Excerpts from an Executive Lexicon(c)

Candor -- French. Telling the truth, then getting canned and shown the door.

Claradigm -- See Clara Peller, Actress; Wendy's Hamburgers: "Where's the Beef?™"

Crampion -- Throbbing pain you get after being told you're heading up the internal morale initiative following the recent layoffs.

Cross-disciplinarian -- A person, usually management, with a strong aversion to departmental collaboration but no qualms about public floggings.

Disintermediaryexpialidocious -- Medical term: Excision of puss-filled lesion. (Colloquial: Fire a consultant.)

Dreamline -- The result of a 1st year MBA's efforts to Pareto-ize your supply chain so as to schedule-compress your resource-constrained mission-critical methodologies. (Usually presented in the form of a Flower Point.)

Flan -- The Plan that results from the decison to execute a Frydea.

FlowerPoint™ -- Presenter (or presentation) oblivious to an audience sniggering at repeated uses of "agreeance," "paradigm," "synergy," or "bucketize."

Frenchmarking -- the process of comparing practices within your company to those of the very best organizations and then insisting they got lucky, aren't as unique as you, don't have your challenges or vision.

Frownsize -- Number of "personal days" after announcing "There will be no bonuses this year due to the economy."

Frydea (Frydealist; frydealism) -- A concept or idea that a decisionmaker thinks is deeply insightful or useful, and one that those responsible for executing believe could easily have come from a high-schooler who works at McDonalds.

Jingo! -- What somebody shouts when their CRM, SCM, SRM, PDM, ESM are in full agreeance validating the ASP. Extra points if your CAGR, NPV, ROI and resultant C-Level salaries are in exceedance of best practice forecasts.

Loss Liter -- Unit of measure. Amount of alcohol consumed upon learning the brown-nose down the hall got your raise/promotion/office.

Low-hanging flute -- Person who wildly brags on their abilities based on a few gimme sales or a virgin territory.

Mentorture -- The experience of being assigned to a more senior associate to learn the ropes, only to find their primary skill is bitching about the company.

Mr. Rogers -- Company Morale Officer.

Parody Pricing -- Charging what the competition charges for a comparable offering, except yours doesn't work when customers get it home.

Permission Marketing -- Asking people if it's okay to bug them with your company's inane marketing boilerplate so as not to piss them off by ambushing them with your company's inane marketing boilerplate.

Peter Principal[sic] -- Indicator that certain small businesses shall remain so. Forever.

Poutsource -- A cherry job that goes outside the firm. You really wanted it, but know that you're so busy you'd screw it up. You want it anyway.

Pro Formation -- Finance. Latin for "Making Shit Up"

Sayback -- The sometimes not so subtle hints to customers that "maybe you shouldn't hope for too much from this new [insert product, initiative, merger etc]."

Shad & Freud -- The eyerolling that begins when a Leader annouces a new intiative. Combines the concepts of "egg on the face" and "fish stinks from the head down."

Shamnesia -- Mandating something as "all hands on deck,' then getting pissed-off when your people aren't at their desks.

Shempowerment -- Yielding just enough "authority" to individuals who complain that the thing that prevents them from tackling the status quo is the "permission" to take a stand.

Shrimplementation -- tackling a labor intensive task with little chance of it being noticed or remembered. (See: Shamnesia.)

Shyhole -- Chairman's pet project that continues on long past its useful life and drain on resources out of deference to the old man.

Smassion (Smassionate) -- The perverse joy some people take in crushing the enthusiasm of others.

Squishion --- A mission built out of compromise and bits of Wision.

Skunk Costs -- The lingering odor that kills any new idea since somebody in marketing got a deal on that truckload of Hawaiian shirts for casual friday.

Tom Collins -- 1. A a fizzy, tart alcoholic mixed drink. 2. A presentation that giddily mixes metaphors and business prescriptives from the likes of Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence; Thriving on Chaos) and Jim Collins (Built To Last; Good to Great).

Tumbleweeds -- The wildly enthusiastic employees who embrace an initial idea only to cool on the concept after discovering it is heavy on the "work" requirement and light on the "cheerleader " element.

Tuttlebutt -- When Sayback has become sufficiently pervasive that people have had a chance to make up their minds -- and start speaking openly about passive or active sabotage. (See: Film Brazil; Tuttle, Harry)

Value-Chain Letter -- Mass-notice to all departments, suppliers, contractors, distributors et al that "There's no pie in TEAM: Cut costs or you won't be 'retained'."

Visiot -- One familiar with but not facile in Microsoft Visio™ whose process maps read like the Seven Rings of Hell. (See Dante: Change Agent.)

Wetworking -- 1. The "non-structured" portion of out-of-town Professional Development opportunities. 2. A process yielding the largest number of crumpled business cards with names you don't recognize.

Whiffle Ball -- Company-wide gathering to announce a "significant event". Often accompanied by cold plate or bad hors d'oeurves.

Wision -- Wishing for an outcome or future when you know your people don't give a rat's ass.

World-klass -- Your heart's in the right place, it's your execution that sucks.

Youthenasia -- The belief that any idea deriving from anyone younger or less senior than you deserves to die, on principle.

Zero Defective - Company TQM/Six Sigma Guru.