4 INFLATION JARGON
The television series House of Lies is a true guilty pleasure for anyone who works in management consulting or who hires management consultants. If you haven't yet seen the show, it stars Don Cheadle as Marty Khan who leads a “pod” of self-loathing, high-priced, low-value management consultants based in Los Angeles.
In the first episode of season 1, Khan is brought into a surprise meeting with a major financial institution which has been an important client. The senior executive leading the meeting has a bone to pick with Khan and confronts him with, “You're the mad genius we're paying all this money for? Well, why don't you just tell us what you're thinking. Go.”
Khan first tries to flatter the client, unsuccessfully. Then he tries to ask the client for his opinion, which also fails to impress. In desperate straits, Khan holds up a sign with his trump card. It reads, “Use Indecipherable Jargon” (this is one of the show's greatest tropes – Khan freezing the scene and talking directly to the audience, letting the viewers in on the idiocy of what he is doing).
Then he starts talking: “Because the pod remains convinced there is a burning platform but we just don't have the bandwidth to go into a black factory and blow out the paradigms with a white paper.”
Everyone I talk to about this moment in this episode – and believe me, everyone I know in the consulting world watches this show – has two reactions to Khan's jargon. First, that it's absolutely hilarious. ...
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