Have you ever used buzzwords in the office and felt unsure about the listener’s understanding? Buzzwords are often over-used in the business office. These real buzz words and buzz phrases were gathered while listening carefully in the Detroit area automotive industry.

Have you ever used buzzwords in the office and felt unsure about the listener’s understanding? Buzzwords are often over-used in the business office. These real buzz words and buzz phrases were gathered while listening carefully in the Detroit area automotive industry.

The calamity in the use of buzzwords is that they lack universal meaning (definition) and are seldom defined when first used. A manager uses them so that he will sound like his director who used them. A supervisor feels obligated to follow the example. Everyone may eventually be saying the same words but with different buzzword definitions. Hence, communication is greatly hampered.

Here is the sixth twenty-five of at least 200 contemporary buzzwords. Each is used in a sentence or followed by descriptive dialogue.

  1. Incentivize – Incentivize your workers by giving public verbal praise
  2. Inoculate the user body – Inoculate the user body by anticipating all possible complaints about the software
  3. Issues – His work output and attitude are littered with issues
  4. I stepped up to the challenge – Our director hasn’t called yet so I stepped up to the challenge in anticipation of his needs
  5. Just-in-time – Just-in-time assembly processes reduce component inventory costs
  6. Keep our collective eye on the ball – As the launch date approaches; we’ll keep our collective eye on the ball
  7. Key enablers – What are the key enablers for completing the proposal successfully?
  8. Kludge (computer system component mismatch) – He is an expert in kludge resolution
  9. Knee-mail distribution (religion-inclined email) – Pray that the boss doesn’t catch you distributing knee-mail
  10. Knowledge-based decision making – We use the technique of knowledge-based decision making (what would the alternative be?)
  11. Largely a result of … – Our low profits are largely a result of declining sales
  12. Laser-light focus – The town hall meeting placed a laser-light focus on our department’s shortcomings
  13. Laundry list – Does your project description have a laundry list for the engineers?
  14. Lean concepts – Lean concepts develop into lean practices
  15. Lean practices – Lean practices include doing more with fewer resources
  16. Learning curve – How steep is the learning curve with that new software?
  17. Let’s dissect this – You’ve brought a new issue to the table. Let’s dissect this.
  18. Let’s study that – Some say our output is always late. Let’s study that.
  19. Let’s talk off-line – Let’s talk off-line in a side-bar
  20. Like (goes well with “you know?”) – It’s like, you know, complicated
  21. Like I say – “Like I say” is my technique for repeating my point and ignoring yours
  22. Looking beyond the mark – Don’t make it more complex than necessary by looking beyond the mark
  23. Low-hanging fruit – When it comes to cost savings, we’ve already picked the low-hanging fruit
  24. Make sure it boxes – Review your new proposal to make sure it boxes with our traditional presentation style
  25. Managing expectations – I’m rarely disappointed because I’m very good at managing expectations