Excerpts from JUST WORDS

I owe my readers an apology. For some time ”Just Words – a sceptic’s glossary” has been sitting in my list of Ebooks – but, when clicked, drew a blank. I’ve now sorted this out. And by way of compensation let me offer some excerpts.

But first, let me explain the title – of which I’m rather proud. The title has two meanings – the first could be construed as half-apologetic, meaning these are mere words – some trifles. The second relates the title to the idea of justice and the 60 pages do offer a real treasure trove about how the literary world has challenged the powers-that-be – whether Jonathan Swift, Gustave Flaubert, George Orwell, Ambrose Bierce, J Ralston Saul or Anthony Jay. Apart from my own definitions of words commonly used by bureacrats and politicians (some 100) to deceive us, I’ve also found many other examples.

So here goes -

Assumptions; the things other people make – which cause problems. Parsed – “I think; you assume; (s)he fucks up”. Project management techniques do require us to list assumptions and identify and manage risks – but in the field of technical Assistance these are just boxes to tick. In any project, the best approach is to list the worst things which could happen, assume they will occur and plan how to minimise their frequency and effects.

Audit; something both overdone and underdone – overdone in volume and underdone in probity. A process more feared at the bottom than at the top as frequent recent scandals (Enron; global banking scandals have demonstrated). See also “Law”

Benchmark; a technical-sounding term which gives one’s discourse a scientific aura.

Best practice; one of the most dangerous terms of the English language – implying, aș it does, that the answer to our problems has a solution which fits all contexts.

Bottleneck; what prevents an organisation from achieving its best performance – always located at the top!

Capacity; something which other people lack

Communications; the first thing which people blame when things go wrong – parsed “I communicate; you misunderstand; he/they don’t listen”.

Consultation; the skill of bouncing other people to agree with what you have already decided.

Contract out; as in “put out a contract on” – to wipe out.

Decentralisation; creating local people who can be made scapegoats for deterioration in service.

Empower; a classic word of the new century which suggests that power can be benignly given – when in reality it has to be taken.

Evidence-based policy-making; a phrase which represents the hubristic peak of the generation of UK social scientism which captured the UK civil service in the late 1990s at the time its political masters succumbed to corporate interests and therefore were practising less rather than more evidence-based policy-making!

Evaluation; job-creation for surplus academics. An important part of the policy-making process which has been debased by it being sub-contracted to a huge industry of consultants who produce large reports which are never read by policy-makers.

Focus group; a supposedly representative group of voters who will give us a clue about what we should be doing.

Hubris; something which politicians and policy experts suffer from – ie a belief that their latest wheeze will solve problems which eluded the skills and insights of their predecessors

Human Resource management (HRM); treating staff and workers like dirt

Law; “the spider's webs which, if anything small falls into them ensnare it, but large things break through and escape”. Solon

Lobbyists; people who make the laws

Reform; to divert attention from core questions by altering organisational boundaries and responsibilities

Training; “surgery of the mind”. A marvellous phrase an old political colleague of mine used to describe the mind-bending and propaganda which goes on in a lot of workshops.

Trust; something which economists and their models don’t have and which, therefore, is assumed by them not to exist within organisations. As economic thinking has invaded public organisations, everyone has been assumed to be a “rent-seeker” – and a huge (and self-fulfilling) edifice of audits, checks and controls have been erected

Whistle-blower; a Jesus Christ figure who blows a whistle – but is subsequently crucified.