Master Consulting Speak--Clip and Save

"Our holistic approach enables vertical connectivity between the field operations team and the quality assurance technicians to optimize consumer impact points."

Ever been in a meeting with one or more consultants and heard phrases like the above? Makes you wonder how consultants have mastered such a low ratio of meaning to word count.

Of course, consultants aren't the only ones who can talk a lot without saying anything. Others in the business world are equally guilty, including me at times. But I am trying to mend my ways.

For those who can't let go, here's a tool just for you: The Consultant's Jargon Generator.

Use it to spice up your meetings with clients and colleagues, your proposals, or final "deliverables." Find just the right words to describe one of your consulting capabilities or your methodology, or to make a client recommendation.

From the table below, choose any word from the left-hand column, then add a word from the middle column plus any word from the final column. Ta da--instant consultant speak.

Give it a shot.

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The Consultant's Jargon Generator
Deliver	Seamless	Thoughtware
Ramp up	Scalable	Value chain
Empower	Bleeding-edge	Paradigm
Configure	Mission-critical	Synergy
Leverage	Granular	Connectivity
Strategize	Frictionless	Ecosystem
Operationalize	Holistic	Convergence
Reengineer	Value-added	Transformation
Globalize	Cross-platform	Capability transfer
Optimize	Enterprise-wide	Market space

Comments

[J D Moore]

THis is quite funny and quite true. When I was consulting for a large financial company we had a card made up for "BS Bingo". It has words like "synergy" and "proactive". During a meeting we would check off the phrases, and if you got enough you could jump up and yell "BS!"

It was a great tool to keep meetings real, and understanding up.

[Phil Dunn]

As a marketing consultant (and marketing book author), I often find myself traveling to customer locations to participate in meetings. I work alone, so I don't have much daily exposure to corp-speak. And I don't do too much of this type of talking, but I know much of it well. I write a lot of the brochures that clients insist contain this language (I know, I'm trying to stop, but often the client gets what they want).

In meetings, I sometimes feel like a leper because I don't get some of the jargon. If I reel off a few of the words, however, I can trick them into thinking that I'm a corporate stiff -- maybe not a good approach.

[Robin]

cute. As a marketing consultant, loved laughing at the new economy jargon that was (and still is) posted on high-tech and internet/dot-bomb sites. check out this one, which generates meaningless BS for you: http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html