How our corporate culture loves a tired metaphor! Try this at your next interminable staff meeting. Make up some blank bingo cards and populate those empty matrices with all the hollow phrases and vapid jargon you will inevitably endure before day's end. Write down "outside the box", "win-win" and the odious "24/7." Make "re-invent the wheel" the free space on every card, and keep score with your disaffected co-workers as these underwhelming terms and analogies surface during the course of the meeting. If you are feeling really secure in your marketability, by all means shout "BINGO!" after your boss says "brain dump" or "let's take this off-line."
Taking pot shots at corporate speech is like shooting quail with the Vice President: with so many targets, how can you miss? So instead of merely stating the obvious fact that lazy corporate speech is disingenuous, lacks originality and fails to inspire, permit me instead to deconstruct one of my least favorite metaphors - "gaining traction" -and explore alternatives to the business model it implies.
Here are just a few recent uses of this phrase "ripped from the headlines."
- "1st Strike on Iran 'gaining traction' Report urges US., Israel to consider pre-emptive attack against Tehran." - WorldNetDaily 5/4/2005
- "Statehouse primaries gain traction. 44 races scheduled for May are an increase over past 2 election years" - Indystar.com 2/18/2006
- "Minimally invasive hip replacement gaining traction" -Mecompare
- "Goodyear's (GT: 14.61, -0.26, -1.8%) stock had been performing like a sturdy tire on rocky terrain — gaining solid traction."
O.K., that last one may be legitimate, but let the exception prove the rule. I want to know how a word denoting adhesive friction and pulling power makes the leap from the world of snow tires and heavy machinery to the conference rooms of environmental non-profits where I often encounter it.
Is there a chapter on gaining traction in "Middle Management for Dummies?" Did I "miss the memo?"
One hears "gaining traction" used to describe speculation that something is catching on, or has a growing base of support. In the corporate world it often describes the process of moving a stalled effort forward or building momentum. Used in this way, "to gain traction" is akin to the equally hackneyed "to have legs."
It is curious that traction is the corporate metaphor of choice for overcoming obstacles, although "leverage" has its applications here as well, especially in getting more for less. Drawing a load over a resistant surface by traction is an act of brute force, with connotations of tires gripping asphalt and horsepower driving engines. It is, needless to say, a hopelessly masculine image, and suggests a masculine business model of conquest, dominance, and projections of power. Not much place there for partnership, for synergies, for more than us vs. them.
The other physical -and metaphoric- alternative to traction for overcoming resistance is to apply some lubrication. A bit of grease on the skids and the log moves almost effortlessly across the surface. Lubricated moving parts expend their energies in support of each other without losing integrity. The term has probably not gained...momentum...because of its common association with greased palms and greased mob victims, but it may also threaten the coiners of "corporate speak" with its distinctly feminine overtones. Still, I challenge you afictionados of fat tires and big engines to gain traction without a well-oiled machine.
Imagine these headlines:
"Middle East Peace Talks Greased by UN Mediation"
"Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions Gets Lubricated in President's Budget"
Study Shows Safe Sex Increasing Lubricity"
Now that's imaginative use of the language.
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