Jargon has become an unfortunate staple in L&D. Acronyms are thrown around with reckless abandon – ROI, LMS, etc., Amidst the three-letter acronyms, a new breed of buzzwords has emerged, each weirder than the last. I thought I’d come up with some more trendy lingo and glib phrases. Let’s just run them up the flagpole to see who salutes.

Pitchcraft. This is the intrinsic and unknown skills that the marketeer has to win pitches. The craft is unwritten and handed down through experience and years of studying the bon mot and perfect timing. It is developed through cold room readings, and knowing and responding to the objections before they happen. The art of the push and pull in a negotiation is the Pitchcraft Master’s greatest skill.

Learniture. Every workplace has some dodgy old furniture – usually a roller chair with a stiff wheel. This is learniture – your learning furniture. The LMS which doesn’t quite cut it any more so you put a throw over it in the hope no-one will notice it’s tired. The wobbly chair which everyone avoids unless they have to use it is your compliance learning. Learniture is necessary but needs constant maintenance and repair, and you need to know when to throw it out..

Docroach. Every organisation has docroaches. These are the old, outdated documents and procedures which refuse to die. They exist in obscure folders on hidden drives, often marked with innocuous names like “Misc” or “Archive_OLD.” They exist in the shadows, rarely appearing when you want to see them but they’re there. They’re the battered paper copy with the old settings for the office printer or the ways to bypass the office systems. Much like actual cockroaches, docroaches survive organisational upheavals, mergers, and upgrades and while you might not see them every day, you know they’re there – waiting, unkillable.

Coa-ching. Pronounced like Ker-ching, this is the paid coaching programmes which your teams are put on which, over time, make little difference, but cost plenty. You’ve invested in Coa-ching, not because it works, but because someone, somewhere up the hierarchy thought it would be a good idea. They fail for plenty of reasons; the wrong participants, the wrong nomination process, the wrong structure, etc. However, the supplier still gets paid.

Trainwreck. These are the sessions which ANYONE who has worked in training has experienced. They can recall the details of the session going wrong with intimate detail explaining exactly the point when, for example, a fight started, the room flooded, the group walked out, no-one came back from lunch, etc. Trainwrecks are a rite of passage for anyone in the training field. And the best part? Everyone’s got one.

Smartyrdom. This is the act of the people who are fans of learning. They LOVE the learning function and do all the courses, classes, workshops, and online content. They leave comments on everything and can tell everyone about the sessions they’ve done. What they can’t do is explain how they’ve improved their work; smartyrdom means not doing work because you are ‘training’.

Certificake. Pretty much every LMS has these. They’re the short simple courses which cover superficial content but, and here’s the kicker’ they offer the chance to print a certificate. Light and fluffy but with evidence of doing something, your Smartyrs love getting Certificakes. They’re an unofficial learning currency.

Knowcrastination. You know you can do it quicker. You know other people want to help you. But you’re just too busy to spend the time learning how to do it better. That’s Knowcrastination – putting off learning or skill development despite knowing it’s important, and only doing it when it’s urgent.

Are any of these familiar? Let me know in the comments. Similarly, which terms do you use which need to be invested in more?