Bill's Meeting Statements
As I said, you hear some strange things in meetings if you acutally listen.
Notable Quotes:
These are real, direct quotations. They are all from presenters at business meetings in one of the Detroit "Big Three" automotive manufacturers.
- "I’m just going to sit down and walk through these things."
- "Let’s put some flesh and bones on the initial information that was there."
- "We want to slice and dice the low-hanging grapes."
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"We’ve gone through a bucketing procedure on these numbers."
- "We will bring forward a (Model B) scenario if and when a compelling scenario emerges."
- "This dollar number was factored off of the fact of what we were going to pay".
Some "new" terms, and their definitions:
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Fictionary: Fictional, or imaginary, or a combination of the two.
- Non-consensed items: Things we don’t agree on.
- Facilities compression: Plant closings
- Administrate: Administer
- Sub-optimized: You just got screwed.
- Degradating: Degrading.
- Strategizing: Planning.
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Time Frame: A date you don’t plan to meet.
- Advisements:` Advice.
- Incidences: Incidents.
- A deep dive: A thorough investigation. (Everyone in Detroit is taking deep dives these days, according to friends at the other automotives.)
- Equivalates to: Is the same as.
- Point in time: Ha Ha! Just kidding. NOBODY says this anymore.
More silly statements, arranged by general category:
Serious Business Principles (real MBA stuff here, folks):
- "Future architectures must optimize cross-functional interactions."
- "We can’t wish for results earlier than possible."
- "On just about every program, there are certain steps you need to step through."
Technical Introductions to Technical Subjects:
- "I have some analysis here that is pretty analytical."
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"The shaded area on the chart here takes you, from an eyeball point of view, to where the program has been to date."
- "If this approach works, it’s going to be quite successful."
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"We now have finesse-ability on the door panel."
Plain old Politics at Work:
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"No one will verbalize that we cannot commonize."
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"I think you’re fooling ourselves."
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"I do not want to enhance your expectations too high."
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"They’re going to stick it to someone on this, and someone’s going to be the sticker, and someone’s going to be the stickee."
- "What’s your confidence level in their competence level?"
More Silliness and Odd Metaphors:
- "This is quite a bridge. If it works, it’s going to allow them to cross over into areas where they have not heretofor been."
- Q: "Do we really have to do it this way?"
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A: "It’s not a have-to, it’s a must!"
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"We are in the throes of getting on with the short strokes."
- "That’s why you need to get it out there, so you can get it in."
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"You can look at it and tell if the inputters have inputted."
- "This has been a recurring annual perennial problem."
- "They’ve been stonewalling for a long time. It’s time to get off the pot."
- "The way we were going was a collision course, so we pulled the plug on it."
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"The well is dry. Somebody has to come to the party."
- "We are going to have to factor in the fudge factor."
- "Working with (Supplier B) is like having a near-death experience every week."
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"Why don’t we just pick a date, say, so that at Project Approval the cheese gets binding?"
- "Why don’t we just, for that portion of it, we just don’t follow the rules?" (This sounds a little like Richard Nixon, but in this case they were not talking about laws, they were talking about office procedures.)
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