Drink the Cool Aid - To agree fully and enthusiastically with the company position on any topic. "In her sales presetations you can tell Terry's not drinking the Cool Aid. She may be demoted or reassigned."

Driving, Driver(s) - A corporate buzzword implying forward momentum. Examples: 1) Who's driving the budget? 2) How can we drive operating costs down? 3) What are the drivers in the decision? 4) I need you to drive this forward, and 5) What's driving the loss of revenue? Executives who are action-oriented or pushy are often referred to as "drivers."
 
Eagles Don't Flock - It's hard to get high-level professionals, executives, or decision makers ("Eagles") in the same room, ever, except for short periods of time for a clearly-defined and beneficial purpose. (Scheduling on a golf course helps.) "Eagles Don't Flock" explains why it's hard to fill a seminar room, hold a board meeting, or make a sales pitch.
 
Eating the Elephant - Don't try to eat an elephant in one bite. Go slowly, one bite at a time.
 
E = R (Effort = Results) - In a career transition or job campaign, those who work hard do well, and those who don't work hard don't do well. Better effort equals better results. It's a direct correlation.
 
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) - In 1990, John Mayer and Peter Salovey coined the term. Emotional intelligence meant getting to know yourself well before striving to understand and manage others. EQ is made up of five competencies or skills: 1) Self-knowledge (knowing your own emotions), 2) Self-management (managing your own emotions), 3) Motivation, 4) Empathy (recognizing emotions in others), and 5) Handling relation-ships. In 1995, Daniel Goleman introduced the concept in his bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence.
 
Employment at Will - An employment arrangement in which an employer may terminate an employee at will, for good reason, for bad reason, or for no reason at all. Some states such as Colorado are "at will" states; other states, such as California, are not. See Wrongful Termination.
 
Employment Contract - A binding legal agreement spelling out the terms and conditions of your employment. A signed letter of agreement (LOA) may be just as binding legally. Don't sign an employment contract or LOA without the advice of an employment lawyer.
 
Employment Lawyer - A specialist in the issues of hiring and firing. Don't consult your general lawyer on employment issues; he's not a specialist. Two types: for employers (corporate), and for employees (plaintiffs). 

EOB/COB - Shorthand for End of Business/Close of Business. "I need your report no later than EOB." In case you're wondering, that means today.

Executive Coaches - An emerging field of professionals who advise individuals about ways to advance their careers. Coaching can be developmental (even the best can be better), or remedial to improve poor performance. Coaches may be retained by the company or by the individual on his or her own behalf.
 
Executive Recruiter - An independent agent paid to search for (hence, "executive search") and find new talent for an organization, usually at middle and upper levels. Despite what they say and how they behave, they are not necessarily your friends. They work for and are paid by hiring companies; they don't work for, nor are they paid by individuals. They coach candidates as they present them to companies--but then it's in their best interest to do so. If you need a career counselor, it's best to hire one. There are two types of recruiters, retained and contingency. Retained recruiters are paid in advance to fill a position. Much like Realtors, contingency recruiters are paid after a placement is made, and only if they actually provided the candidate. Executive Recruiters are also called Headhunters and Executive Search Consultants.
 
Ex-military Mentality - The attitude that "The world is just waiting for me." When high-level military officers retire, they're often a bit arrogant. It's not uncommon for them to believe that business people are just waiting for them to show up and save the company. Nothing could be further from the truth. Businesses are skeptical. They don't have armored tank divisions or missile silos, and they seldom have 250,000 employees. Ex-military with an entitlement attitude usually stay unemployed a long time.
 
Executive Search Consultant - See Recruiter.
 
Exit Strategy - A company or individual's plan for leaving the business. "My exit strategy is to develop some contacts and start my own consulting firm." "Our exit stategy is to seek acquisitions, grow to $250M, and go public."

F-Word - The F-word in career planning is focus. Lacking focus is the biggest source of lack of success in the job market. See Riding Your Horse in All Directions.

Face Time - One-on-one time with important people, either customers or higher-ups. "Your productivity here isn't as important as face-time. The boss favors those he sees often."
 
Fee-Only Financial Planning - Unbiased advice about how to build your net worth. If a planner wants to sell you something besides expertise and time, it's not FOFP.
 
Fit, Good Fit, Right Fit - When a company finds someone who fills the duties and responsibilities of a job perfectly, it's referred to as a "good fit." The person's skills and the job requirements match each other. A skilled blacksmith making horseshoes, for example. As jobs become more complex and demanding, "good fit" becomes harder to achieve, because the core competencies of the job are rarer, and the individual's demands and expectations may be higher. That's why it often takes up to a year to fill high-level corporate jobs.

Both companies and individuals insist on the right fit. Executives may reject a job applicant with the phrase, "The fit isn't there," or "I don't see a fit." Fit is one of 3 criteria companies use in hiring: Can do? Will do? How fit? Can they do the job (do they have sufficient technical and interpersonal competencies), will they do the job (are they motivated), and how do they fit into our organization?
 
Flat Organization - A company with few levels of management. Most small entrepreneurial firms have flat organizations, because everyone reports to the owner or principal.
 
Free Agents - Workers who jump from project to project, company to company. Free agents' loyalties are to their skill sets and their intellectual capital, not to an employer, just like professional athletes.
 
Friendship Checklist - A list of the categories of names you should include in an announcement of a career transition: classmates, professional advisors, family members, etc. The list is included in this article: http://cover-letters.com/Cover-Letters/About-Cover-Letters/How-To-Write-A-Great-Letter/The-Most-Important-Letter-You-Will-Ever-Write.aspx

FSE (Firing Your Sherpa on Everest) - Sherpas are Himalayan mountain natives and expert climbers who guide mountaineers on such hills as K2 and Everest. Getting rid of an expert consultant in the midst of a crisis. Usually an unthinking act of panic. Don't do it. 
 
Generation X, Gen-Xers, Baby Busters - The 44 million people born in the US between 1964 and 1982 Generation Y, Millenials - The 27 million people born in the US between 1982 and 2001.
 
Geographic Cure - Mistaken attempt to solve career problems and find happiness simply by moving to a new location, or by relocating to an earlier hometown. "The grass is always greener . . . .but just as difficult to mow."

Going Forward - Often used to put bad news in the past and good news in the future. "Downsizing was necessary. Going forward, we're ready to take advantage of changing market conditions." "OK, so you're downsizing. What's your going-forward strategy." In the business mind, everything important happens in the future.

Greyhound Therapy - Putting a troublemaker, often a family member, on a bus with a one-way ticket to get them out of your hair. Companies banish out-of-favor employees by giving them promotions or relocations to obscure divisions. 
 
Headhunter - Another word for Executive Recruiter or Executive Search Consultant.

Heavy Lifting - The hard work. "These MBAs are great, but we're just looking for someone with the experience to do some heavy lifting." 
 
HH/LL - "The highest highs and the lowest lows." The process of job-hunting as described by one in the process.

HiPo's - The employees thought to have High Potential (HiPo) and possessing the competencies to become future corporate leaders. One organization referred to their HiPo's as "rocket asses."
 
Hiring by Gut Feel - Hiring based on personality and chemistry, rather than on the experience and core competencies a position requires. Example: A clinical practice might hire a physician because the spouses like each other, the candidate hasn't been sued, and the children are the same ages.
 
Human Capital/Intellectual Capital - An organization's employees, and the prized knowledge in their minds. "If we lay off 300 salespeople, we're losing a lot of intellectual capital."

Human Resources - Formerly called Personnel. The department responsible for the human capital of the organization (the people) through recruiting, hiring, employee compensation and benefits, training and development, performance management, rewards and recognition, leadership development, legal compliance, retention, and succession planning.
 
"I need a better therapist!" - The feeling we get and sometimes act on, when an advisor tells us things we don't want to hear.

Independence - Often a good thing and commonly found in successful physicians and other entrepreneurs. May be a detrimental attribute in corporate life: For example, "She's too independent; she's not a team player."
 
Individual Contributor - Someone who does work themselves. Not a manager of others. "Which would you rather be, an individual contributor or a manager?" 

Intellectual Capital - The business-related knowledge held by a company's employees collectively. It is a business asset.

Job Market - Supposedly, a market with a defined number of jobs, the job market is an abstraction useful to economists, politicians, and newscasters. Actually, according to Tony Lee, editor of The Wall Street Journal online, there are 143,000,000 job markets--one for each worker in the economy. Job seekers and career changers should concentrate less on "the job market," and more on specific opportunities and demands for their particular skills. In other words, don't let job market statistics discourage you.

Just-in-time (JIT) - Keeping a company’s inventory to a minimum. Suppliers deliver parts and raw materials to manufacturers at the precise moment they’re needed. Then manufacturers produce and deliver products to customers just-in-time. Dell Computers is a textbook example of JIT. 
 
Just-in-time Employment - Taken from "Just in time manufacturing," where raw materials are brought onto the shop floor at the last minute ("just in time") to reduce parts inventory and keep costs down. Just-in-time employment means hiring only the skills you need right now, at the moment, and laying off people with unnecessary or obsolete skills. It involves staffing via consultants, contractors, temporary employees, and interim executives. One outcome of this is that there is no job security other than what you create for yourself. You are only as valuable and as marketable as your skillset.
 
KISS Principle - "Keep it simple, stupid." Originated as a sales precept, but serves well in most business applications. Less is more.
 
Knowledge Management - An organization's ability to store and share its history and intellectual property (ideas). It's done by typing company information into a database and developing a system to track it. The idea is that everyone in the organization should be able to access the collective knowledge and wisdom of the past. 

The L-Word - Any time you mention "lawyer" in business, all bets are off. Friendly negotiation ceases, and it's time to reach for your checkbook.
 
Leadership - The ability to imagine a new direction and then lead people there. One of the most rare and valued assets in the business world. I've read hundreds of books, but this is the best book I've found on leadership. Nearly every page is highlighted. If you were asked a question about leadership during an interview, it would be perfectly appropriate to say, "My beliefs are similar to John Wooden's . . . "

Leveraging - A badly-overused buzzword which means "making the most of." Therefore, we are leveraging our assets, leveraging our resources, leveraging our experience, leveraging our sleep time, leveraging our wake time, and leveraging everything else under the sun—ad nauseum.

Lick-and-Stick Job Campaign - Derogatory phrase for a job search confined mostly to answering want ads. Today, we would call it a "Point-and-Click Job Campaign," mostly answering online job postings. Such campaigns usually fail because they are too arms-length and don't involve enough direct people contact.
 
Life Mission - A sense of being called to something bigger than yourself, to accomplish certain tasks or a definite purpose during one's lifetime. For example, finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease. See "How to find your mission in life" in What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles. Published by Ten Speed Press.

Logical Next Step - The career move that your friends and family agree is the perfect fit for you. Not always a bigger title and higher salary, the logical next step could be a step down in pay, a change of geography and industries, and a new lease on life.

Low Hanging Fruit -  In an apple orchard, it’s the apples on the low branches. In business it's the objectives that are easy to achieve: the simple stuff.

Market Ready - Having crystal clarity on your direction, goals and objectives, job targets. And having made a list of your contacts, completed your resume (or C.V.), letters to friends and professional acquaintances, and recruiters, you're ready to launch a job search campaign or take interviews.
 
Market Value - What companies typically pay someone with your skills and experience, established by national compensation studies. See www.salary.com.
 
Matrixed Environment - An organizational structure where workers answer to a functional department head, but most of their work is assigned and managed by a project manager from a different area. This means reporting to two or more bosses. If you like this idea, think two spouses or two partners.

MBA - "Masters in Business Administration," which is a sought-after degree. However, in researching this list, I found MBA can also mean, "Mediocre But Arrogant."

MBTI ® (Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator®) - A well-known temperament quiz that results in one of 16 "Psychological Types"-ENTP, ESTJ, INFP etc. Commonly used in business for teambuilding and conflict resolution.
 
MBWA - Management by walking around. Going around to see what's happening on the hospital floor, for example, as opposed to staying in one's office and depending on reports from others. Popularized by Tom Peters in "In Search of Excellence."

Mission-Critical - Uh, essential.

Networking - Meeting new people. Explaining what you do, hearing what they do, and then trying to find overlap--ways you can help them and they can help you. Networking is the primary way to develop consulting or job leads. A cliché in job-hunting circles is, "Network or Not Work." Networking trades on the notion that we are all connected. Computers are networked. The Internet is a network, a net. MCI and Sprint speak about their networks. ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and MSNBC are networks. Your list of friends, professional acquaintances, and contacts is your network. Having it means you aren't an isolated individual in the world. You are a network--a community.
 
NFL Networking - Imposing on friends-of-friends to give you advice, job leads, or the names of their friends to contact. You may approach people this way once, but seldom twice. (You'll never get a second meeting.)
 
Offline - Not now, not during this meeting. At a later time, in private. "Give me a call and we'll talk offline."

On-Boarding - The process of getting started and settled in a new job. Getting started on the right foot can make or break you. Taking time to learn the organizational culture, learning the power (political) structure. Getting some early wins, sometimes with coaching and counseling, is essential. And this is the best book in the market about "critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels:

On the Bus / Off the Bus - These terms are adapted from Jim Collins' bestseller Good to Great. Speaking of corporate staffing, he said we should "get the right people on the bus." If you're on the bus, you're on board, you have your head in the game, and are performing at a high level. (See Drinking the Cool Aid.) If you're not on the bus, you'd best update your resume. "Based on her erratic performance, it's hard to tell if Kathy is on the bus."