Fool the boss with jargon

By Selwyn Parker

When a senior executive in a research institute says, without a hint of shame, that a colleague has been "deemed surplus to human resource requirements,"
jargon is rampant. He meant, of course, that the colleague had been made redundant.

This isn't English as it should be spoke, but if you are really determined to use management jargon, here are some helpful hints, from a tongue-in-cheek chapter written by author and lecturer Tony Timperley in Effective Business Communication in New Zealand.

Timperley explains an American bureaucrat's fail-safe method of sounding impressive - even if you don't know what you're talking about.

All you need is 30 words like "systematised", "reciprocal", "incremental", "time-phase", "functional"
and "integrated". You put them in three columns and number the words in each column from zero to nine.

Next, think of any three-digit number, like 736, and select the corresponding buzzwords from each column. From the bureaucrat's list, you end up with the terrifically impressive-sounding "synchronised reciprocal time-phase."

Just drop that into your report and the boss will be unbelievably impressed - but only if he doesn't know what he's talking about either.

* Contributing writer Selwyn Parker is available at wordz@xtra.co.nz