Office Talk Dictionary – H



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H

Hack – A shortcut.  E.g.  “Does anyone have a hack for doing this?”

Half Baked – An idea that was not thought out properly or did not have full vetting.  E.g.  “Who came up with this half-baked idea?”

Half Pregnant – The idea that something is not ready to deliver something that is in development.  E.g.  “We can’t be half pregnant!”

Hard stop – A barrier that cannot t be crossed.  E.g.  “I have a hard stop at 2 so I will need to leave the meeting then.”

Hardball – Not being nice; opposite of being nice.  E.g.  “I’m going to have to play hardball with him to get the figures down.”

Heads Up – To alert someone.  E.g.  “Let me give them a heads up that this invoice will be coming.”

Heavy Lifting – The hard work.  E.g. “The marketing department will need to do the heavy lifting on this one.”

Herding Cats – The idea of making disparate groups of people all act as one.  As cats have a mind of their own, it’s the idea of trying to get  group of cats to all do the same thing at the same time.  E.g.  “Getting this done is going to be like herding cats”

High Level – An overview of a project with very little detail.  E.g.  “Can you give me a high level view of the project?”  See also 50,000 foot view.

Holistic Approach – Looking at something and taking the larger picture into consideration.  E.g.  “Let’s take a holistic approach in coming up with a solution.”

Homework – Work that needs to be done before the next meeting or touch base.  Not necessarily done at home!  E.g.  “Our homework will be to create the spreadsheet with all the new account numbers.”

Hook – Something that grabs someone’s attention.  E.g.  “What’s the hook here?”

Hornet’s Nest – A big messy problem.  E.g.  “Let’s try and avoid that hornets’ nest!”

Huddle – Typically a short meeting between larger meetings discussing a problem or a touch base.  Usually done standing up, hence the “huddle” football term.  E.g.  “Let’s have a noon time huddle before our 2PM meeting”

Hyperlocal – Something focused on a local issue that is of little or no concern elsewhere.  E.g. “This new service will be hyperlocal” or “This is a hyperlocal issue.”


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