Anyone who knows me is familiar with my buzzword fixation. In fact, I think I owe the bulk of my MBA to the effective overuse of fancy lingo. While a sound vocabulary is not to be underestimated, there’s nothing sillier than sentences over-peppered with empty words. Have you ever listened very carefully to one of those overly wordy people, initially impressed and intrigued, only to realize that despite their impressive constellation of words, strung together so eloquently, they hadn’t in fact said anything useful? That’s right, you all know that person.

…and yes, that’s right, I used ‘constellation.’

All kidding aside, I am genuinely intrigued by the effect word choice has on people and their perceptions. It’s amazing how much spin plays into image, both on a personal and organizational level, and how critical a role language plays in how we perceive things. This year has seen many events shape our current political, economic and social international environment. From a financial meltdown to an historic U.S. Presidential election, and everything in between, buzzwords were certainly abound. It was amazing to see how issues, people and events were, and continue to be, tagged and how certain words emerged as leading descriptors of mainstream topics. 2008 was oh so ‘mavericky,’ my friends.

A buzzword, however, isn’t always born obnoxious.

In fact, most of the time someone tags a concept with a great word, and simply takes it too far, or gets too excited about their new dictionary discovery. Yes, “word of the day” on your Google homepage along with those new terms you learn in school are exciting, I get it, but there’s only so much we can synergize, optimize and leverage in one breath.

So this post begins what I hope will be a buzzword exposé of sorts. “Bruno’s Buzzword Bonanza” aims to peel the onion back on these words and their use. Yeah, that’s right, we’re going to peel the onion back, people. Together we’ll explore current events and themes, and isolate their most over-used terms. I invite you, in the spirit of mass-collaboration, to submit your appropriate buzzwords for the theme explored, and suggest topics for upcoming editions. Perhaps you have a big assignment due on a certain issue and need to bulk it up with fancy, impressive and empty jargon… let me know what you’re writing about and perhaps the community can suggest some relevant words that will knock your Prof’s socks off. How’s that for synergy and collaboration?

To kick us off, this editions’ theme is: Layoffs.

I came across an interesting BusinessWeek piece in the December 22, 2008 issue of the weekly magazine. The article, “You’re fired: Rosy words for pink slips,” by Jena McGregor, explores the innovative semantic spin organizations are putting on their layoff lingo. While there’s no denying that the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost as a result of the year’s economic crisis are delivering a devastating blow to employees, organizations and industries worldwide, I was amazed to read about the cheeky spin employers are trying to put on this awful situation. I wonder: does a convoluted sentence or fancy word make a job loss any less painful?

Feel free to read the whole piece, but in the meantime I’ve made a top ten list of layoff buzzwords from the article. Among the terms employers are opting to use in lieu of the usual suspects known as “downsizing” and “rightsizing” are, in ascending order of ridiculousness ranking:

10. Rationalizing

9. Surplusing

8. Restructuring

7. Actions to simplify the organization

6. Offboarding

5. Reduction in force

4. Rethinking the social plan

3. De-verticalization

2. Strategic review of strategies

1. Synergy-related headcount adjustment goal.

Right.

Does that mean a faked sick day spent at the mall can be classified as an “image-related shoe count adjustment site visit?” Hmmm… how very outside-the-box…

Culbert asserts that performance reviews “destroys morale, kills teamwork and hurts the bottom line.” He goes on to outline seven points explaining why performance reviews aren’t the answer. Although the goal of performance reviews is to give employees feedback on how they’re doing and look at how they can improve, I find that many people I talk to (colleagues and friends from school) all find performance review time a bit nerve-racking. But why is that? I know performance reviews aren’t meant to make employees uncomfortable, affecting morale and communications. 360-degree feedback has since been introduced but Culbert also has a few criticisms regarding this method. I know that it’s important to give feedback to employees, but maybe the format needs to be improved…
(Please keep in mind these are my interpretations of his seven points. I strongly suggest you read the full article to get your own sense of his arguments.)

1. Two parties with misaligned goals. When walking into a performance review the boss’ goal of discussing areas of improvement don’t match up with the employee’s goal of promotion and compensation.
2. The false belief that performance affects pay. Culbert argues that pay is primarily determined by market forces (which makes sense – just look at our current economic situation – are many people expecting big raises/bonuses this year?) and most jobs are placed in a pay range even before the employee is hired.
3. As objective as we try to be – there are always personal biases. This is a fundamental conflict. Depending on one’s position, their opinion and view will differ. This is where Culbert also brings up the “360-degree feedback”. When feedback is anonymized that creates more opportunity for various parties to further their personal agenda since there is no accountability associated with their review.
4. Everyone is different – “once size does not fit all”. Performance reviews often revolve around a predetermined checklist. This is why people may focus more on pleasing their boss than doing a good job. Since a happy boss will (theoretically) leave you with a higher score.
5. Employees are reluctant to go to their bosses for help (for fear that it will reflect badly on their performance review). It makes sense that employees would go to their bosses for help, guidance and improvement. But, “thanks to the performance review, the boss is often the last person an employee would turn to”.
6. Disrupts teamwork. The most important type of teamwork is the one-on-one relationship between a boss and their subordinates. But in performance reviews, as opposed to taking the stance “how will we work together as a team”, it’s “how are you performing for me”.
7. At the end of the day… performance reviews don’t improve corporate performance.

After proposing all of these flaws, there must be an alternative. The one that Culber offers up isn’t that bad. As opposed to doing performance reviews, managers should start doing performance previews. This way the focus is not on the past, and things that cannot be changed. Instead the manager and employee can work together to figure out what needs to be done in the future and how goals may be met. This performance preview wouldn’t be done yearly, it would be done whenever either the boss or the employee has a feeling things aren’t working well. Past performance may be used for illustrative purposes and this is an ideal way to evaluate your boss as well and get a two-way conversation going. It then becomes the boss’s responsibility to develop the employee based on their individual strengths and weaknesses.

I guess performance review isn’t something that people talk about too openly, but do other people feel funny (if not nervous) about performance reviews? Is Culbert’s solution a viable one?