I’m a fan of plain English, however some of you may be working in companies where this is unfashionable and consultese is the norm. How then to make meetings bearable? The answer is bullshit bingo! To the best of my knowledge this game was invented by some friends in a major London management consultancy company about ten years back.
How to Play Bullshit Bingo
First you need a friend- it can be played alone but it’s not nearly as much fun
- You and you friend pick nine jargon words and put them in a grid as shown
- Bring this to a meeting and cross off words that are mentioned
- When you get a line, you must say a sentence involving every word in that line to claim victory!
More information on bullshit bingo is here. And there’s even a special NHS version here.
To be fair (an overused opener) all organisations have their own jargon and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as uncommon terms can speed things up. For me jargon only becomes bullshit when it takes away clarity (“swings and roundabouts” for example seems to mean different things to different people and be used as a catch all justification for non action.”
Look here for good quality and relatively* jargon free business training,
*I think “embodied” is necessary terminology, I’ll let you decide about “bespoke” and “bottom line” 🙂
Wayne Hall
Where can I get some of the Bullshit Bingo tiles?
Mark Walsh
Pretty eaye to make your own no Wayne?