Very funny and bitter article, liked it a lot.
Fully agree: when these conceptions become Corporatisms, you have to run, run as quickly as you can.
Though…
Alas, it’s like an urban gentrification. Because imho the terms by themselves are crucial — if being meant in their full scale and not in the hipster way of a brainless leading management.
Adding value.
If you are speaking about customers, they are looking for additional value (they aren’t clueless anymore — they want more than just products). If we are speaking about our projects, we have to rethink them in a way they could bring additional value to our overarching goal. But this value should be clearly defined. Just “adding value” is a superficial fail of leaders lacking in ideas.
Stakeholder.
Boring term, indeed (My inner BBQ fan likes steak-holder instead). But if you avoid this term, which one would you advice to use? If one don’t think about all participators, members, key persons (or: stakeholders) of a corporate process, you will land into the silos, misunderstanding, miscommunication — short: in disaster. Even if we avoid using “Stakeholder”, we have to find other definition. Otherwise we will overlook a link in a chain.
Disruption.
Nobody likes to be disrupted. Better we do it the good old way. Communication? I’ll fax you my reply instead. AI? Nightmare — we better come back to the rural state of living. Steam engine? Evil — we better do it with with our own power (or by our horses — industrial revolution sucks). The thing is: the real disruption shouldn’t delight the leadership. The real disruption should enhance by subversion. The real disruption is expensive, but effective. Not the leader should benefit from disruption, but the society (in a long term way of thinking). Alas, often if leadership speaks about disruption, it has already quite different meaning: “you won’t like it, so it’s disruption”. Superficial again.
Vision, mission, values.
One German politician witted once: “He who has visions shall visit a doctor”. I have a different opinion: Without mission, vision, overarching meta-perspective you will lose yourself in micro-management and at the end you won’t have any clue, why and what the hell you are doing. Vision, mission, values — all this should be developed by all (sorry) stakeholders of a project.
Simply put, these terms weren’t BS. They became such by some bunch of status-obsessed, brainless, vain, manipulative and superficial leaders. And if you happen to encounter these leaders — run, run as quickly as you can. Whether they are using these terms or not.
