A lighthearted list for those of us who have spent too much time in business school classrooms or corporate meeting rooms, and have developed certain linguistic and cognitive habits as a result.
- You refer to your weekend plans as a “strategic initiative.”
- You cannot describe a problem without drawing a 2×2 matrix.
- You use “learnings” as a noun, unironically.
- You refer to your friends as “stakeholders.”
- You think “let’s take this offline” is an appropriate thing to say at dinner.
- You have used the phrase “boil the ocean” without immediately following it with an apology.
- You describe your child’s bedtime as a “pain point.”
- You cannot watch a film without conducting a SWOT analysis of the protagonist’s decisions.
- You have said “circling back” to a family member.
- You think the solution to every interpersonal problem is better alignment on objectives and key results.
The frightening thing is that none of these are entirely invented. The MBA vocabulary is a useful toolkit that becomes a prison when it is the only language available. If you found yourself nodding at more than three items on this list, it may be time for a holiday from frameworks.