Has your boss ever used the expression “Let’s put the moose on the table”? This management buzzphrase, meaning “let’s address the problem everyone’s been avoiding,” is relatively new, showing up in print around the early 1990s. The phrase pops up in books by former Eli Lilly CEO Randall Tobias and management guru Jim Clemmer. In Clemmer’s book Moose on the Table, he tells a possible origin tale about a baby moose that crawled under a buffet table, only to be avoided by the patrons as it stank up the banquet hall. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Moose on the Table”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello there.
Hi, who’s this?
This is Vicki calling from Greenwood, Indiana.
Hi, Vicki. Welcome to the program.
Hello.
Thank you.
What can we help you with?
Well, a few years, I’m retired now, but a few years ago when I was employed,
There was a phrase that went around at work, and it was called,
Let’s get the moose on the table.
And I may have known at the time where it came from,
But if I did, I’ve since forgotten.
And I kind of wondered if you knew where that came from.
Where did you work, if I could ask?
Sure.
I worked at a large Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company.
Okay.
Mm—
Would that happen to be Eli Lilly?
It would be.
And so lay the situation out for us.
Where would you hear this?
Is this something you would hear in a job review or in a meeting or an annual report?
It was when we would be holding a meeting, maybe a staff meeting with a manager and department heads.
And, in fact, the manager, I remember the manager who started using the term,
She even, when she would say the term, she would even bring out a little stuffed moose
And sit it right in the center of the table, and she’d say,
Okay, it’s time to get the moose on the table.
That’s nice.
That’s nice.
So it was a matter of discussing something that everybody was avoiding discussing?
Yes, it could have been that, or people were holding back in the discussion,
Or it was a controversial issue, or something nobody really wanted to talk about.
And how did that work?
Did it work well?
It worked pretty, yes, it did work well.
As I remember, it seemed like once that phrase was said, everybody just kind of relaxed and opened up, and discussion was freer.
Very good.
So a big hairy icebreaker, in other words.
Yes.
Kind of like the elephant in the room, right?
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of.
Yes, very similar to that.
Yeah.
I know it goes back to at least the early 1990s.
I’m not sure that we have a specific origin for it besides the fact that it’s a great image to picture everybody around a table with a giant moose on it.
And they’re sort of moving the hoof out of the way to reach their blackberry.
Right, right.
But it basically says you have to acknowledge the things and the problems that are in front of you, right?
Yeah, correct.
You can’t just avoid them.
Yeah.
Pretty interesting stuff.
The reason I guess that you worked for Eli Lilly is that a lot of times this is credited to Randall Tobias, who ran Eli early in the 1990s.
That’s correct. He did.
And he’s used this in at least one of his books. It may even have that same title.
And it’s possible that he’s the one who originated it.
Now, it’s hard to say for sure.
It’s been used so many times in different management books and management courses and advice that people are giving in seminars.
And there’s a book in 2003 by Jim Klemmer called Moose on the Table, and he uses the term throughout the book.
About that.
Yeah.
I didn’t realize it had been around so long.
I was going to guess that it had been maybe 10 or 12 years since I had heard it.
So it’s been around longer than that.
Well, have you heard one of the stories about its purported origin?
No, I haven’t.
Well, this is the one that Klemmer tells in his book, and it’s possible that he made it up,
But it’s pretty colorful.
He said they speculate that it originated in an actual thing that happened in Maine on a hot summer day.
According to the story, a baby moose crawled under a buffet table that had like a, you know,
A skirt on it or a tablecloth and died.
It created a horrid stench, but nobody knew what it was.
And because they were all worried about embarrassing somebody else and it was a formal reception,
Nobody mentioned it.
And so everyone just tried to act as if there wasn’t a problem.
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
Now, the moose was under the table and not on the table, and there’s some problems with the story,
But this is the story that Clemmer tells in his book.
Well, isn’t that interesting? I’ve never heard that before.
Well, thanks for sharing that one with us.
Oh, you’re welcome, and thanks for taking my call.
Thanks for putting that moose on the table.
Okay, goodbye.
Bye-bye.
All right, take care.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
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