Buzzwords for Business

Business seminars seem to be proliferating all it seems with the theme of “surviving the business recession.” So how do you evaluate which ones will be some use and which ones are just a business consultant or accountancy firm jumping on the band wagon. Certainly, you can’t rely on gauging worth form the delegate fee. Some of the most useful are the really expensive ones; they are easy to spot as they trail a name that every good businessman has heard of. Most of us lesser mortals don’t have the time to traipse to London or the money to waste on huge delegate fees. For the vast majority of conferences and seminars, it is not so easy.

Well here’s a little game you can play when you next attend a seminar. It’s called Spot The Buzzwords. Just write the following words in a excel or word matrix and take it along to the seminar of your choice:

Synergy, strategic fit, core-competencies, best practice, bottom line, re-visit, robust, out of the loop, benchmark, value-added, proactive, win-win, think out of the box, results-driven, empower, knowledge base, quality-driven, touch base, mindset, client-focused, game plan, ball park figure, leverage and of course Joined-up thinking.

It’s not very scientific but if you score between 18 and 24 ticks, then it is definitely a business consultant trying to impress you with all the buzzwords he or she knows. If you score between 8 and 17 ticks, it is probably a seminar delivered by someone who knows what he is talking about and 7 or less then they haven’t got a clue and your money and/or time has been wasted. Good luck.

For further guidance on what the buzzwords could mean, visit www.pearsonlongman.com/business/business-resources

The author, Philip Norris is Principal Consultant and Managing Director of Norris Management Ltd. In a long and varied career, Phil has been a Programme and Project Manager for high profile projects in the Construction and Transportation fields. In recent years, he has provided much needed support as a management consultant to corporate and SME clients on the development of, the management of, team building and the employment of people in the workplace.

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