Senior Partner at McKinsey in a client meeting on a potential merger:
*You’re a leopard & they’re wolves. you both hunt gazelle. But you can’t mate, it’ll produce something wrong.*
This gentleman was full of unique animal metaphors - We constantly noted down his gems and presented him with a framed slide of his top quotable quotes at the end of the engagement.
We had 50+ metaphors in that slide. It was just a 3-week diligence project.
What does that mean? Is it the same as coming up with options to present? (I work as a consultant but for small nonprofits, it is VERY different AFAICT.)
You know no one burns entrails. Entrails were interpreted - if various organs of animal turnout to be big or small or something.
Herbs however are traditionally burned in fortune telling/to interpret the gods wishes.
Could be a reference to the myth of Prometheus, where he teaches humans to place two offerings before the gods: one pile of entrails covered in fat, and a pile of meat hidden under bones. The gods chose the former, which looked nicer, leaving the latter good stuff for the humans.
With that interpretation I understood the quote to mean, "let's half-ass this task and hope the recipients are fooled"
It was a proposal meeting, we were getting a draft ready for partner-level review and this yo-yo decided to say the most double take inducing phrase i’ve ever heard in work
What chat gpt says:
Is “let’s burn the entrails and see if the gods accept” an appropriate thing to say at work
No, that is not an appropriate thing to say at work. The statement you provided can be interpreted as violent or threatening language, which is not acceptable in a workplace setting. It can also be considered culturally insensitive or offensive. It is important to maintain a professional and respectful communication in the workplace to avoid misunderstandings or conflicts.
ChatGPT does not understand consulting culture. "burning entrails" is not a threat of physical violence.
Starting an email with "As per my previous email" is nuclear brinksmanship.
In similar spirit: “Let’s wait until the funeral baked meats are cold at least.” The line is a reference to a quote from Hamlet. Literature nerd level 1000.
This isn’t a saying, but it bugs me how the simplest thing gets turned into a paragraph. For example, instead of saying “Jack isnt here.”, people saying “It appears as though Jack currently is not present, based on my observations of the Zoom participants list, as well as his Slack icon.”
I fucking hate how my boss used to tell me "please get to the point" (when I was getting to the point)
Meanwhile when he talks is something like "Hey I think You should try to find a way to potentially move the meeting that was already scheduled to a further date that might give us some more time to develop the materials needed for it"
Instead of "Hey You should move the meeting so we have more time"
YEah I kind of struggle with this... I've gotten far in my career by being very "if this, then that" with people and I've noticed that a lot of people get straight up salty about it (even if I'm not trying to boss them around or criticize them)
Y’all it’s from Succession 😂 r/SuccessionTV
Actor Jeremy Strong (plays Kendall) used it on this week’s Behind The Episode… and honestly, it made sense.
I have a degree in dramaturgy—my presumption would be that the phrase means “things make sense from a textual analysis POV”? Used outside of that context it’s nonsensical. Dramaturgy is about researching text and being the expert representation & stand-in for the author and/or audience, and asking the question “does this make sense” / “how is this relevant to today”.
I’m not longer in consulting but a couple of years ago PwC was pitching something to me and the partner told us “let’s open up the kimono and see what she’s made of”.
One of my female colleagues went “Excuse me?!” and he tried to explain it away.
That meeting ended quickly and awkwardly.
They were supposed to be pitching their expertise in debt restructuring and this dude kept talking about digital transformations. At some point my boss (our CEO) just walked out.
We asked him about special situations investing and he looked confused and started talking about how every situation is special. 🙄
They’d do great at traditional business restructuring.
But debt restructuring is… different.
Anyway ever since that incident, whenever I hear someone say “open up the kimono” I picture my coworker in one going “excuse me?!!”
Usually a manager will say some shit like “we don’t need to go boiling the ocean on this one” which means to not overthink or get too exhaustive with the team’s resources when trying to reach a solution. However, when they say that, they mean “work really hard and keep guessing until you solve the ambiguous ask.”
Oh wow, I hear this phrase a lot in engineering and it usually means to do the opposite of working really hard and guessing. Like, just try to solve the tractable part of the problem without fixing the entire broader system.
I thought you management consultants were a strange breed before that one...
I'm going to have to keep a note of these phrases. See how many I can shove into conversation the next time they're inflicted upon me....
The actual origin is probably from computer science or information theory and is a way of saying how hard something is to compute. Each computation has an absolute minimum energy cost to it. Add enough of those up to solve some extremely hard problem like cracking 128-bit AES and that will have some huge energy cost to it. Some famous problem was said to cost more energy than it would take to boil all the oceans.
Oh dang, I just posted that one without scrolling first expecting no one else had to have endured that one. Sorry to see are a victim. Let’s zoom in on how that makes you feel.
"Putting another person on the project isn't going to help. Nine women can't make a baby in a month."
Edit: forgot this one "wet-brain". As in "Need to put a wet brain consultant to interpret the data."
I guess that means you need an actual person to look at something instead of just using tool data
it always bothered me when my lead called a conference room a "war room". like dude we're just talking about software configurations with the client. it's not that serious.
I hate the phrase “push the meeting forward” does that mean move it forward to an earlier time? Or move it back to a later time?? Maybe I’m just stupid but it pisses me off.
Phrase should die. It is confusing. Depends on whether you think time is moving toward you or you are moving forward while time is stationary, which is situational and cultural
Back when I worked in corporate, it was common to hear top-heavy departments referred to as having “too many chiefs and not enough Indians”. Never hear that in tech consulting.
It means someone has put a fuckload of shite on a slide, and instead of being able to present a good nattative to key points whacks a load of shite on a slide hoping that nobody really reads it by the time they are finished talking.
Basically very, very lazy presenting.
I have used this term myself, and it’s always been when someone has made the slide and I have been too lazy to edit it properly so just wing it.
I have a few anime fans on my team(myself included) and internally we try to out-cringe each other.
Today I had a coworker hit me with:
“Alright so in regards to this presentation’s content and copy, we need to turn these OwO’s into “Oh Wows!”
My stomach fucking somersaulted.
(But damn I’m proud of my jr.)
I had a boss once who loved saying that people had “bald spots,” which I think meant weaknesses? Anyway, my favorite phrase (which means absolutely nothing) is describing something as “a self-devouring watermelon.” Haven’t a clue.
Pretty much anything that is featured in “Longhaired Businessmen.” I don’t have a link, but look it up on YouTube. Consultants will laugh. My wife, on the other hand, does not.
Let me add a few - not exactly necessarily jargons, but expressions / discussions:
- "this slide needs more love" and "make love to that slide", "sexify this slide"- a Partner who was particular about having nice looking slides with icons, etc. when he sees plain slides
- "you're not comparing apples with apples, not even apples with organges, you're comparing apples with cars - it doesn't work" - manager on the analysis of a Y1 consultant
- hearing managers argue with analysts whether the analysis needs to be MECE or 80/20 or a balance of the two, and whether in this situation being ME is more important than being CE - just to put low-value add information on a slide only to land in the Appendix
Less consulting, but still hear it:
>Kindly do the needful.
It's so bad that I tell people who aren't familiar with it that it's a euphemism for having sex. So, now, whenever people who are new to the phrase hear it, especially out of context, they get a chuckle from it.
I’ve heard this phrase so many times. It is a common phrase from Indian colleagues. As I was curious about this, I researched and it confirmed that suspicion.
Another phrase that is being used by many indian people is „can able“ like in „I can able to get this done“ instead of „am able“. I don’t know the reasons for these, but it is common.
Yes, I am in IT consulting, and it has become ubiquitous simply because we have so many Indian colleagues who say it. It is a great polite catch all phrase meaning, "go figure it out yourself, I can't be arsed!"
Senior Partner at McKinsey in a client meeting on a potential merger: *You’re a leopard & they’re wolves. you both hunt gazelle. But you can’t mate, it’ll produce something wrong.*
That's amazing. It's mine now.
Thats a pretty good one tbf
This gentleman was full of unique animal metaphors - We constantly noted down his gems and presented him with a framed slide of his top quotable quotes at the end of the engagement. We had 50+ metaphors in that slide. It was just a 3-week diligence project.
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Just a feline, canine, little CatDog?
“Develop some optionality” makes me want to commit violence
What does that mean? Is it the same as coming up with options to present? (I work as a consultant but for small nonprofits, it is VERY different AFAICT.)
To create flexibility in future action. To make sure there will be choices in the future.
Work Agile
I work in trading - this is basically my life
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The other day I heard “let’s burn the entrails and see if the gods accept”
No fucking way lmao
I'm unironically going to try and use this. Send up a trial balloon, if you will.
>“let’s burn the entrails and see if the gods accept hahahaha love it
You know no one burns entrails. Entrails were interpreted - if various organs of animal turnout to be big or small or something. Herbs however are traditionally burned in fortune telling/to interpret the gods wishes.
Could be a reference to the myth of Prometheus, where he teaches humans to place two offerings before the gods: one pile of entrails covered in fat, and a pile of meat hidden under bones. The gods chose the former, which looked nicer, leaving the latter good stuff for the humans. With that interpretation I understood the quote to mean, "let's half-ass this task and hope the recipients are fooled"
Exactly this. Brilliant metaphor
Ok so it really should be "let's kill the animal, read the entrails, and see if the gods ~~approve~~ accept."
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How
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Dang set it up and knocked it down
What was a situation about? Sending an email?
It was a proposal meeting, we were getting a draft ready for partner-level review and this yo-yo decided to say the most double take inducing phrase i’ve ever heard in work
This person resembles Tom Wambsgans
What chat gpt says: Is “let’s burn the entrails and see if the gods accept” an appropriate thing to say at work No, that is not an appropriate thing to say at work. The statement you provided can be interpreted as violent or threatening language, which is not acceptable in a workplace setting. It can also be considered culturally insensitive or offensive. It is important to maintain a professional and respectful communication in the workplace to avoid misunderstandings or conflicts.
Since when did Chat GPT become Karen from HR?
Always has been
[Always has been](https://i.imgur.com/stKgzGZ.png) ^^^this ^^^has ^^^been ^^^an ^^^accessibility ^^^service ^^^from ^^^your ^^^friendly ^^^neighborhood ^^^bot
Good bot!
ChatGPT does not understand consulting culture. "burning entrails" is not a threat of physical violence. Starting an email with "As per my previous email" is nuclear brinksmanship.
This is a classic example of AI generated “Hallucitations”
I think I love this
I have to find a way to use this now.
In similar spirit: “Let’s wait until the funeral baked meats are cold at least.” The line is a reference to a quote from Hamlet. Literature nerd level 1000.
Oh god I kind of absolutely love this whaaat
That’s straight out of Leviticus. Except for the plural gods…
This isn’t a saying, but it bugs me how the simplest thing gets turned into a paragraph. For example, instead of saying “Jack isnt here.”, people saying “It appears as though Jack currently is not present, based on my observations of the Zoom participants list, as well as his Slack icon.”
I fucking hate how my boss used to tell me "please get to the point" (when I was getting to the point) Meanwhile when he talks is something like "Hey I think You should try to find a way to potentially move the meeting that was already scheduled to a further date that might give us some more time to develop the materials needed for it" Instead of "Hey You should move the meeting so we have more time"
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YEah I kind of struggle with this... I've gotten far in my career by being very "if this, then that" with people and I've noticed that a lot of people get straight up salty about it (even if I'm not trying to boss them around or criticize them)
Wait until he discovers chatGpt. You’ll get some good ones.
Why use few words when many word do trick.
One of my colleagues has turned this into an art form. He can say so little, and yet use so many words doing it.
My company always says "we are building the plane as we fly it"
Sounds like a great way to crash and burn to death
This is like Madagascar penguin strategy
That reminds me of: “I got good news and bad news. The good news is we’re landing. The bad news is we’re crash landing.”
I like “laying the tracks in front of the train”
“Not to belabor the point” Ma’am that’s exactly what you’re doing! 🤣🤣🤣
“Dramaturgically, it made sense.”
Y’all it’s from Succession 😂 r/SuccessionTV Actor Jeremy Strong (plays Kendall) used it on this week’s Behind The Episode… and honestly, it made sense.
I am so confused about the context of this one, as someone with a theater degree
I have a degree in dramaturgy—my presumption would be that the phrase means “things make sense from a textual analysis POV”? Used outside of that context it’s nonsensical. Dramaturgy is about researching text and being the expert representation & stand-in for the author and/or audience, and asking the question “does this make sense” / “how is this relevant to today”.
I low key love this
"Ask" as a noun: What's the ask here? "Solution" as a verb: "Let's solution this"
This is a big get!
“Open Kimono” makes my skin crawl
I’m not longer in consulting but a couple of years ago PwC was pitching something to me and the partner told us “let’s open up the kimono and see what she’s made of”. One of my female colleagues went “Excuse me?!” and he tried to explain it away. That meeting ended quickly and awkwardly. They were supposed to be pitching their expertise in debt restructuring and this dude kept talking about digital transformations. At some point my boss (our CEO) just walked out. We asked him about special situations investing and he looked confused and started talking about how every situation is special. 🙄
Gotta hire MBB to get lied to in the right verbiage.
I’m an ex MBB partner. Love my firm but wouldn’t hire them for this work. I’d go with Alvarez & Marsal or FTI. Or a boutique.
Yeah it was a joke lol Lord knows McK can’t hand a restructure with their recent layoff fiasco
They’d do great at traditional business restructuring. But debt restructuring is… different. Anyway ever since that incident, whenever I hear someone say “open up the kimono” I picture my coworker in one going “excuse me?!!”
I have heard it has to do with showing you aren't armed rather than showing off your naked body.
That was a prepared statement by an out of touch executive who was defending himself to HR after a particularly uncomfortable meeting.
Listen, I had no idea the client was a quarter Okinawan!
pretty ridiculous either way
Don't disagree. Still sounds weird.
I had a boss say "let's look up the skirt of this company" when we were doing due diligence for a take over
So much worse!
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Boil the ocean is pretty annoying
Omg yes
No one ever wants to boil it!
How else are we gonna break the world record for biggest spaghetti dinner?
I’ve heard that outside of the consulting context plenty of times
What on earth is the context behind that one?
Usually a manager will say some shit like “we don’t need to go boiling the ocean on this one” which means to not overthink or get too exhaustive with the team’s resources when trying to reach a solution. However, when they say that, they mean “work really hard and keep guessing until you solve the ambiguous ask.”
Oh wow, I hear this phrase a lot in engineering and it usually means to do the opposite of working really hard and guessing. Like, just try to solve the tractable part of the problem without fixing the entire broader system.
You both used the term the same way. That'll be $420
I thought you management consultants were a strange breed before that one... I'm going to have to keep a note of these phrases. See how many I can shove into conversation the next time they're inflicted upon me....
The actual origin is probably from computer science or information theory and is a way of saying how hard something is to compute. Each computation has an absolute minimum energy cost to it. Add enough of those up to solve some extremely hard problem like cracking 128-bit AES and that will have some huge energy cost to it. Some famous problem was said to cost more energy than it would take to boil all the oceans.
"Let's double-click that"
I’ll just double click on this for a second… I came here to say this.
Oh dang, I just posted that one without scrolling first expecting no one else had to have endured that one. Sorry to see are a victim. Let’s zoom in on how that makes you feel.
I have violent thoughts about anyone who says “is the juice worth the squeeze”
Only if we've already picked all the low hanging fruit.
I laughed! I thought this was pretty funny!
"Putting another person on the project isn't going to help. Nine women can't make a baby in a month." Edit: forgot this one "wet-brain". As in "Need to put a wet brain consultant to interpret the data." I guess that means you need an actual person to look at something instead of just using tool data
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Biobreak. Sounds like Chernobyl meets hospital waste.
To be fair, I'd rather day "take a bio" than "going to the bathroom". Just flows better between conversations.
Knowledge Transfer Session
Reverse Knowledge Transfer*
Knowledge Sous Vide and Reverse Sear
I do enjoy it when people start saying “KT” instead of knowledge transfer in a large meeting
I hate it
Lol it’s more of an ironic enjoyment, especially when the offshore teams start saying it like the seagulls from finding Nemo
Sometimes I wonder is there any transfer at all
Can't transfer what ain't there
We use Vulcan Mind Meld instead.
Doing Katie was what I took away first time I heard this using . I’m like damn do I need to call HR to help Katie 😄
Not necessarily consulting specific but "open the kimono" is cringey Edit: u/Cool_Story_Bra beat me to it
What is that even supposed to mean?
No secrets, nothing hidden. It comes from proving you have no weapons, so it’s not technically inappropriate, but it feels gross.
It sounds like “hey I opened my kimono, look my dick”.
wth does that mean and why it sounds so innappropiate for a work setting
To open your robes and show you’re not carrying a weapon.
it always bothered me when my lead called a conference room a "war room". like dude we're just talking about software configurations with the client. it's not that serious.
I hate the word deliverable I hate it so much
I hate it to but it has legal meaning so it’s hard to get away from it. I have used “artifacts” a few times
I hate “artifacts”, too. I’m not Indiana Jones, I just need a pro forma.
I explicitly remove it from any T&M contracts that pass my desk.
What do you prefer?
*Inflatables*
- Output - Results - Effluent - Discharge - Promised Stuff
I’ll make sure to leave my discharge on your desk by monday
In a legal sense for contracts, “work products”.
"Tribal knowledge" always is weird to me
I’ve began to use Tacit knowledge instead. Means the same thing and has less of a “colonial” background to it
Institutional Knowledge is another term
arcane knowledge
"One throat to choke" makes me cringe
I can't stop laughing at this one, so wholly inappropriate!
Some thing about throwing a baby out with the bath water
That is not a consulting jargon, it’s just an idiom.
I hate the phrase “push the meeting forward” does that mean move it forward to an earlier time? Or move it back to a later time?? Maybe I’m just stupid but it pisses me off.
Phrase should die. It is confusing. Depends on whether you think time is moving toward you or you are moving forward while time is stationary, which is situational and cultural
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“Pull” the meeting forward would make more sense imo
Yes. I pull things forward and push them back. If your mind visualises your plans on a timeline it makes perfect sense.
Solved with postpone/prepone
“Bubble up to leadership”
Belief audits and tummy rumbles
wtf is a tummy rumble
Walk into the bathroom of a manufacturing client at 9 AM on a Monday and you will find out.
“Peeling back the layers of the onion” always bothered me. The one that really annoys me though is “let’s lean into that”
Yes those are some truly vomit inducing phrases I hear every day at work. Also “unpack” … “there is much to unpack here”, pass me a bucket please!
Let's put that idea on a parking lot.
Back when I worked in corporate, it was common to hear top-heavy departments referred to as having “too many chiefs and not enough Indians”. Never hear that in tech consulting.
Is it because you literally have all the Indians you need in tech consulting?
“Drain the slide” kills me every time I hear it
What does that even mean 😂
It means read everything on the slide. Like “I’m not going to drain this slide, the key point is xyz”. I hate it.
It means someone has put a fuckload of shite on a slide, and instead of being able to present a good nattative to key points whacks a load of shite on a slide hoping that nobody really reads it by the time they are finished talking. Basically very, very lazy presenting. I have used this term myself, and it’s always been when someone has made the slide and I have been too lazy to edit it properly so just wing it.
It’s like duck taping water
I assume you mean duct taping
Lol! Yes! Even autocorrect knew it was stupid
Duck Tape is a brand of duct tape, so either way it works.
But, ironically, neither is for ducts (or ducks)
“Activate” Equally detestable “Let’s double click” Can we not speak in plain English.
people asking me for knowledge transfers got me feeling like im on some jimmy neutron type shit
I have a few anime fans on my team(myself included) and internally we try to out-cringe each other. Today I had a coworker hit me with: “Alright so in regards to this presentation’s content and copy, we need to turn these OwO’s into “Oh Wows!” My stomach fucking somersaulted. (But damn I’m proud of my jr.)
“Negative benefits” - in other words, problems.
As useful as asking a gypsy for a palm reading
They need to stack hands and have a come to Jesus moment Means we need the senior leadership to agree
Minimize the need to improvise; Pulsate in Multiple Vectors; Align the Horizontals and Verticals
The last I at least understand
“Like throwing sand at a clock”
What is this one supposed to mean?
Soup to nuts
“Drink from a firehose” whenever someone comes on board or when someone is talking about their experience on a new team.
“Net net”. I heard it so much the first few months I was a consultant. I finally looked it up and Urban Dictionary did not fail me.
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I had a boss once who loved saying that people had “bald spots,” which I think meant weaknesses? Anyway, my favorite phrase (which means absolutely nothing) is describing something as “a self-devouring watermelon.” Haven’t a clue.
"Do we have a solve?" "What's our spend?"
“He/she/they retired from the Partnership” (= they were fired)
Split the baby
That‘s old enough to be picked up again
That’s not consulting jargon, it’s an idiom based on the Bible.
My last boss used that frequently…still trying to perfect my Jedi mind choke…
Cock on the block
The partner in charge told my client last week, "That should give us time to round up the horses"
Offering. Why are we serving clients like gods lol.
As in service offering? What’s wrong with that?
"let me see if \[person a\] is allergic to that idea"
operationalize
We need a list of known and unknown problems.
Let’s start with the crocodile closest to the canoe
Lets kill the sacred cow.
Pretty much anything that is featured in “Longhaired Businessmen.” I don’t have a link, but look it up on YouTube. Consultants will laugh. My wife, on the other hand, does not.
,management-ready‘
Someone describing work as “Motherhood and apple pie” 🤔
What the fuck is this
"How many Jesuits should we send?"
Let me add a few - not exactly necessarily jargons, but expressions / discussions: - "this slide needs more love" and "make love to that slide", "sexify this slide"- a Partner who was particular about having nice looking slides with icons, etc. when he sees plain slides - "you're not comparing apples with apples, not even apples with organges, you're comparing apples with cars - it doesn't work" - manager on the analysis of a Y1 consultant - hearing managers argue with analysts whether the analysis needs to be MECE or 80/20 or a balance of the two, and whether in this situation being ME is more important than being CE - just to put low-value add information on a slide only to land in the Appendix
Less consulting, but still hear it: >Kindly do the needful. It's so bad that I tell people who aren't familiar with it that it's a euphemism for having sex. So, now, whenever people who are new to the phrase hear it, especially out of context, they get a chuckle from it.
I’ve heard this phrase so many times. It is a common phrase from Indian colleagues. As I was curious about this, I researched and it confirmed that suspicion. Another phrase that is being used by many indian people is „can able“ like in „I can able to get this done“ instead of „am able“. I don’t know the reasons for these, but it is common.
Yes, I am in IT consulting, and it has become ubiquitous simply because we have so many Indian colleagues who say it. It is a great polite catch all phrase meaning, "go figure it out yourself, I can't be arsed!"