This week's weasel words
Strategic Resource Augmentation Partner
A job recruiter looking for another recruiter to join their business. Thanks to Pip Davies.
Innovative strategic client driven stakeholder framework
'The College is moving into its next phase of development building on a reputation for innovative service delivery and client driven practice. Central to its strategic plans is the establishment of an Operations Manager role that will provide high level executive, project, financial and administrative support while contributing to the development of a strategic framework necessary for the function, promotion and, expansion of the College ... Proven ability to: • communicate effectively with a range of stakeholders • assess needs of members and stakeholders • establish and maintain consultative networks within key industry stakeholders and groups...' The Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control (ACIPC) job advert for a national operations manager. Thanks to Matthias Maiwald.
THE VU AGENDA: EXCELLENT, ENGAGED AND ACCESSIBLE
'Implementing the Strategic Plan for Victoria University to be a Great University of the Twenty First Century: In meeting the needs of 21st Century learners, we aim to provide purposeful qualifications pathways, both linear and non-linear, that allow modular progression towards successful outcomes.' Victoria University. Thanks to anonymous.
'Just weeks after suffering a significant cardiac event and being retired from stud duty, leading US sire Dynaformer has passed away at Three Chimneys Farm.' breednet.com
OFFICE OF LEADERSHIP AND ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
'The Office delivers the University's strategic organisational and leadership development requirements. The Office will take forward program areas of leadership, management development, succession planning and equity strategies that will play a significant role in delivering the strategic vision of ‘growth and sustainability' for the University.
In addition, the Office provides advice and programs to manage staff and student complaint processes, and exists as an end-point for unsettled employment reviews, grievances and disputes.
The organisational development components of the work program are intended as having a preventive role to grievances and appeals, and enhancing the current intervention role played by the Office of Human Resource Services through their case management model for staff issues.
The two main requirements of the work program are thus linked together as a single project to develop and manage different sides of the University's culture.' Charles Darwin University.
Outreach Librarian
'The Academic Outreach team is a strategic delivery channel for the library's value proposition, in a one on one environment with primary stakeholders – academics, researchers and HDR students ... Strategic initiatives and objectives are developed in alignment with University goals as part of the annual strategic planning process in which all Library teams participate. Library goals are met through cross team projects and team plans which are guided by the Vision, Mission and Goals and the Library’s performance indicator framework.' University of Wollongong. Thanks to anonymous.
Tasers provide one in a range of less-than-lethal options
NSW Minister for Police
'Their life trajectories will be whorls of activity spinning off into periods of retraining and reinvention.'
From the front page of 'The Saturday Age' 6-7 April 2012, in a promotion for feature article 'Her Future', The Age, 6-7 April 2012. Thanks to Andrew Bates.
What others say
Chief Justice backed for attacking managerialism
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VICTORIA'S Chief Magistrate has backed criticism of the Justice Department by Supreme Court Chief Justice Marilyn Warren, saying justice administered by the courts cannot be measured in the same way as widgets.' The Age, 11 May, 2012.
The Hindu
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... the public policy in India betrays two main drawbacks in respect of health, agriculture, and education. “The first is the repeated adoption of managerial…approaches and strategies, which simplify every problem to which they are applied, and thereby ensure policy failure….this policy failure is effectively camouflaged by the usage of managerialist terminology.”' Review of Public Policy & Citizenship: Battling Mangerialism in India, Arvind Sivaramakrishnan. 16 April, 2012.
CBS News on James Murdoch
'At his first appearance before the parliamentary select committee, James Murdoch threw jargon around with enthusiastic abandon. This gave the impression that he'd just emerged from his first year at business school, thus emphasizing his naivete, not his knowhow. Extensive use of jargon isn't just ugly; it always sounds like undigested, barely understood knowledge. The implication that your listeners will be dazzled is inadvertently but implicitly insulting.' 25 April, 2012.
More articles are on this page. Back to top of page. Who are we?
When Don Watson wrote Death Sentence (n UK - Gobbledygook, Atlanti , in US - Death Sentences, Gotham Books) a torrent of letters and emails began from people rebelling against managerial language. Since then Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Clichés, Cant & Management Jargon and Bendable Learnings have been published.
Why Weasel Words?
'In 1916 Theodore Roosevelt declared that the 'tendency to use what have been called weasel words was "one of the defects of our nation".' 'You can have universal training or you can have voluntary training, but when you use the word "voluntary" to qualify the word "universal", you are using a weasel word,' he said: 'it has sucked all the meaning out of "universal".'
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Page last updated
Friday, 11-May-2012
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