# Buzz Words, Hypes, and Fads By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2023-02-15 Like electrons swirling around the nucleus of an atom, buzzwords, hype, and fads spin around the domain of management. The core of management isn’t too dynamic. At its most basic, management is focused on the planning, organizing, leading, and controlling functions within an organization. The buzzwords emerge in response to these core functions. One person might examine leadership and think that followership highlights better what a servant leader is called to do. Another might observe the element of control and think that empowerment captures better what employees today demand or deserve. Fads emerge and quickly fade away. There has been management by [[objectives]], management by walking around, one-minute management, and 360-degree feedback to name just a few. The popularity of the fad is fueled by dissatisfaction with the way things are and the hype that this new approach will make things better. The fad dissipates when experience reveals that the buzzwords simply changed organizational rhetoric but little else. The same people inhabited the same organization and enacted work in the same way. Buzzwords, hype, and fads will never deliver significant results. This does not need to be a resignation to the [[status quo]]. It does, however, change how we think about improving management and organizational reality. It also changes where we should look to inform those improvements. Management fads are a product, no different from the other products offered to the insecure and desperate. Perhaps there is an element of insight, but for the most part, it is snake oil. Real change isn’t about buzzwords, hypes, and fads. It isn’t about making leaders, followers, or workers. It is about transforming the hearts and minds of those engaged in work and bolstering the confidence and security of the most vulnerable members of the organization. Everything else is claptrap. People living in fear of repercussions and reprisals will say what they think management wants to hear. It isn’t hard to see that unless that single element is addressed, there won’t be any significant change in how subordinates relate to those in charge. One could create a new buzzword for fear; maybe “productivity fuel” is catchy enough to become a fad. #### Related Items [[Business]] [[Management]] [[Management Fads]] [[Leadership]] [[Organizational Analytics]]