Buzz Words And Management Speak

Art Markman:

 Find an object you use daily (a zipper, a toilet, a stereo speaker) and try to describe the particulars of how it works. You're likely to discover unexpected gaps in your knowledge. In psychology, we call this cognitive barrier the illusion of explanatory depth. It means you think you fully understand something that you actually don't.
We see this every day in buzz words. Though we often use these words, their meanings are usually unclear. They mask gaps in our knowledge, serving as placeholders that gloss concepts we don't fully understand.
For example, several years ago, I attended a corporate meeting where the vice president spoke about streamlining business practices in the coming year. During the talk, executives around the room nodded in agreement. Afterward, though, many of them discussed what streamlining actually meant. None of the people who had nodded in agreement could exactly define the mechanics of how to streamline a business practice.

That's one thing I've really noticed about when management speaks.  They say a bunch of important sounding things, but what it comes down to is, "things aren't going the way I want, so you need to figure out what's wrong and fix it.  If you do, I'll say nice job, and if you don't, I'll replace you."  They never seem to know what is actually wrong or how to fix it.  I could (and probably will) live my entire life without moving away from a job dealing with actual production, as opposed to the Potemkin world of management. As for how things work, there are a lot of things I can't explain accurately, but if I study it for a little while, I can usually come up with somewhat of an explanation.