A Touch Point By Any Other Name...

For those of you who know me, and I would reckon that to be everyone, you are aware of my time spent in the consulting field. Now, consulting has a lingo all its own, and I find it to be one of the most irritating aspects of the job. I'm sure that other fields have their own sayings that really sting the ears, but I only know the consulting ones. Let me share some of the worst offenders:

Why must we say "Can you reach out to Fran?" when we mean "Can you call Fran?" There is no reaching, and she may be right next to you (which is hardly "out").

Is "Leverage your past experience" more meaningful than "Use your past experience"? Of course it isn't, unless we're talking about physics.

I'm sorry, that "Touch point scheduled at 4 for us to touch base with each other" really doesn't work for me. I don't find you the sort of person I would like to touch points nor bases with (NSFW!!!). However, I would be delighted to have a "Meeting scheduled at 4 for us to talk."

You want to "Circle back this afternoon"? That's a shame because I'm not very flexible, but we can "Meet this afternoon" instead.

"Value proposition"? Speak it in English, broski.

That's only a minute sampling of the content that one hears in the wonderful world of consulting. Does it contribute additional meaning or save valuable time? Perhaps sometimes, but as a guy who enjoys his words its painful for me to hear them used in this way. The majority of the time these words/phrases are filler or additives to make the speaker seem more informed, professional, and competent. For those of us who hear them all the time it has the complete opposite effect. And yes, I am guilty of using them periodically, but it's hard not to when they are so prevalent.

"Where is Andrew going with this and can I take a break to go nuke some Totino's Pizza Rolls?" you might be asking yourself. Of course! I am hardly one to impede pizza roll consumption. In fact, I too would go nuke some pizza rolls if the small store outside the office had a freezer section stocked with American frozen goods. However, I will eventually get to the point. Yesterday, the directors of each of the Grupo GEA branches (there are about 6) and some supporting staff shlepped out to Pachacamac for a bi-annual evaluation meeting. Pachacamac is a district to the south of Lima and is famous for its Incan ruins. I will visit the ruins next Saturday on a field trip with the schools, but the meeting yesterday was held in the farming area of Pachacamac. The 20 of us arrived at a small compound comprised of several small houses, some gardens, and an outdoor cooking area. Don't get grandiose visions of the place - it really felt like someone's house. I'm not positive it wasn't someone's house because there were only three people serving lunch and they could easily have been family members. There was also a very rare fauna, the Llamalax. It's a fascinating variety of llama with the head of a horse...and the body of a horse.

Once we arrived and settled in to the patio on the side of the house, the laptop and projector came out. I was starting to get bad feelings because this meeting was shaping up to be like the meetings I had while consulting. I still held out hope that we might be watching some videos, holding a video conference, or singing Spanish karaoke, but my hopes were crushed when the first PowerPoint slide appeared. I came down here to GET AWAY FROM THAT! I calmed down and reminded myself that:

a. This is not consulting, the content will be different
b. I am volunteering, suck it up
c. Consulting really isn't that bad and I am just thinking this way to have material for the blog entry on Friday

Once I composed myself I was ready to translate the whole affair for Jim (who had returned after running his marathon in Pacasmayo). Then the lingo started to seep into the presentations. "Strategic alliance" mentioned 12 times in the span of 15 minutes. Breathe. I'm okay. "Communication plan" 14 times, and then again 6 times in the following presentation. Take a break, grab some coffee. We're good. "Synergistic positive baselining??" C'mon that doesn't even mean anything!! I must concede that last one didn't actually appear, but during the course of the day I must have heard the first two a total of 40 times. I'm not saying they don't have meaning or merit. However, it's frustrating to hear these phrases repeated again and again as if they are the path to success for Grupo GEA. If the sandwich has a great name but doesn't have any meat (or meat substitute) on the inside, it's not going to quell your hunger (for organizational success). I was just frustrated to see the plans for growth saturated more with buzzwords than concrete ideas and actions. Don't get me wrong, with my Spanish I probably missed most of the actual content. Further, who am I to say what the path should be for a Peruvian NGO? I just noticed that some of the minor annoyances that I saw in consulting definitely appear in other countries, in other industries, in other languages. So much for escaping.