BUSINESS CLICHES BUSTED
Deborah Meaden reveals her Top Ten business cliches
1. ‘360-degree thinking’
The phrase ‘360-degree thinking’ should be put away in a locked box along with ‘blue sky thinking’, ‘thinking out of the box’ and countless other meaningless phrases that imply that otherwise one-dimensional, dull, uncreative thinking is the norm. Businessmen who pepper their language with these wretched clichés are just saying that they don’t have an original thought and they don’t have a good command of the English language either. Any business discipline requires creative thought, but creative thinking should be an everyday occurrence not simply trotted out when demanded and on special occasions. 2. ‘Don’t reinvent the wheel’
Just because an idea isn’t completely original doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. Entrepreneurs will spend their lives trying to make the wheel just a little bit better. There are times when someone can make a single tweak to improve a product or service and that contribution will suddenly make it fly. 3. ‘Every day is a new challenge’
Everyone lives through life-changing events and episodes that alter the way they do business or their outlook on life. The point is, however, that they do not happen every day. Every day is not a new challenge, because that would be impossible to sustain. Even if a person is running the most dynamic business in the world, which is absolutely of the moment, there will be days when they just have to get on with the mundane. I suspect that when people claim that they are fighting off challenges every waking hour of the day they don’t actually understand what a challenge is… 4. ‘When one door closes, another opens’
It is just too passive in a business setting simply to expect something better to come along. I find that people spend far too much time fixated on the door that has just closed, rather than seeking out all the alternative opportunities available. I am a great believer in the fact that if you are looking for an opportunity you will see it. Which is why, for entrepreneurs, it is less about waiting for the door to open and more about pushing it open themselves or even finding a new way to create the doorway itself. 5. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’
A new business should constantly be looking to move things forward and considering what might be around the corner. Expressions like ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ are just too passive. Surely the appropriate strategy is to keep ahead of events? A company cannot simply wait for things to happen to the business and then react when it is very often too late to do anything about it. 6. ‘Be proactive, not reactive’
A good company runs on a mixture of proactive and reactive initiatives. It should keep ahead of the game by judging the market and forecasting what will be important to its customers in the future, and it should also take the temperature of what is making them tick right now. In truth, no matter how well entrepreneurs think they know a given market, the consumer will always surprise them. There will be a sudden shift in public opinion or something out of the ordinary will capture the customersrsquo; imaginations, and it is up to the market to react swiftly to the change. As long as a business responds quickly and effectively, everything is fine. There is no problem whatsoever with being reactive. It is standing still and ignoring the Zeitgeist that is the real crime in business. 7. ‘Lunch is for wimps’
I don’t normally eat lunch out of choice, but I do make time to have some lunches with my team because they can be extremely useful. I don’t think everybody has to get together, have a glass of wine and slap each other on the back. However, lunches with a purpose are a good environment to talk about key issues. In my experience putting people around a dinner table will always produce some interesting angles that previously may not have been considered. Everyone is used to having dinner in a social setting where it is the norm to search for a new topic and some common ground with fellow diners. There is a far more random, circular thought process than in a corporate setting, and even the shape and intimacy of the table can change the direction of the conversation&hellip 8. ‘You can’t turn around a tanker with a speedboat change’
The cliché ‘you can’t turn around a tanker with a speedboat change’ usually comes up when I want to communicate something through the organisation quickly and get an instant reaction. It is the type of expression that is trotted out by executives who shake their heads and whistle through their teeth that this or that action is impossible to get done in that time frame because so many extra factors need to be taken into account. I hate that… 9. ‘Anything that can go wrong will go wrong’
This a myth that is so against my philosophy of life that I find it hard to imagine why it ever came to be uttered. To say that things ‘just go wrong’, as if there is a victim who has played no part in the problem or who has no control over events whatsoever, is inexcusable. We all play a key role in our destiny by making sure that the job is done properly, the issues are anticipated correctly, and the necessary actions are taken to avoid or mitigate loss. Things going wrong should not become an everyday part of life; if they do the entrepreneur needs to do some serious work to find out why and institute a change… 10. ‘Look after number one’
Looking after number one is selfish and short sighted. A company founder should look after everyone who is involved in their business and on the outside. Then the business will look after them. If an entrepreneur puts their own needs and wants ahead of the business and its requirements, particularly in the early days, they run the real risk of allowing the business to fail. It is a symbiotic relationship. A person who makes sure that a business gets what it needs will more than likely end up getting what they need out of it…
Deborah Meaden reveals her Top Ten business cliches
1. ‘360-degree thinking’
The phrase ‘360-degree thinking’ should be put away in a locked box along with ‘blue sky thinking’, ‘thinking out of the box’ and countless other meaningless phrases that imply that otherwise one-dimensional, dull, uncreative thinking is the norm. Businessmen who pepper their language with these wretched clichés are just saying that they don’t have an original thought and they don’t have a good command of the English language either. Any business discipline requires creative thought, but creative thinking should be an everyday occurrence not simply trotted out when demanded and on special occasions. 2. ‘Don’t reinvent the wheel’
Just because an idea isn’t completely original doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. Entrepreneurs will spend their lives trying to make the wheel just a little bit better. There are times when someone can make a single tweak to improve a product or service and that contribution will suddenly make it fly. 3. ‘Every day is a new challenge’
Everyone lives through life-changing events and episodes that alter the way they do business or their outlook on life. The point is, however, that they do not happen every day. Every day is not a new challenge, because that would be impossible to sustain. Even if a person is running the most dynamic business in the world, which is absolutely of the moment, there will be days when they just have to get on with the mundane. I suspect that when people claim that they are fighting off challenges every waking hour of the day they don’t actually understand what a challenge is… 4. ‘When one door closes, another opens’
It is just too passive in a business setting simply to expect something better to come along. I find that people spend far too much time fixated on the door that has just closed, rather than seeking out all the alternative opportunities available. I am a great believer in the fact that if you are looking for an opportunity you will see it. Which is why, for entrepreneurs, it is less about waiting for the door to open and more about pushing it open themselves or even finding a new way to create the doorway itself. 5. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’
A new business should constantly be looking to move things forward and considering what might be around the corner. Expressions like ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ are just too passive. Surely the appropriate strategy is to keep ahead of events? A company cannot simply wait for things to happen to the business and then react when it is very often too late to do anything about it. 6. ‘Be proactive, not reactive’
A good company runs on a mixture of proactive and reactive initiatives. It should keep ahead of the game by judging the market and forecasting what will be important to its customers in the future, and it should also take the temperature of what is making them tick right now. In truth, no matter how well entrepreneurs think they know a given market, the consumer will always surprise them. There will be a sudden shift in public opinion or something out of the ordinary will capture the customersrsquo; imaginations, and it is up to the market to react swiftly to the change. As long as a business responds quickly and effectively, everything is fine. There is no problem whatsoever with being reactive. It is standing still and ignoring the Zeitgeist that is the real crime in business. 7. ‘Lunch is for wimps’
I don’t normally eat lunch out of choice, but I do make time to have some lunches with my team because they can be extremely useful. I don’t think everybody has to get together, have a glass of wine and slap each other on the back. However, lunches with a purpose are a good environment to talk about key issues. In my experience putting people around a dinner table will always produce some interesting angles that previously may not have been considered. Everyone is used to having dinner in a social setting where it is the norm to search for a new topic and some common ground with fellow diners. There is a far more random, circular thought process than in a corporate setting, and even the shape and intimacy of the table can change the direction of the conversation&hellip 8. ‘You can’t turn around a tanker with a speedboat change’
The cliché ‘you can’t turn around a tanker with a speedboat change’ usually comes up when I want to communicate something through the organisation quickly and get an instant reaction. It is the type of expression that is trotted out by executives who shake their heads and whistle through their teeth that this or that action is impossible to get done in that time frame because so many extra factors need to be taken into account. I hate that… 9. ‘Anything that can go wrong will go wrong’
This a myth that is so against my philosophy of life that I find it hard to imagine why it ever came to be uttered. To say that things ‘just go wrong’, as if there is a victim who has played no part in the problem or who has no control over events whatsoever, is inexcusable. We all play a key role in our destiny by making sure that the job is done properly, the issues are anticipated correctly, and the necessary actions are taken to avoid or mitigate loss. Things going wrong should not become an everyday part of life; if they do the entrepreneur needs to do some serious work to find out why and institute a change… 10. ‘Look after number one’
Looking after number one is selfish and short sighted. A company founder should look after everyone who is involved in their business and on the outside. Then the business will look after them. If an entrepreneur puts their own needs and wants ahead of the business and its requirements, particularly in the early days, they run the real risk of allowing the business to fail. It is a symbiotic relationship. A person who makes sure that a business gets what it needs will more than likely end up getting what they need out of it…
