Buy-In

Definition

Getting people to agree with your idea, typically achieved through a combination of PowerPoint slides, free lunch, and mild intimidation. Without buy-in, your brilliant proposal is just a Google Doc that nobody starred.

Example Usage

"We need executive buy-in before we proceed," said the team lead, beginning the ancient corporate ritual of emailing people who will not read the email.

Related Terms

Beginner

strategic

The corporate buzzword slapped onto anything that sounds remotely important or long-term, because saying something is "strategic" makes it immune to criticism. In military contexts, it actually means relating to overall war planning rather than individual battles; in business, it means whatever the PowerPoint says it means.

💼 Corporate / Business

Intermediate

synergistic

The corporate adjective used to justify mergers, acquisitions, and collaborations by claiming the combined entity will be worth more than the sum of its parts—a promise that's aspirational at best and delusional at worst. This buzzword suggests magical value creation through cooperation, often appearing in PowerPoint presentations featuring Venn diagrams. When executives say "synergistic," they mean "theoretically beneficial," though reality frequently delivers redundant departments and culture clashes instead.

💼 Corporate / Business

Intermediate

sea change

A profound or fundamental transformation, often used to describe major shifts in business strategy, market conditions, or organizational culture. Shakespeare's term for change, now deployed in quarterly business reviews.

💼 Corporate / Business

Beginner

deck chairs on the Titanic

Making trivial changes or improvements to something that's fundamentally doomed to fail. Rearranging superficial elements while ignoring the iceberg-sized problems.

💼 Corporate / Business

Beginner

meeting fatigue

The soul-crushing exhaustion from back-to-back video calls and pointless meetings that could have been emails. It's the modern workplace disease where your calendar is 100% booked but you've accomplished approximately nothing.

💼 Corporate / Business

Intermediate

seagull management

A leadership style where executives fly in, make noise, dump criticism on everything, then leave while others clean up the mess. Involves zero context and maximum disruption.

💼 Corporate / Business

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