When The Office appeared on our screens a few years ago, I barely watched it. This is because despite there being some very perceptive - and no doubt funny - writing, Ricky Gervais makes me want to grind my teeth into sand but also, and probably more significantly it was, in some ways, too close for comfort.

The thing is, anyone having worked in an office environment, whether large or small, can identify with and recognise the reality in many of the situations it depicts - team bonding training days, bosses who want to be liked and feared at the same time. Petty workplace resentments and squabbling. It’s uncomfortable. It’s cringesome. And I haven’t been able to watch it because of that.

In a similar vein, on the recommendation of a friend and colleague, I’ve recently been reading Martin Lukes’ book, Who Moved My Blackberry, which is based on his popular and long-running Financial Times column.

Although documenting the ins and outs of someone in a much more important position in a much larger organisation than David Brent at Wernham Hogg in Slough, it is, in places, so uncannily accurate a representation of experiences I have had or heard about from friends in other companies, that I have occasionally found myself having to check the name of his company on the back of the book to confirm that no, he’s not writing about any company I know or have experienced.

In addition, so much of it - dealing with life coaches, innovation agencies, organisational consultants and global teams - is so close to the bone that it makes me have to close the book, put it down on my lap, and take a few deep breaths while looking out of the window of the bus for a bit, just to stop my blood pressure from rising.

I think it’s the buzz-words and management consulting guff that rankles me more than anything: the deliberate obfuscation of meaning and sense by burying information under piles of nonsense, wreathing knowledge and data in pointless complexity and turning everything into a powerpointable diagram or analytical framework.

Speaking of which, I’ve collected a few of bits of consultant-garbled data-free knowledge voids over the years, via contacts in many industries around the world. I thought that the “relationship jigsaw” was fairly out there, but this is my favourite (actual data removed, for obvious reasons):

Just the sort of thing that would come out of Mr Lukes’ department, I’m sure.

Don’t get me wrong: I understand that frameworks for analysis can be very useful, and as a visual thinker, I’m drawn towards explaining concepts via pens and whiteboards, as well as words. But there comes a point when the message gets lost - buried, even - under the medium.

If you are a consultant in the business of providing information, then make the provision of information the primary focus of your output, rather than demonstrating how clever you can be at dressing datapoints up so that it looks like Cheops which means you can call it “The Pyramid of Pricing” or whatever. Pur-leeese.

In some industries, the more you dress information and insight up, wrap it in frameworks and and polish it to present via powerpoint, the more valuable it is. Surely the opposite should be true? The more clear, useful and actionable information and insight is, the more it can be understood and acted upon. If time is money, then surely hours spent on templates and getting curvy lines for a speech-bubble to come from the month of a clip-art character extolling the virtues of X initiative is a criminal waste, compared to the same time being spent on actually implementing the initative?

I’m a big fan of clear communication, which includes plain english, absolutely, but also includes common sense and clarity when communicating any message: Is it clear? Is it appropriate? Do people know what you expect them to do with this information, or how they should respond?

Same with data presentations: is it clear? Does it contain an appropriate level of detail (with access to more, if required)? Does the recepient know what the point of you presenting this information is?

This latter bit is what I like to call the “so what?” Whether I’m creating a presentation or an email or an announcement, I try to think about the “so what?” factor, to make sure that there’s value there for the audience. Otherwise…well, so what?