Consulting·62·Added 2026-09-08

Piggyback

The act of repeating a colleague's excellent idea in slightly different words to ensure you receive half the credit for none of the cognitive effort.

What they actually mean

"I have contributed nothing to this project, but I am physically present in the room."

Heard in the wild

"Just to piggyback on what Sarah was saying about cost reduction, I also think we should spend less money."

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Cross-pollinate

The practice of forcing two entirely unrelated departments into a meeting room in the vague hope that their proximity will spontaneously generate a profitable idea.

"We need to cross-pollinate the compliance team with our creative designers to see what sparks fly."

Translation

"Neither team has any idea what the other does, but it makes the calendar look busy."

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To bubble up

To escalate an issue or piece of information through the corporate ranks, ensuring it is sufficiently diluted by the time it reaches someone with the power to make a decision.

Let's bubble this feedback up to the steering committee to see what they think.

Translation

I want to pretend I am doing something with your complaint without actually having to resolve it.

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To sense-check

The act of asking a colleague to review a piece of work to ensure it does not contain errors so glaringly obvious they could end careers.

"Could you just run your eyes over this deck to sense-check the numbers before we send it to the board?"

Translation

Please tell me I haven't accidentally predicted a four hundred percent loss.

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