Inspired, perhaps, by Sales Machine’s list of most irritating business jargon, Michael Wade offers up his list of ‘10 phrases you should never say in business’.
UK readers may not recognise ‘my bad’, except from US sitcoms. And I’m not sure I share Wade’s view of ‘the bottom line’ — “Effective when first uttered, it is now two steps removed from ‘Great Caesar’s ghost!’”
But the list gets some of the main culprits:
- The bottom line.
- Walk the talk.
- Basically.
- My bad.
- Cool (”Use it around younger people and watch their eyes roll”).
- The C-suite.
- Back in the day.
- Cut to the chase.
- None of us is as smart as all of us. “True. Sometimes one of us is smarter”.
- Thinking outside the box.
I use it plenty, but I think ‘credit crunch/crisis’ will soon join the ranks of irritating business shorthand.
Any more annoying business phrases?
