Learnings.org

the total amount of attention you can give to a task

As in...
Who has the bandwidth to help us work on the Shnoogan and Prockter pitch deck this week? It's going to be all hands on deck if we're going to get this deliverable out on time.

An increasingly common part of the 'overworked and underlaid' managers lexicon, 'Touch Base' is code for:

'I would very much like to act on my barely suppressed erotic desire for you by getting to first base at your earliest convenience.'

As in...
Bob, let me touch base with you early next week.

[Bob will of course understand this to mean that John will block out the board room, organise fresh towels, and bring scented massage oil]

1. I am so busy that I can't help you.
2. What you propose sounds boring or difficult, and I'd rather do most anything else.

As in...
I'd love to help you, but my plate is [really, very, quite, extremely] full now. Maybe when things free up again, I'll circle back with you to see what's what.

As we start digging into details, investigating, etc...

As in...
That's fine by me for the time being, but as we start peeling the onion, we might have to re-align with marketing... (LOL...corporate BS at its best)

relationship support

As in...
Hey, my client's boss will be on the call, so can you join and provide some additional air cover in case I get into trouble?

Missed or incorrectly categorized revenue.

As in...
The sales department is not getting credit for all their work due to revenue leakage in the operations group.

I'm going to sum this up for you so that your pea brain can understand it. However, if you're going to ask for further explanation I will not be able to provide it since I don't get it either and I'm just regurgitating what someone else told me.

As in...
Our conversion rates have been rising in line with industry standards over the last 4 quarters, which leads us to believe that testing methodologies and optimization strategies are working in conjunction with our overall campaign objectives. Basically, our campaigns are completely awesome.

To "lean forward" is to take risk, whether it is wise or not. It is sometimes used in militaristic terms, as in "lean forward in the foxhole."

Typically, the user of this term wants it to be known that he or she is willing to die in place, but will not go down without a fight.

As in...
"I really think we need to lean forward on this one and go ahead and purchase the inventory."

(1) A category of trees that remain, in fact, green all year round; (2) A business notion used to convey the concept of some thing, idea, person, entity, or force being unchanging and constant.

As in...
Lehman Brothers is an evergreen force to be reckoned with and a pillar of prudence and risk avoidance in the Financial Industry.

Same old boring stuff

As in...
Thanks for the proposal team, but it feels very cookie cutter. We're going to go in a different direction.