Boss-hole
A manager whose open door policy mostly means open season on your calendar. Feedback arrives only as new problems.
"He booked a 4:30 Friday sync to ask why morale is low. Total boss-hole."
#management
22 entries
Quick sync
A meeting that is neither quick nor synchronized, scheduled because someone refused to read the thread.
"This quick sync has a slide deck and a pre-read."
Velocity
A made-up number the team agrees to believe in so leadership feels safe.
"We doubled our velocity by changing what a point means."
Stakeholder
Anyone with enough opinions and no actual responsibility to derail your timeline.
"A stakeholder I have never met just vetoed the button color."
Re-prioritize
To drop everything for yesterday fire, which is now somehow less urgent than today fire.
"We re-prioritized so hard the roadmap is just a list of regrets."
Synergies
The savings a merger promises and the layoffs it actually delivers.
"The synergies were realized. The synergies were the whole Greg department."
Cadence
A fancy word for how often we will have the meeting we all dread.
"We established a weekly cadence to discuss why the cadence is not working."
Open door policy
A door that is always open and a manager who is never behind it.
"I used the open door policy and found an empty office."
Performance review
An annual ritual where a year of work is reduced to meets expectations.
"My performance review said I exceed expectations and my raise said otherwise."
Stretch goal
A target set so high that missing it is built into the plan.
"The stretch goal was 300%, so 90% is technically a disappointment."
Servant leader
A leader who serves you a vision and lets you carry it.
"Our servant leader empowered us to do his job for him."
Micromanage
To hire smart people and then narrate their every keystroke.
"He micromanages so closely he has opinions on my cursor."
Skip level
A meeting with your boss boss where you pretend everything is great.
"My skip level was 30 minutes of saying things are going well."
One on one
A weekly meeting that drifts from your growth to the manager feelings.
"My one on one became therapy, and I was the therapist."
Empower
To give someone responsibility without the authority to use it.
"They empowered me to fix it but not to change anything."
Delegate
To hand off a task and keep all the credit on standby.
"He delegated the work and personally accepted the praise."
Bench
Where talented people wait between projects and slowly forget their skills.
"I have been on the bench so long I updated my resume twice."
Synergy
The magic that happens when two departments combine and accomplish less.
"Our synergy doubled the meetings and halved the output."
Synergy
A word executives say right before something gets eliminated.
"When he said synergy in the all hands, the room held its breath."
Quota
A number designed to be just out of reach all year.
"I hit 99% of quota, which counts as failure and a great story."
Bandwidth
The mental capacity you do not have for the thing you are being assigned.
"I do not have the bandwidth, said the person with seven open tabs of panic."
Bandwidth
A unit of busyness measured entirely by how unwilling you are to help.
"He suddenly had no bandwidth the second the favor appeared."