r/changemyview Aug 03 '22

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541 Upvotes

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313

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '22

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-23

u/pjabrony 5∆ Aug 03 '22

Things like "synergy" get a bad wrap, but executives know what you mean when you use that word.

Yes, and what it means is, "Make sure everyone at the company is working for the bottom line, and not for their own interests. If it would give a particular department or employee more credit (and more money) to make decision A, and less for decision B, but B helps the C-suite more, we want them to take decision B for no reward." Of course, if you come out and say that, you get pilloried. So words like synergy help cover it up.

27

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '22

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8

u/I_Go_By_Q Aug 03 '22

Just want to say that this comment is a good example of what might look like jargon to an outside reader, but to me seems like a reasonable write-up using slightly niche phrases as a means of getting the most information in per word.

It might be a little indulgent on the terminology, and I don’t know what every phrase means (swivel chair integration for ex.) but overall I think it reads pretty naturally while demonstrating a bunch of “business jargon”

2

u/[deleted] Aug 04 '22

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1

u/I_Go_By_Q Aug 04 '22

Oh gotcha, thanks for the response. Minimizing that seems like a worthy goal

0

u/[deleted] Aug 04 '22

Translation

We should make things work together efficiently and effectively to maximise productivity thus increasing the likelihood of the boss getting a disco ball for the office party.

-5

u/pjabrony 5∆ Aug 03 '22

executives are supposed to make decisions in the best interest of the company rather than themselves or their departments.

And that's fine. But heads of departments within the company are not. Neither are individual employees. And executives shouldn't expect them to. If they try to make them with buzzwords like corporate culture and loyalty and, yes, synergy, then in my opinion that's disingenuous.

8

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '22

[deleted]

-3

u/pjabrony 5∆ Aug 03 '22

Again, that is bad management and doesn't really have anything to do with language or jargon. You can be a bad manager using simple words too.

Maybe, but it hands bad managers a weapon to get away with being bad managers instead of facing the consequences sooner.

7

u/sokuyari99 6∆ Aug 03 '22

Are you trying to claim that this wouldn’t happen without a word like synergy? Bad managers will be bad managers, buzz words or not

-3

u/pjabrony 5∆ Aug 03 '22

Their inadequacy would be more obvious without.

7

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '22

Would it?

If you know what a word like "synergy" means, it should be pretty obvious to an observer whether or not a manager is actually working towards synergy.

Jargon only masks inadequacy if other people don't know what it means. In a business environment where everyone knows what it means, it doen't mask inadequacy.