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I recently attended the 10th anniversary reunion of my IMD MBA Class of 2013 in Lausanne, and part of that even was also a discussion panel on various topics.
The request to “tell us what you do” is a common one towards panel participants. Here’s what one of the panelists responded to that question, apparently without a shred of irony or jest:
“I leverage thought leaders to…”
…and then some word salad about solving the climate crisis or some global problem that absolutely no leverage of thought leadership is going to address.
Also, that person said:
“I am passionate about innovation and technology.”
…and throughout the panel discussion also mentioned, among others:
- “grow the pie”
- “resilience”
- “public Blockchain”
- “AI”
- “ChatGPT”
- “Smart Contracts”
- “transformation”
- “leverage”
- “mindfulness”
- “global coordination”
- “sustainability”
…and kept referring to people as “humans”.
I know all this because I and a few friends of mine in the audience started playing buzzword bingo in our Signal group chat as soon as we heard the opening phrase, and the buzzwords kept coming faster than we could type.
The panelist did not disappoint, though in retrospect I was hoping for a bit more mentions of “agile” or “transformation”, to really score in the big leagues. Alas!
I don’t know who won the bingo.
But I know that many kittens died.
Because, everytime you use a word salad to make yourself seem impressive, here is what happens:
- Cthulhu kills a kitten.
- You sound like a doofus.
- Nothing gets leveraged. Not even thought leaders. 😔
Do yourself a favor; don’t be like that panelist.
