Weird Al Yankovic’s new album includes a song called “Mission Statement“ in which he rattles off a torrent of frequently used business jargon (in a parody of Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young), highlighting the fact that none of it really means anything.
Here are the lyrics, with links to actual corporate statements that use the terms:
Invest in world-class technology
And leverage our core competencies
In order to holistically administrate
We’ll set a brand trajectory
Using management’s philosophy
Advance our market share vis-à-vis
With strong commitment to quality
Effectively enhancing corporate synergy
Providing our supply chain with diversity
We will distill our identity
Through client-centric solutions
And synergy
We must monetize our assets
Can you visualize a value-added experience?
That will grow the business infrastructure and
Our capitalized reputation
With cross-platform innovation
Networking, soon will bring,seamless integration
Robust and scalable, bleeding-edge and next-generation
And gaining traction with our resources in the marketplace
It’s mission-critical to stay incentivized
________* flexible solutions for our customer base
If you can’t think outside the box
You’ll be downsized
It’s a paradigm shift! (Hey, Hey! Look out!)
Well, it’s a paradigm shift, now!
(Here we go! Here we go! Here we come! Here we come! Ha!)
*Note: Weird Al is such a business wonk that in the last verse, he threw in jargon not even Quartz could decipher. If you can figure it out, please annotate this post.