I’m a management consultant and writer serving organizations both large (Fortune 500) and small (nonprofit) on a range of strategic issues

bite of the apple

BusinessJargon
Posted on November 29, 2016

worm in bitten apple

a discrete chance or opportunity to achieve something, as in “we better polish our sales pitch for tomorrow Phil, I don’t think we’re going to have another bite of the apple”; more than one of these for a given individual is often worth remarking on; similar to the term at-bats,1 a bit of jargon preferred in more sports-oriented environments, and used when the referenced opportunities are somewhat more numerous

  1. This term may require some familiarity with the sport of baseball to fully appreciate, as the other bat-and-ball game with some global reach, cricket, generally has limited at-bats in a game for a given player, although they can be far longer in duration. ↩

goat rodeo

BusinessJargon
Posted on November 23, 2016

saddled goat

a folksy and somewhat ridiculous term referring to a chaotic mess, used to put a jocular sheen on what may actually be a rather serious situation; getting one under control may necessitate herding cats, a tangentially-related bit of jargon in that both compare present circumstances to the chaotic and uncontrollable behavior of multiple small and generally feisty animals

Keeping it real

BusinessHumor
Posted on September 2, 2015

rebranding

boil the ocean

BusinessJargon
Posted on June 2, 2015

to embark on an apparently impossible, wasteful or fruitless task, usually preceded by an exhortation not to, as in: “Let’s not boil the ocean here, an 80/20 should be enough”; this term suggests that the amount of effort to be expended is not worth the potential payoff; similar to the far more cringe-inducing and unnecessarily baroque mouse milking

sailing ship in tea kettle

ankle-bite

BusinessJargon
Posted on January 30, 2015

dog biting ankleto persistently remind someone or a group about his or her responsibilities in a mildly unpleasant way but without acrimony; evokes the behavior of a small yippy dog that nips at one’s heels annoyingly but is generally harmless, or a sheepdog herding animals; a similar term with more whimsical connotations is tickle, as in “I’ll tickle the group for that feedback tomorrow morning if I haven’t heard from them by then”

mouse milking

BusinessJargon
Posted on January 20, 2015

dubious mouse

to embark on a task for which any potential output is far outweighed by the effort required to generate it, mouse milking is a far more cringe-inducing and unnecessarily baroque version of the more common phrase boil the ocean; users of this term generally assume a certain familiarity with those listening, as in the wrong context one can only imagine the consternation that would follow its injudicious deployment