not an individual game.

Swim Start;

Once upon a time swimmers simply dived in and swam, breaking the surface almost immediately. Now athletes swim dolphin style underwater – which is faster. The rules limit this to 15m in competitive swimming to ensure the athlete’s safety. But records were broken as soon as this technique change came in.

Tennis;

When I first played tennis as a kid, it was with a racket made of wood. Nowadays they’re graphite or graphite blends, with larger heads and synthetic strings. This means the racquet delivers more power and the shock as the ball strikes is dampened by the racquet. It’s an equipment change and a game changer.

The Fosbury Flop;

in 1968 Dick Fosbury won the high jump gold with the technique now used universally in high jump, the trick is that the jumper’s centre of gravity remains below the bar. In an interview he states that he increased his jump height by half a foot (15cm) in a day. As a comparison here’s what the jumps used to look like, with the athletes landing on their feet on the other side. Fosbury’s Flop was only possible once large foam mats were used for athletes to land on.

Applies to Business

The game changers in sports can be a technique change, an equipment change or a combination of both. Business analogies might be a new business model, inventing a new technology, or exploiting a new technology.

New Business Model

Do you remember the early days of the internet when you used the book mark function of your browser because you’d never find a site again? Search engines were starting to appear, and suddenly in the late 90s Google appeared with a brand new way of searching and an effective revenue model – advertising. Without the business model none of the other search engines could ever have won the internet.

New Technology

If my grandfather could see the power of what I carry around in my mobile phone he’d think it was science fiction. Even my parents are occasionally astonished, they grew up with phones that you called the exchange and requested a number then the operator connected the call. The first mobile phones didn’t do much more than call, but along comes the smartphone and everyone wants one (almost everyone). The inventors of the of both sorts of new phones transformed personal communications. Many businesses were built on their inventions.

mobile phone timeline
(Nostalgia moment; that Motorola on the far left was the first mobile phone I ever used).

Exploiting New Technology

Netflix killed Blockbuster and Videoland by streaming videos – we no longer were forced to leave the house to choose a video. But it couldn’t have existed without the ubiquity of televisions, computers and broadband internet. The transformed the home entertainment industry by licencing and streaming high demand content. They’re in the middle of transforming the content development industry by developing award winning shows of their own such as the House of Cards.

The term “game changer” can be fairly applied to all these examples. In each case the industry was transformed or a new industry was created, the change was big, and the impact was broad. Making the change was complex and there were spin off changes that new companies could exploit – particularly for the mobile phones example.

However when I hear “game changer” used in general conversation it’s usually applied to an improvement. As one article put it “Maybe cloud computing is, in fact, a game changer. Your new HR handbook is not”. Instead we can talk about improvement, change, update, advance, upgrade, progress, revision or development.

Lets save the phrase “game changer” for those inventions, developments and improvements that really do change the game.

Images: Basketball via pixabay

Mobile Phone Timeline | Khedera | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Louise McGregor Buzzword

Socialise This

CM2016_08_Socialise.pngIf someone suggests socialising I think of convivial chat, with chardonnay and canapés. It’s pretty close the dictionary definition. But there’s another possible use, or rather two uses.

One I heard from a colleague who works in Internal Communications. For them “socialise this” means to gather feedback on a proposal or draft from a representative group, and to do so informally, either one-on-one or small groups.  I can understand this use, I think referring to it as “socialising” is an attempt to emphasis a low-key, informal approach.

Another use is to publish to social media. Particularly as many of the companies I’ve been talking to are now putting their social media management under communications and out of digital teams. In many instances social media is becoming another marketing/advertising channel rather than a community. So we already have a perfectly good word for the action of placing a piece of content online; publish.

 

Image: MSc in Air Transport Event Networking  |  Cranfield University  |  CC BY-ND 2.0

Louise McGregor Buzzword

Circle Back

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I must have looked puzzled, my colleague stopped trying to explain to me and said; “Let’s circle back on this”.

Circle back. It’s not a new term, I can find references to it online from 2009. But this was the first time I’d heard it in the wild.

He could have as easily said “let’s talk about this next week”, with the same meaning. But not quite the same feel or tone.

The Urban Dictionary gives the definition of “circle back” as

Middle-management buzzword for the need to discuss an issue at a later time.

 CNBC’s definition is a little more pejorative and includes a quote

It usually means we just had a meeting where nothing was accomplished, and we need to ‘circle back’ to have another pointless meeting,

I doubt my colleague was trying to make such a strong point, the sense I had was more “we can’t answer this now, let’s agree to do the research and see if we can answer it when we meet next week”.

Image: Light Circle  |  Louise McGregor  |  CC BY 2.0

Louise McGregor Buzzword

Unicorn

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The unicorns of my childhood were mythical, rare and wonderful beasts. Today’s unicorns are young companies that have a valuation of 1 billion USD. That might sound like something rare and wonderful, but Venture Beat magazine lists hundreds of them, with Uber leading the list in terms of valuation. Most of the companies rely on digital technology in their business model, without it their business could not scale.

So where did the term come from?

A Techcrunch article in 2013 reported on 39 companies that had been founded in the previous ten years and were valued at more than 1 billion USD. Unicorns were rare, representing 0.07% of internet related companies funded per year.

Aileen Lee, the woman behind the Techcrunch article and who is credited with coining the term, sees that the rise in unicorns may have peaked for this wave of technologies.

But what do the companies make that is so wonderful? Most exploit the possibilities of “platform economics“, rather than make something, these companies connect supply with demand. Think of airbnb which is in the lodging services business without owning a single bedroom. Rather than building hotels and then selling those rooms to guests, airbnb offers a platform for the supply side (people with spare rooms) to offer accommodation directly to the demand (visitors to the city). These platforms are often said, in approving tones, to be “disruptive”, meaning that they change an existing industry. In many cases regulators have stepped in to limit that change, for example Amsterdam City Council limits the time allowable for rent to two months per year.

We look set to have continued disruption, and while a few experts are predicting dead unicorns on the horizon it seems we’ll see a growing number of unicorns, decacorn (companies valued at more than 10 billion) and hectacorns (companies valued at over 100 billion) for a while yet. Perhaps we are, as Fortune magazine suggest finally in the age of the unicorns.

Image: Unicorn  |  Yosuke Muroya  |  CC BY-NC 2.0

Louise McGregor Buzzword

High Optics

“Don’t forget,” said my boss “There are high optics on that”.

I used to work in a bar so his use of the word “optics” created quite the wrong mental picture.

The word now has a different meaning, the Macmillan dictionary defines it as “the way a situation looks to the general public”, and it’s been around business, PR and political circles in the US for at least 5 or 6 years judging by a quick online search.

It seems to be more or less neutral when used in business, with a meaning similar to “visibility”, so in my boss’s case he was letting me know that the project I was working on was very visible to upper management – which fortunately wasn’t news to me. To me having a project that’s visible to upper management is a good thing, it means what you do is important to the company and is likely to get management support, although I’d agree that it can generate some scary moments.

However in politics it’s often used in the negative sense, along the lines of “the optics really hurt the candidate”, meaning that public perception of her, or his, actions is negative. I haven’t heard it used in this year’s US election reporting, perhaps the term is dying – or perhaps this year’s election is already beyond any optics.

Image: lens via pixabay