As I go through life I frequently encounter 'communications' such as the ones on this page. These are usually in the form of emails sent out by or on behalf of senior people in the company where I work. Their purpose is the explain or communicate some change in the company structure or strategy. One would have though that to do this the best way would be to explain as clearly as possible in plain English exactly what has been done and who it affects. But no. These 'communications' are writen in what can only be described as Management-Ese (or gibberish).
Far be it from me to castigate people simply because their grammar isn't very good. But these people are all perfectly capable of writing decent, intelligible English. Somehow when they have a company memo to prepare they switch into this bizarre language which often requires actual translation before I can understand it.
Here I present some examples of what I have to try and understand. I make no attempt to explain what is wrong with them as that ought to be perfectly obvious to anyone for whom English is their first language, and probably also to anyone for whom their only exposure to English is through the movies of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Look at these examples (which have been censored to protect, well, my job), learn from them, and make sure for your own sake that you never start talking like this.
A real rip-snorter of a company memo, sent out by someone very high up. Now I'm an educated man, but I honestly don't understand some of the sentences in this one.
"I am pleased to announce an organisational change to the R&D and Product Business Management team. A number of people are taking on new roles and I have been delighted to see the enthusiasm that has been demonstrated to take on the change that we need. I believe this now positions us well to be focussed on the issues that are key to driving our business success.
The purpose of this change is to introduce some clear focus and direction for the group and to build clear ownership with cross-functional ‘Product Business Teams’ that will be responsible for driving products from concept through to market. The organisation reflects the review of product strategy and business priority and creates a single point of ownership with six product business teams, each with a Product Business Team Leader reporting to me with responsibility for the product delivery to market.
The R&D organisation will retain a functional reporting structure that is focused on building its own technological expertise and in most cases the development manager will also be taking on a dual role as Product Business Team Leader.
The following outlines these teams and the functional organisation of each group. The Product Business Teams will include members from R&D, Product Business Management, Services and Logistics groups, which will be announced shortly.
We are accelerating plans to build new revenue growth product business areas and ******** will take on a role of Advanced Products Development Manager building up the development teams to increase our focus on development in areas outside of ****. This involves taking responsibility for the Product Business Team leadership of the ****** Product. He will also be responsible for aligning a common technology approach across the *****, the new ***** and future product developments."
[large chunk snipped]
Another humdinger of an email. This one is from the above gentleman's boss. Clearly he's the boss because his emails are even less intelligible.
"The critical element in the success of any Product based company is bringing to market advanced products in a rapid time. To achieve this it is vital that all of the elements are in place that enable rapid decision making, rapid and effective R&D execution and smooth introduction of products to achieve the maximum volume in the shortest period of time.
The ***** Division has significant challenges ahead to ensure that we deliver to market a compelling set of products that ensures we are the leaders in the **** market and that we deliver revenue growth from different lines of business other than our traditional lines of **** & ****. In order to ensure we have the most effective organisation in place which fosters the decision making, ownership and direction necessary to achieve our goals we are consolidating the R&D organisation with Product Business Management together with a clear technology leadership.
[snip]
I believe this is an essential change to ensure that we can accelerate our success in our existing lines of business and rapidly grow new lines of business with compelling new products as we address different but related market segments."
Clearly the dreaded incomprehensibility demon is stretching his talons. Here we have a new memo from somebody different.
I want to alert you to a new initiative that has been instigated, effective immediately, to drive revenue generation for this quarter and beyond. This is a combined sales, marketing and product management team, called the 'EXTREME FOCUS TEAM', that will initiate and drive key priority activities to ensure our main geographies are fully supported in meeting their revenue goals for this quarter. This team was set up following an EMEA sales review held this week, and is chartered with defining and prioritising focussed sales, marketing and product initiatives to facilitate revenue generation, in the markets of Germany, UK and France. A similar team will be set up to drive revenue in the US.
Now it's not my policy to comment, but this really is utter drivel, isn't it? 'Our main geographies'? What?
Do you have any examples of gibberish that you'd like to share with the world? Let us have them by email.
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