Jargon: Holistic
Translation: I think holistic may not actually be jargon, since it’s used to mean what it actually means – whole or all-encompassing. People like to talk about a holistic approach to problem solving, which generally just means trying address multiple issues at the same time. Holistic always sounds like a junk word to me, though, like people just throw it in to sound important.
This tends to be one of my favorite new bits of jargon. Whenever I hear it used I tend to think the speaker is actually saying, “Given that we have removed our heads from our collective @sses and realized that there is no single silver bullet to tackle this problem, we have opted to go for a holistic approach” or “yeah, we were tired of wasting money treating symptoms only, we’re giving root causes a try as well now. Go figure?”.
My experience with the word has been that often the speaker is being very nuanced. For example, “We wish to take an holistic approach (begin deeper meaning here) as long as my organization gets the bid then we’ll do whatever we think we do best even to the overall detriment of the effort.” See, holistic is there in spirit. Just the wrong one. For development at least.
what about Dirk Gently?
I see I am not the only one who is deeply jaded about this word.