HarperCollins - Talk More. Say Less. Get Ahead.

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

HarperCollinsPublishers

1st Floor, Watermarque Building, Ringsend Road

Dublin 4, Ireland

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

FIRST EDITION

HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

Illustrations by Joelle Avelino

Cover layout design by Sim Greenaway HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Harriet Dobson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at

www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

Source ISBN: 9780008434137

Ebook Edition August 2021 ISBN: 9780008434144

Version: 2021-07-07

This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

• Change of font size and line height
• Change of background and font colours
• Change of font
• Change justification
• Text to speech
• Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008434137

For all those who hold the career ladders of others as they climb higher and higher to success

ITS TIME TO LET GO

Whether youre new to the world of work or you just want to brush up on your leadership lingo, were here to help. Conveniently sized to fit into the pockets of any power suit, this book will allow you to translate your colleagues confusing, yet persuasive, choices of language without any of them realising what youre really fumbling with underneath that meeting table.

Soon, you too will have the confidence to repeat phrases like these, without a hint of embarrassment or irony:

Lets fry some ideas in the thought wok and see what sizzles.

Lets look under the bonnet of this project to really get these wagons circling.

Action that! (Even if youre not totally clear on what that is.)

Helping you leap up that career ladder as if it were a strategic staircase to Inspiration Boulevard, this book will allow you to both ask and answer all of the questions you hadnt thought to ask, because you hadnt really understood them, including:

How much bucketising is too much bucketising?

When is it appropriate to put on a record to see who dances in a strictly business scenario?

Is punching a puppy always the best approach to winning a deal?

But as we all know, the best questions are left unanswered, so this book will leave you to devise your own answer to the following question:

Why do we speak this way?

So, dive into these pages as if your career depends on it, because it does.

A

Action that!

This can be said in response to any idea no matter your level of seniority. Make sure to yell it enthusiastically and accompany it with a heavy-handed point at whoever you think spoke last. It is particularly effective if you stand up and leave the room immediately afterwards.

Standing up or sitting down do your business like nobodys watching.

Agile working

Meaning you can work from anywhere at all a coffee shop, a sofa, a bed, the cupboard where you usually go to cry, the corner you crouch in when your weekly panic attacks hit, the beach, etc. In a cruel twist of irony, agile working actually makes you much, much less agile; your shoulders hunch, leg cramps become the norm and if you have any strength left in your arms at all, youll start involuntarily waving goodbye to any feeling in your buttocks.

Al desko

A play on the Italian al fresco, the literal translation of which is in the cool. Al desko is where one sits at ones desk slurping lunch all over the keyboard while watching ones inbox pile up at a staggering velocity. The first rule of eating al desko is to tell everybody youve eaten al desko this will give you extra brownie points with the boss and make your colleagues feel guilty about their 10-minute dash to PRET.

All sizzle no steak

This can be used to describe anything that hasnt reached the high expectations you pinned to it six months ago. Realising your mistake, you might swivel at dangerous speed on your swivel chair, desperately searching for somebody to blame. Jason might catch your eye, and before you have time to remember whether or not this was his project, you might say:

No, Jason, its not good enough these numbers are all sizzle, no steak, which is what I predicted months ago!

Be sure to whip back around for maximum effect.

Analysis paralysis

Workers spend on average 66% of their working week in a state of analysis paralysis. It describes the act of overthinking every possible outcome of a situation to the point where nothing gets accomplished at all. In short, its a creativity killer.

So when next you find yourself at the end of another of your mediocre presentations, instead of sweating your way through garbled answers to fill the time that somebody stupidly allotted for questions, just hold up both hands, arrange your face into a warm yet patronising smile and say:

Look, guys, were in danger of analysis paralysis here. No further questions, please.

Keep those hands raised as you back up slowly through the nearest exit.

AOB

Traditionally known as the time allotted to discuss Any Other Business at the end of a meeting. True leaders will ignore the pleading eyes and turbulent fidgets of their colleagues and will instead choose this moment to raise a complicated discussion point that will take at least fifteen minutes to untangle and resolve.

If you require a volunteer for a project, this is the best time to source one. Your weaker-bladdered co-workers will be so desperate to leave the meeting, theyll agree to do absolutely anything.

B

Backburner

Your work backburner is a document or folder where the worst of your very average ideas go to live in a state of purgatory. Not quite bad enough to be written off completely, not quite good enough to be spoken about publicly other than to be muttered to your boss when you realise there are still seven minutes left of your weekly catch-up and youve run out of goodaverage things to say. Your backburner is also a great place to compile a list of tasks for whoever is to replace you when you retire. Its best to start this list on the very first day of your career and just keep adding to it, unrewarding decade after unrewarding decade.

Balls in a jam jar

If a competitor or client has your companys collective balls in a jam jar, its likely an emergency meeting will be called to extract them. Essentially it means your hands are tied, but its much worse because instead of your hands, its your balls; and instead of a rope, its a transparent jar that can be paraded around for all to see. Remember: nothing can be more reputationally damaging than indecent exposure. If during the emergency meeting you sense that your colleagues arent taking this quite as seriously as they ought, be sure to up the level of hysteria by slamming your hand down on the table and yelling: