| | By Mick James
I don’t normally read
the Lucy Kellaway column
in the FT. I’ve grown
a bit sick of being
angered by the “business
is all about common
sense, innit, guv?”
approach, the sneering
put-downs of any attempt
to view the business
world as a complex and
difficult place to
operate in. If I want
knee-jerk conservatism,
I can always jump in a
taxi.
But a recent piece
got up my nose. Kellaway
had been sent an
internal memo from Mark
Foster, AccentureGroup
chief executive –
Management Consulting &
Integrated Markets, who
she immediately compared
to “Martin Lukes”, her
own clunking caricature
of a corporate phoney.
Foster’s crime? –
jargon. Now, don’t get
me wrong. I’m no fan of
the consultancy
profession’s rather
unique way with words,
and I’ve often berated
consultants both
publicly and privately
for not making more
effort to speak clearly
and simply. It’s all too
easy to fall into the
comforting rhythms of
consultant-ese. Jargon
can be like the
protective spikes of a
tropical fish, wrapping
one’s words in an outer
show designed both to | |
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| | impress the outside and
to shelter the cowering
beastie within.
But there’s a problem
here. Language can
connect but it can also
imprison. The language
of the 19th century
merchant venturer, as
solid and foursquare as
his mahogany desk, may
not quite be adequate
for the needs of the
21st century. Even if
the words may be
accurate in a strictly
referential sense, their
connotations may jar or
even appal us. Which is
why we no longer talk
about “spastics” and
“cripples”.
Which brings us back
to Foster’s memo. Foster
is rebranding
Accenture’s Human
Performance “line of
service” (Kellaway
wonders why it isn’t
called a “department”)
as “Talent &
Organisation
Performance”. For some
reason Kellaway also
objects to using the
rather warm and
flattering “talent” to
refer to people in place
of the clinical “human
resources”. I had a
conversation with an MD
the other day who
continually referred to
his staff as “resources”
and I found it rather
chilling, as if they
might one day end up in
the pies.
Foster’s rationale is | |
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| | that the rise of a
“multi-polar” world
makes finding and
managing talent a
difficult and complex
task. Kellaway takes
issue with the
“multi-polar” phrase, on
the grounds that the
“laws…of geography” say
there are only two poles
– presumably she is
unfamiliar with the
concept of a metaphor.
Consequently she has
little truck with the
idea that there may be
HR and organisational
issues complex enough to
need the services of an
Accenture.
But she reserves her
true anger for Foster’s
final assertion that
organisations must
“expand their talent
management agenda…to a
broad and strategic
focus on highly
integrated systems of
capabilities fundamental
to business strategies
and operations”. This,
she asserts is
“frightening… shameful,
outrageous bilge. HR
should be narrow. It
should be specifically
focused around the
employee life cycle”.
Shameful? Here we
have what I can only
describe as a difference
of opinion. Foster
believes that the world
has become a complex
place, at least in terms
of the things
organisations do, where | |
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| | they do them and who
they get to do them (I
would have said
“capabilities” but
Kellaway is “not quite
sure what capabilities
are anyway"). The old
East-West, North-South
divisions are breaking
down – hence
“multipolar”. And that
may mean that HR may
need to look a little
further in future than
“hiring, training,
promoting, firing”.
You may disagree.
Kellaway does. But – and
this is my point – that
case needs to be argued.
Just because you can
express your
disagreement in
half-a-dozen words of
two syllables or less,
doesn’t make you right.
Foster is, after all,
betting his organisation
on his thesis.
I don’t blame
Kellaway though. I don’t
even blame the taxi
drivers. I actually
blame, if I blame anyone
at all, Foster and his
ilk. Having understood
the necessity for
change, it’s something
of a duty to get that
message out
(particularly if that
also represents a
massive commercial
opportunity). But people
don’t like it. They fear
and resent it. They will
oppose it, even to their
own detriment, and it’s
a hollow satisfaction to | |
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| | say “I told you so” when
you could not only have
helped the client but
made a fair bit of money
into the bargain.
By rights the
consultant should be the
scary figure who looms
out of the shadows,
grips you by the throat
and rasps: “Change or
die!” Instead we reach
for the sugar cube of
jargon in case the
patient spits out the
medicine.
And that’s the root
of my problem with
jargon. Using jargon
makes it too easy for
people to simply sneer
and move on, without
engaging with the
argument beneath.
Whether it’s feminism or
just-in-time
manufacturing, any new
concept that’s not
expressed directly
enough can simply be
dismissed as “beastly
waffle”. Most of British
manufacturing
disappeared down the
plughole of
plain-speaking common
sense (“people will
never buy Japanese
motorbikes”).
God knows business
jargon does unlovely
things to the language.
But it’s nothing
compared to what the
refusal to change can do
to a company.
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