New Corporate Buzzwords

Who doesn’t love new words? Spelling Bee participants I suppose. Those are some high strung kids right there.

Hello again everybody. Today I’d like to talk about everyone’s favorite thing to hear: corporate buzzwords and phrases. We’ve had the same old material for a long time now and I know we can do better. To that end, I’ve come up with (and plagiarized) some new alternatives to the old and busted phrases we all use. (Admit it, you use these too…). Use the ones you like, and then we’ll know if we were able to move the needle during our next town hall.

• Old phrase: Circle back / Put a pin in it
• New phrase: Take it to the Chorus
• How to use in a sentence: That’s an excellent point Mr. Timberlake, but for now let’s take it to the chorus.
• Old phrase: Zoom out / Take a step back
• New phrase: Shallow Float
• How to use in a sentence: Don’t give me the deep dive, I need a shallow float.
• Old phrase: Deep dive / Unpack / Peel the onion
• New phrase: Dissect the Frog or TSA strip search
• How to use in a sentence: We’re going to have to dissect the frog if we want to understand what happened to our sales in May. Or if you prefer - It’s going to take a TSA strip search to get to the bottom of this thing.
• Old phrase: Win — Win scenario
• New phrase: McConaughey moment
• How to use in a sentence: What’s it going to take to make this a McConaughey moment? (It’ll be alright, alright, alright).
• Old phrase: Think outside the box
• New phrase: Ask what Jack Black would do
• How to use in a sentence: We’re in a rut here, and it’s time to ask what Jack Black would do.
• Old phrase: Move the needle
• New phrase: Budge the elephant
• How to use in a sentence: It’s going to take all of us putting in the extra hours if we’re going to budge this elephant.
• Old phrase: Take this offline
• New phrase: Refry this bean later
• How to use in a sentence: Yes Mr Timberlake, we heard you, but it would be better if we refry this bean later.
• Old phrase: Low hanging fruit
• New phrase: Easily stolen baby candy
• How to use in a sentence: If we decide to pursue this opportunity, what is the easily stolen baby candy we can expect to get?
• Old phrase: Hard stop
• New phrase: Dance party
• How to use in a sentence: Sorry everybody, I’ve got a dance party in 15 minutes so we need to wrap this up soon.
• Old phrase: I’m aligned
• New phrase: Stop talking, I agree enough with you
• Word of warning: Sometimes it’s better for your career to say the new phrase in your head instead of out loud.

Be sure to let your manager know any suggestions you might have on new phrases for your team. Who knows, you might get quoted and become famous for your new corporate jargon that everyone dislikes.

-Philip