47 percent of people surveyed reported that the meetings they attend are not productive. Don’t make it worse by saying these words and phrases.
Few of us enjoy–really enjoy–the time we spend in meetings. Part of the reason for this is the fact that, for a variety of reasons, meetings can be particularly unproductive. In fact, in a survey of 1,000 people, intranet provider Igloo found that fully 47 percent reported that meetings were unproductive. That’s pretty abysmal.
However, Igloo took its survey one step further, asking for the words and phrases that most irked the respondents to hear in meetings. Utter these in your next meeting, and not only will you tick off your fellow meeting attendees, but you will definitely look really unprofessional.
1. Think outside the box (49.26 percent)
2. A lot on my plate (43.20)
3. Touch base (39.42)
4. Bring to the table (37.64)
5. Synergy (33.47)
6. Rock star (32.27)
7. Going forward (32.08)
8. Win-win (31.28)
9. Paradigm shift (24.33)
10. Best practices (23.83)
11. Circle back (20.26)
12. Exit strategy (20.26)
13. Action item (19.17)
14. Deep dive (14.40)
15. Return on investment (11.22)
16. Bandwidth (9.83)
Originally posted at Inc.