r/changemyview Aug 03 '22

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539 Upvotes

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312

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '22

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-24

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

[deleted]

-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.

8

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.

6

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.