A collection of superficially plausible ideas and suggestions, wrapped up in an expensive-looking collection of ConsultanSpeak, and presented with fanfare by a consulting company to the leadership that commissioned the study. Any attempt to implement the contents of the study usually leaves the implementers fustrated and the corporation no better off than before, due to the unsuitable nature of the ideas and suggestions.

A condition sometimes found among employees suffering from a surfeit of idealism. This condition is characterised by a belief that corporations should be governed by the application of principles such as fairness, integrity, high ethical and moral standards, objective measurement of performance etc. There is no cure for ECN; nor should there be a cure.

A theory, developed by Werner Heisenberg, generally applied to the discovery of information about atomic and sub-atomic particles.
As applied to leadership, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle posits that you cannot know the precise location or activities of a leader at any single point in time. You either know the person's location but you have no idea what they are doing, or you know what they are doing but you have no idea where they are.

A person who presents themselves as "the go-to guy" for a project or program, somebody who gets things done. In reality, all they do is obstruct progress, slow down work, and generally get in the way. Unfortunately, many anti-helps have the ear of leadership, who genuinely believe that they are effective.

A new euphemism (see also Team Player) deployed by leaders to perjoratively explain away the reluctance of project managers to consent to the falsification of project status reports, as in "Mary/Fred were being counter-productive".
Most commonly this refers to the refusal of the project manager to consent to the airbrushing of Red/Yellow/Green ratings for projects, whereby a Red status is miraculously declared to be Yellow, a Yellow status is miraculously declared to be Green etc. etc. (see also Upward Message Dilution).

A delightfully descriptive definition of a well-known behaviour pattern of ethically-challenged leaders, who believe that the preferred method of personal advancement is to behave obsequiously towards their seniors, mislead their peers, and mistreat their subordinates.

The process adopted by senior leadership when they have already created an answer to a pressing issue (this answer usually bears no relationship to a correct or complete answer). During the process, people presented as "experienced", "authorities", "consultants", "experts" etc. are asked questions designed to elicit the pre-determined answer, in order to support and validate the chosen answer or decision.
Often employed as a mechanism for post hoc justification of a severely flawed leadership decision.

The art of being unable to process any instruction, command or request that appears to conflict with one's worldview, such as a request to turn over expense receipts (including that one for "dry cleaning" from the Red Light district), request to vacate that office that you are squatting in etc. etc. An adulthood outgrowth of Selective Adolescent Deafness.

A leader whose expressed desire to "keep it simple" and "make it clear" leads to his/her evaluations of issues, problems, opportunities etc. being almost exclusively focussed on creating two alternatives at differing ends of the spectrum. Black or white, chalk or cheese etc. Such leaders dismiss "shades of gray" and often make a virtue of being uninterested in "doing nuance". This approach to problem-solving survives until the failure to consider alternative courses of action other than those based entirely around a false dichotomy leads to a project being derailed, at which point the leader is either forced to drop their binary approach or risk Exile or making a CLM or CTM.

Euphemism for a phrase, sentence or paragraph that is designed to skilfully introduce ambiguity and obfuscation into a document or response. There are many possible purposes for such ambiguity, including the need to avoid taking a definite position, lack of understanding of a customer request, political sensitivities, or lack of technical or business knowledge.

A style of leadership where the leader is instantly influenced (postively or negatively) by interactions with his/her leaders or peers. When their interactions go badly for them, these individuals proceed to sulk in their offices or roam the corporate location in a bad frame of mind, stopping only to ream their teams or pick on team members to excoriate (usually for failings that are more imaginary than real). When things go well for them they suddenly morph into relentlessly cheerful, happy people, and praise their teams effusively.
Given that humans tend to remember bad interpersonal encounters more than they remember positive encounters, the long-term results are usually a wary, demotivated team, and a frustrated leader, who often ends up suggesting a variant of the approach "the beatings will continue until morale improves"...

A time-honoured approach when faced with the requirement to assemble an estimate for a piece of work, which involves the raising of the index finger outside the building, which results (via an obscure process inside the cranium of the person owning the finger) in the creation of a collection of values which are presented as an estimate. The relationship between the problem space attributes and the data is usually not revealed.

See Career-Terminating Move.
Thanks to Leanna from Indianapolis for this one.

A book, usually written by a "ghost writer" at the bidding of the board of directors and/or the CEO, which purports to be a serious management book, but is in fact a combination of a hagiography of the corporation and the CEO, designed to portray the corporation (and by extension, the CEO) as dynamic, visionary, thrusting, determined to succeed etc. Thousands of copies of the book are purchased by the corporation (often causing the book to appear to be a best-seller), and given to leaders, who are expected to display the book on their desks, bookshelves etc.
The book functions as a talisman to confer higher status on the displaying leader, who is, by virtue of the display, "in the know", "with the program" etc. In reality, most copies of the book gather dust, and magically disappear from display within a month of a change of corporate leadership.

That part of a software solution which is the most important for customer satisfaction; however, instead of utilizing skilled user experience designers, many delivery groups assign the design of the user interface to group members (usually developers) who proceed to prove the truth of the Law of Claimed Competency.

A useful principle which states that the actual competency of a person to perform a given task or set of tasks is in inverse proportion to their claimed competence. The principle is often true because of human failings, including one or more or combinations of arrogance, optimism, inexperience, "Not Invented Here", hubris, ignorance and stupidity.

A fine-sounding phrase, uttered by the leaders of the Vendor Management function of a corporation during corporate broadcasts and public meetings. What viewers cannot see while they are uttering the phrase is the location of their foot, on the throat of a bruised, battered, bleeding supplier.
Vendor Management personnel who are fans of "The Sopranos" will intermittently shift further weight to their foot until the supplier's face goes blue and they agree to further price reductions.

A magical "thing" that is regarded by everybody in corporations as highly desirable, since it is believed that high morale will cause employees to sing a merry tune and smile while being massively productive and positive.
Corporate leaders believe they should always have high morale, but sometimes morale is extremely difficult to locate or enhance. In really dysfunctional corporations, mediocre leaders adopt the mindset that morale can be increased by intimidation (as in the famous warning "the beatings will continue until morale improves").

A phrase, sentence or slogan, normally used by Sales and Marketing personnel, but now frequently used by leaders (and failed leaders) at all levels of many corporations. Assertions are usually devoid of any supporting facts, but are supposed to cause the listeners to knod knowingly and instantly snap into action in an attempt to convert the assertion into reality (or perception).

1. The role of identifying prospective customers, engaging them in dialogue to determine their real and tangible needs, matching those needs with a corporation's offerings, and moving the prospective customer to a point where they agree to purchase significant amounts of the corporation's offerings now and in the future.
2. A smooth-talking, high-living collection of sometimes-shady individuals, many of whom appear to believe that (a) if you can sell one type of offering, you can sell anything to anybody, (b) you can slide much further on bullshit than you can on gravel.

A little-known and little-publicised group of board members of a corporation (largely comprising CEOs and CFOs of other corporations) that meets to determine the compensation rules and employment contracts for senior executives of the corporation, including the CEO. This body often exists in perpetuity; the CEO may be fired, often collecting a large severance package, but the Compensation Committee members are usually never held accountable for the contract that allowed the (ex-)CEO to collect the large severance package.

An over-used and much-abused word in corporations, as in "we are at war with the competition". The individuals deploying the word have usually never fought in a real war, and overlook the fact that it is not normal practice in business competition to bomb, shoot or poison rivals, unless you happen to be associated with the Mafia or international drug cartels. However, the adoption of the war mindset sometimes acts as a convenient rationalization for their own personal adoption and encouragement of dysfunctional behaviours such as collusion, duplicity, fraud etc. ("we were at war - we had to do something").

1. a process of understanding a corporation's products and offerings by collaborating with creation and delivery groups, positioning those offerings in the mind of prospective consumers and helping to create and enhance marketplace demand for those offerings
2. a large and mysterious group, usually comfortably ensconced in corporate headquarters, populated by people wearing expensive clothing and toting MBA's. The members habitually fly, dine and entertain on expenses. The group consumes ever-increasing quantities of money on fine-sounding activities like ""marketplace research"", ""creating buzz"", ""positioning"" etc. but never communicates with any other groups except via set-piece presentations and the issuance of stone tablets, and nobody seems able to explain the business value of the group's activities. This continues until the group's budget is cut or the corporation goes out of business, whichever comes first.

Euphemism for the latest pronouncement from the CEO or CFO office. This is often delivered in a way that renders upward comment and feedback next to impossible.

1. A grant of a massive number of items of stock or shares in the corporation given to senior leaders at frequent intervals. Such grants are sometimes mysteriously and retro-actively repriced downwards by the Stock Grant Fairy to account for falls in the corporation's stock price.
2. A grant of a modest number of items of stock or shares in the corporation given to employees infrequently and at a price close to the then-current value of the stock. These stock options are never visited by the Stock Grant Fairy. As a result, if the corporation's stock price falls, this leads to their being so far under water that you would need a submarine or a bathysphere to find them.