For a hotshot communicator, Procter & Gamble’s global marketing officer Jim Stengel sure talks funny.
In an Ad Age piece about retaining creative talent on P&G’s advertising accounts, Stengel said he can’t stop somebody from leaving.
Except, here’s how he put it:
"If someone is incented and wants to change companies, there’s limited impact anyone can have on that."
Ooh la la!
What? Is incented a word? Or am I missing something?
I don’t even know what he means.
If it’s by the syllable, perhaps he should have tried “incentivized” or “incentivated”–or to contribute further to the obscurity, “incentiactivated.”
But more likely the employee was incensed and bolted for the door, because the prospect of staying put was incentive enough to run like the wind from an employer who throws up its hands and says, “nothing we can do will stop ’em if they want to go.” Argh.
I was recently in a meeting with a VP Marketing. Referring to a decision that had yet to be made by a team, he said “I don’t think they’ve consensed on that yet.” I’m all for the idea of a living language and all, but c’mon … “CONSENSED”?
And it goes without saying that if you’re incented to be consensed, you’re incensed.
Or nonsensed.
I am propensed to abandon any pretense of sense, without ambivalence, hoping you, David, have a valid license (avoiding accidents and any criminal offense and subsequent legal defense) and, ignoring expense or any thought of recompense (but hoping to avoid insolvence), exhilarated with suspense and sheer desipience, climb into your Scout–verily, a modern clarence–like two adolescents to experience an intense circumference of the dense Chicago wilderness.
Forgive my artistic license, grandiloquence, imprudence or impertinence. It is offered without belligerence, in a spirit of beneficence (perhaps I should add penitence), for which I ask your indulgence, benevolence and lenience (and hope not to have induced crapulence).
I hence will practice abstinence from silly word play.
It’s so funny that, at a certain level in most big organizations, executives start talking in this corporate gibberish. That’s what an isolated community and a closed culture usually produce. Reminds me of Jamaica.
Joan, that’s amazing and a little scary. Yes, Ron: corporate life: Jamaica without the grass.
David, you’re a genius!
I think you may be onto something here! Perhaps all we need to do is get these executives smoking some grass – we could tell them it’s “a new senior management perk” that will “help us all work toward meeting our goals with the same mindset”
Then we just wait for them all to chill out and quit talking like Steven Hawking.
Okay, here’s a new one on me. Taken from an email I received this morning:
“Anonymizers – The Latest Threat to Your Web Security”
omg…