Buzzwords can be incredibly useful
for conveying a lot of information
succinctly,
but they can also be total bullshit
and can lead to a lot of bad
decisions. So in this video,
I thought we'd have just a little bit of
fun and call shenanigans on my top five
bullshit buzzwords.
Number five on the list is BAU.
This is business as usual.
My jaw about dropped the first time
I heard this term in disbelief.
Why do we need a term that just says
we're doing the normal work that we
normally do? It just doesn't make
any sense, but I gotta tell you,
my bigger issue with BAU
is that people use it as an
excuse not to innovate
and not to improve things.
If business as usual,
doesn't include innovation,
you're doing something wrong and
you need to make some changes.
Number four on the list is empowerment.
Now this is actually a term that
I use myself from time to time,
but every time I do, I hate
myself just a little bit.
And that's because the term is
actually completely backwards.
We are so ingrained in the concept of
hierarchy and we believe in it so strongly
that we think management just has
some natural, like God-given power.
But the truth is that managers
only have power because people
decide to listen to them because those
people give the managers their power.
So when we use the term empowerment,
what we're really saying is that
the employees have elected to give
power to managers who have elected to
give it back to the employees. This again,
just makes no sense.
So what we really need to be focused
on instead is getting people to take
ownership. And number three on
the list is don't boil the ocean.
I can't tell you how many times I've
heard this term. And every time I do,
I cringe just a little bit. See,
the concept itself means that you
shouldn't take on too much at once because
it's not going to be effective. And
that's actually really sound advice.
In fact,
I implement that concept and I leveraged
that concept with all of my clients.
The problem is that so many
managers and consultants use don't
boil the ocean as an excuse to
not take on the hard problems.
And that's where the real
value comes in. For example,
if you have a broken org structure
and that's causing you problems,
you can't just say,
we don't want to boil the ocean to
avoid fixing the organization structure
because until you fix that org structure,
you're not going to get results.
And you're going to keep having problems.
Buzzword number two is move the needle.
Now you typically hear this one in
conjunction with don't boil the ocean,
but that's a telltale sign that
there's something bad going on in your
organization. And you might
just have some people problems.
The concept itself is sound.
You want to make continual and measurable
progress towards your objectives.
The problem is when most
people say move the needle,
they're talking about like the hour hand
or the minute hand on a clock. Yeah,
it's moving, but you can't really see it.
What we need to do instead is
think about moving the needle,
like the second hand on a clock or better
yet the speedometer, on a Corvette,
when you stomp that gas pedal.
And my number one least favorite
buzzword is best practices.
Holy crap.
Let's just take a minute to think about
that concept and the implications.
Are we really so arrogant that we can
think that we have ever figured out the
absolute best way to do something?
And if we did believe that why
would we ever try to improve things?
So what most people really mean when
they say best practices is industry
standard practices. But why do we want
to strive to be industry standard?
I mean, to me, that sounds
boring and demotivating.
So my recommendation on what to do
instead is forget about the term best
practices. And instead focus on baking
continuous improvement into your core
processes. Now,
one term that didn't make the list that
I feel obligated to talk about is action
items. The action items are just
tasks that people come up with,
but typically it's not the person that
comes up with a task that actually has to
get it done. So the motivation
level is instantly lower.
But my biggest problem with action items
is that they don't go through any sort
of prioritization process. People
just come up with them in a meeting,
put them on a list and expect them
to be done in the next meeting.
That'd be all well and good if we had
infinite time and money and resources and
energy, but we don't. Now this is a
lazy and ineffective way to plan work.
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thanks for watching. [outro
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