We in the UK sometimes have to accept the Business Bullshit terminology that we receive from our masters across the Atlantic. We have accepted that, going forward, we need to leverage the deliverables of a synergistic partnership.
But lately, working as I do in a company that has an energetic US arm, I have noticed a new phrase cropping up from our enterprising American chums – “reaching out to”, meaning, in the sort of mundane terms that sane people use, “making contact with”, or simply “asking”. To me “reaching out to” sounds like something you would do to people on a lifeboat that you had missed, but never mind.
So, is “reaching out to” the new “going forward”? What other bullshit terminology should I expect in the future? I’m sorry, I mean “in the upcoming timeframe”.
The hardest part about reaching out is often assessing what other resources are aligned with the same business goals both from a project management and budgetary standpoint. Sometimes when you try to tap into those resources even if it is just for knowledge transfer, you will find that they already have too much on their plates already and they have to push back.
The one that seems to have sprung to life most recently is “space” used as a substitute for activity, function, market and who knows what else. I heard someone on the radio last week refer to, “organizations operating in the charity space.” Of course I knew what he meant - charities.
I’m encountering that one quite a bit in job applications and it’s certainly getting tiring, especially as it’s being interpreted to mean “Anyone who has even a tangential or peripheral interest, involvement, or relationship to what you’re doing.”
I was going to say something about that term after jjimm mentioned it but halfway through typing I lost interest (as usual). Now that someone else has come along and also mentioned it, I thought maybe I should chime on in with my own reach around to validate your experience as stakeholders of the stakeholder problem.
I was chatting with a civil servant (federal government employee) about a new national law that was coming in to force - I can’t even remember what law now, this was 5 or 6 years ago*, and she mentioned that we have to be concerned about the “stakeholders”. This was the first time I had heard the term used outside a financial setting and I did a kind of doubletake, but, as usual, I let the stupid pass because I’m not confident enough to attack the stupid when I smell it - I need to take it home with me and look it over. Yeah, I’m slow that way.
What I should have done is smacked her upside the head and let her know that the stakeholders are everyone.
*I’m pretty sure, but not entirely sure, this was about water management on agricultural land.
I believe the entire stakeholder thing came from government originally. The first time I encountered it was 2006 working for a qango. It came up in my interview for the job, and I had to bluster my way through it. Luckily I worked out what it meant.
Other shit that’s coming down the pipeline from government is: “we don’t just want transactional shit, we want transformational shit.”
You know a business jargon term has really reached full circle when it has become metabolized by the offshore teams. “Kindly reachout Pradeep for doing the needful if you have a doubt.”
“Knowledge transfer” is one of my favorites.
I constantly get e-mails saying stuff like “Reach out to Mark and set up a knowledge transfer on this process.”
To which I’m always tempted to reply, "You mean, ‘Ask Mark how to do it?’ "
We use stakeholders in goverment all the time because it’s quite a nice all encompassing term - our relationships are so varied no other word really covers them all. ETA - I notice that link has been made by others, but still I think it’s a good all encompassing word. And no, not everyone is a stakeholder for government, so it’s not superfluous.
I was trying to get people to use a new word that I came up with: mind bath. We’re all familiar with brain storm but that’s a bit passe now, and apparently thought shower is the new version of it, but I decided to take it a step further and have mind bath. Try it:
“We need to scope out some new ideas for this project, why don’t we all get in a mind bath together later and see what comes out?”.
The thing is, to me, “Stakeholder” implies someone for whom the outcome of whatever you’re doing actually matters. If you’ve got a Football (Actual or Rugby, take your pick) Tipping competition going at your work, then everyone who’s placed a bet is a stakeholder in that tipping comp. But Fred Bloggs from the Treasury Department who’s wondering how many people your project has on it so he can compile a report for the Deputy Assistant To the Assistant For The Minister’s Secretary isn’t a Stakeholder IMHO. The information doesn’t mean anything, won’t change anything, and is basically trivial and unimportant.
Personally, I think it sounds like something that would happen in a Far Future Society where the Space Pope-Emperor has declared Sinful or Heretical thoughts to be an abomination in the eyes of all that is Right And Holy, and ordered them to be expunged with the greatest zeal.
So, perfect for a Government department.
One I’ve noticed popping up increasingly in the private sector is referring to “External Relations” instead of “Public Relations”. I’m an elitist of the highest order and even I think that has elements of “Well, we don’t want our contemporaries thinking we have contact with the unwashed peasantry, so we’ll give our PR department a different name so it sounds trendy and put some fake plants and Ikea furniture in there so it looks modern and funky.”
I’d agree that in your example Fred Bloggs isn’t a stakeholder, but that’s not how we use the word where I work.
In my job we deal with people that we have contracts with and fund, other government departments, independent bodies that advise us but are completely autonomous, public and private companies that work with us but don’t receive funding from us, and finally organisations that in some way lobby us to do things but don’t have a formal relationship with us, I think stakeholder is an apt word to cover all of them.
Better than being here in the US and hearing every single day; “We need to questionable action Wall Street so that politically gushy result Main Street.”
