Whilst contemplating this week’s topic of twaddle, I undertook some blue sky thinking during a thought shower session as I bandied around ideas outside the box.

I decided on deregulation of topic content and hit home with ‘Management gobbledegook’. I have come to realise that ‘empty speak’ is now the norm, with leaders attempting to bamboozle subordinates by repeating fluffy mantras that are complete and utter bull.

Thankfully I do not work in such a workplace environment and plain speaking is the order of the day. You say what’s required in straight English. Job done. However, when speaking to others in differing industries at a social event, the droid-like dross spews out over a glass of pinot as nonsense emanates from the lips of brainwashed corporate flunkies.

Much of this lunacy much be attributed to Charles Krone, an organisational development specialist. Krone designed a management training programme to transform the way people ‘thought, talked and behaved’. I recall a previous workplace where not only was Christmas replaced with the ‘Winter celebration’ but Christmas cards were ordered to not be displayed or employees risked of being cast onto a ‘cultural awareness’ training course. Krone encouraged this kind of crazed nonsense with the introduction of the ‘law of three’, with the aim of introducing a framework to identify the mental energy we have. He also advocated ‘alignment’, ‘intentionality’ and ‘end state visions’ to propel employees to a higher state of corporate consciousness. The more I read about Krone, the more I appreciate never having shared a lift with him.

In the name of psychic liberation, a whole library of management speak terms were introduced, much like Cornish or Latin, with anyone outside the organisation who had not been linguistically institutionalised not having a clue as to what people were talking about, much like visiting a mechanic who starts attempting to confuse with catalytic sponge wafflers or whatever it is they talk about.

Krone was, sadly, a ‘game changer’. The fad caught on and is now used in most walks of managerial life. Managers continue to ‘run it up the flagpole’ and ‘pick it up and run with it’ as they get ‘their ducks in a row’ prior to ‘punching a puppy’. I guess if I don’t like it I could ‘get off the bus’, although there is really no escape.

Incentivising, showing unyielding integrity as an ideas Sherpa, I reach out with my helicopter view as I pick the low hanging fruit out of negative territory as I self-actualise becoming a deep diving, thought leading, lean ninja.

This is a mission critical column as I push the envelope of my core competencies. I take the deliverables to the next level as I remain client focused with you, the loyal band of end users.

The final word on management psychobabble seeping into everyday life should go to the artist formerly known as ‘funny’, now renamed as irritating multi-millionaire revolutionary Russell Brand. In an interview with the Financial Times, he muttered: "I find capitalism hard to understand. It obfuscates truth and I think an economic ideology is oppositional to the spiritual ideologies that are what we need to adopt if we're to save our planet and humankind."

I rest my case.

- Brett Ellis is a teacher who lives in London Colney