Saw this on the BBC website.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7457287.stm
after spending 38 years with BT I can remember people who not only used most of these phrases but actualy thought that by using them they were "up to speed". :)
one of my pet hates was the use of the word synergy. A few years back everthing had to have synergy with something else..it was such a buzz word that when our Local Councils catering department became out-sourced they changed their name to synergy.
All this reminds me of CJ, e.g. 'there's no smoke where the worm turns' etc. These newspeak phrases are just as misguided.
Brilliant observation by David Nobbs.
Steve
Any firm with a Mission Statement is to be regarded with the gravest suspicion. If management time and effort has to be wasted in stating the bleedin' obvious and then staff time and effort has to be wasted on training courses to learn the bleedin' obvious then you know that the firm has problems from the top down.
Mission Statements were all the rage in the 1990s and you still see them around today. They still look just as silly.
What's that other time-waster along with Mission Statements that 'consultants' foisted on firms with more money than sense?
Ray
All this reminds me of CJ, e.g. 'there's no smoke where the worm turns' etc.
I didn't get where I am today by quoting BBC sitcoms from the 70s! :)
Some phrases I hear are amusing.
Seasonal adjustment - Can be applied to many things including accounting and staff numbers
Striking Doris Stokes right between the eyes - Having found and worked with a happy medium for years you do something stupid which wrecks the working relationship.
There are others but I cannot repeat them here :D
Anyone remember Total Quality Management, ISO 9001, Investors in people?
all designed to make companies jump through various hoops so they could get their plaques to put on the walls or in the boardroom.
Did they actualy change or improve anything?
anybody ever played "Committee Bingo" ?
you issue each player with 10 phrases drawn at random from a pot and wait, listening to the meeting until somebody gets a full house. The temptation to shout "House" is optional
Anyone remember Total Quality Management, ISO 9001, Investors in people?all designed to make companies jump through various hoops so they could get their plaques to put on the walls or in the boardroom.
Did they actually change or improve anything?
We had them at out school as a Governor and could for the life of me never figure out what we were trying to do that we had not done already but without Thu LOGO.
Still, we kicked it in to touch...
As our dear government continually turns schools more into businesses responsible for righting all social ills and taking further responsibility and accountability away from the parents, so the jargon is encroaching more and more.
We've had scaffolding, coaching, personalisation, blus skies thinking, stage not age, assessment for learning, targets and now we're onto the creative curriculum......
I'm just waiting for the bonus I get when most of my children fail to reach agreed standards - should be millions!!
Why the powers can't just bog off and let us get on with teaching instead of tinkering with a skill they don't understand is beyond me.
Why the powers can't just bog off and let us get on with teaching instead of tinkering with a skill they don't understand is beyond me.
To some extent I tend to agree with you. How many politicians have any real expertise in teaching?
However teaching in state schools is funded via taxation. And it doesnt come cheap either. Something like 80% of most County and Unitary authorities budgets is spent on Education.
I've also been a School Governor for over 30 years and Chair of Governors of the two most successful schools in Milton Keynes judged on the dreaded league tables and how over subscribed they are. Although I found the role immensely interesting (otherwise I wouldnt have done it for so long) I did often think that this was actualy a crazy situation. What other profession has "lay people" in such roles?
Why the powers can't just bog off and let us get on with teaching instead of tinkering with a skill they don't understand is beyond me.
Because it's a nice soft target. Anything dificult or potentially damagiing to their reputation or ego gets given to a quango so that when things go wrong they can say "Nothing to do with me".
Ray
everybody's been to school therefore they believe they're an expert.
Whilst I might not agree with the entire ethos of my old schools, they were both very traditional and were pretty much left to their own devices. Neither parents nor the eduscation system stuck their oar in in those days
But I drink with a few medics and they pretty much say the same thing about health as well.
Everybody's a flaming expert these day
Everybody's a flaming expert these day
That'll annoy the pyromaniacs - they're supposed to be the ones with the knowledge in that niche market..........:D
one of my pet hates was the use of the word synergy
We even named one of the first varietys of Hybrid Oilseed rape seed Synergy, probably an appropriate name really.
Most hated concept Outsourcing - meaning employ another company to do a job you have trained qualified people people within your company. This second company will be able to do the job cheaper while including an unneccessary layer of management and potential to create communication problems. You also demoralise the rest of your loyal staff who previously gave 110% percent as they expect they will be next targets of outsourcing. Of course in the fullness of time they will be contracted back as consultants with an open ended contract and a massive consultancy fee when it is realised the outsourcing company didn't understand their brief and cock up big time.
Can anyone recognise where this happens a lot?
And finally, I spent years getting expert contractors to manage our maintenance contracts, committed small businesses, prepared to go that extra mile as they understood we appeciated them and that we had taken time to work with them. Was I thanked, no I was told to reallocate the contracts as these people "might be ripping us off as we had used them for a number of years" - result - I left in a huff!
Management Consultants, how do you get to be one? :) ;)
The whole of this debate can be summed up quite simply as "Justifying the job" The whole point being everything was working as it should do until some smartass comes along and breaks it in the name of improving and cost cutting - Efficiency ! It don`t work very well , so the person who broke it gets a higher paid position or a golden goodbye and a promoted underqualified ( but has B A and no real world life experiences ) doesn`t fully understand what has to be done and reccomends a lot of money be chucked at employing the original person who did as that person had a commodity not often recognised - Commen sense.Things have a habit of going round full circle back to where it wasn`t broke and then we can begin all over again. Le Rant est Terminé
.Things have a habit of going round full circle back to where it wasn`t broke and then we can begin all over again.
Dustbins then ;)
dustbins on wheels that go round and round :D