Management using jargon like blue sky thinking, brain dump, thinking outside the box, get our ducks in a row confuse staff more than encourage them. We may have heard “thinking outside of the box” for years (I met that term in my first job out of college), but BBC News reports these terms don’t go over well with employees.
“Thinking outside the box” doesn’t sound bad. I think it’s a simple phrase that reminds us to try to brainstorm different and uncommon ways to deal with something or to find a solution. Perhaps, employees believe management is trying to impress rather than communicate when using jargon. Maybe not the “box” one specifically, but others they encounter.
As a long-time process manager, “best practices” appeared in my work all the time. It still does. But it’s the one phrase I can’t find a better term for. It says exactly what we mean… “best practices” for doing something. To explain it another way would take more words.
