I often hear complaints--and the occasional ridicule from astute observers--that consultants, attorneys, magicians and others in the the International Society of Smoke and Mirrors (ISSM) spend more time making things harder to understand than they do demystifying.
This is invariably true, but since my ISSM membership may be approaching expiration (more on that later) I am reclaiming some of the liberties I enjoyed before my initiation. A few terms at a time, I will build a "user-friendly" (buzz!) dictionary of business terms that won't make you feel like your student loans were a complete waste.
Anti-Buzzwords are in RED.
Buzzwords are in BLUE.
(Try not to read too much into that.)
alignment
the synchronization and optimization of ideas, strategies, programs and practices
alignment
the process of building a corporate culture to achieve strategic goals
branding
the art of creating trust
branding
a means of distinguishing one firm's products or services from another's and of creating and maintaining an image that encourages confidence in the quality and performance of that firm's products or services
corporate culture
the personal and emotional attributes of your business environment
corporate culture
the combined beliefs, values, ethics, procedures, and atmosphere of an organization. The culture of an organization is often expressed as "the way we do things around here" and consists of largely unspoken values, norms, and behaviors that become the natural way of doing things. An organization's culture may be more apparent to an external observer than an internal practitioner. The first person to attempt a definition of corporate culture was Edgar Schein, who said that it consisted of rules, procedures, and processes that governed how things were done, as well as the philosophy that guides the attitude of senior management toward staff and customers. The difficulty in identifying the traits of culture and changing them is borne out by the fact that culture is not merely climate, power, and politics, but all those things and more. There can be several subcultures within an organization, for example, defined by hierarchy on the shop floor or executives or by functional sales, design, or production. Changing or renewing corporate culture in order to achieve the organization's strategy is considered one of the major tasks of organization leadership, as it is recognized that such a change is hard to achieve without the will of the leader.
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1 comment:
It's true. Many of us have buzzword sickness, there are several that make we want to beat my computer screen. That having been said, alignment and corporate culture are two of my favorites. I might need some sort of anti-buzzword vaccination to let go of those.
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