Offender: Blue sky thinking
Every one of us has been an email chain which is borderline unintelligible for the amount of corporate lingo thrown in there. At City A.M., we’re taking a stand and calling out the worst jargon which travels around the City faster than you can drink an overpriced pint. This week: blue sky thinking.
What does it mean?
Blue sky thinking refers to brainstorming with no limits, conditions that are likely to alarm HR. As described by industry authority Quickbooks, “with this approach to idea generation, ideas don’t need to be grounded in reality” – that much was clear.
Who uses it?
Self-help devotees who eat their Cheerios habit-stacked with meditation, journaling and their side hustle of choice. Finding your workload a bit tough? It’s time to manifest having a better time, they’ll tell you enthusiastically, as they thrust a copy of The Secret into your hands.
Often found by a flipchart with a marker clamped in hand, these productivity gurus lead thought-showering sessions with unsettling zeal, urging you to open your mind and throw menial matters like common sense and budget constraints out the window. This mindset will not be adopted when it comes to your pay review, mind you.
Offenders are also likely to have found themselves at the bottom of a pyramid scheme at some point in their life.
Should we be worried?
Undoubtedly. Delusion is not of no consequence and these wide-eyed brainstormers must be brought back to ground level before they take off high into the Twittersphere at the altar of Elon Musk. Blue-sky thinking is best left to meteorologists or actual visionaries, like astronauts and seers.
How do we get rid of it?
The next time someone asks you to engage in blue-sky thinking, add their name to the list of volunteers for SpaceX’s Mars colonisation mission. They’ll find happiness there and, more importantly, they’ll be 140m miles away from you.