Dan Pallotta is an expert in nonprofit sector innovation and a pioneering social entrepreneur. He is the founder of Pallotta TeamWorks, which invented the multiday AIDSRides and Breast Cancer 3-Days. He is the president of Advertising for Humanity and the author of Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential.
I'd say that in about half of my business conversations, I have almost no idea what other people are saying to me. The language of internet business models has made the problem even worse. When I was younger, if I didn't understand what people were saying, I thought I was stupid. Now I realize that if it's to people's benefit that I understand them but I don't, then they're the ones who are stupid.
There are at least five strains of this epidemic.
Abstractionitis
We have forgotten how to use the real names of real things. Like doorknobs. Instead, people talk about the idea of doorknobs, without actually using the word "doorknob." So a new idea for a doorknob becomes "an innovation in residential access." Expose yourself repeatedly to the extrapolation of this practice to things more complicated than a doorknob and you really just need to carry Excedrin around with you all day.
Acronymitis
This is a disease of epic proportions in the world of charity. I was at a meeting just two days ago at which several well-meaning staff members of a charity were presenting to their board, and the meat of their discussion revolved around the acronyms SCEA and some other one that began with "R" that I can't recall. In the span of three minutes these acronyms must have been used eight times each. They were central to any understanding of the topic at hand, but they were never defined. So I had not the vaguest idea what the presenters were talking about. None. Could have been talking about how to make a beurre-blanc sauce for all I know.
Valley Girl 2.0
My partner and I were at a restaurant in the San Fernando Valley five years ago, and a real-live Valley girl was sitting in the booth behind us talking on her cell phone. We couldn't stop listening to her. She had a world-class ability to string together half-sentences devoid of any substance whatsoever. And yet you felt as if something important were being discussed! "And she was like, ummm, and I was just like, you know, umm, no way, really, like, yeah, and when she was like that, I was just like..umm...." She could go on in this way for extended periods of time without mentioning any actual people, actions, or thoughts. There's a business version of this illness. It involves the use of words such as "space," "around," "synergy," and "value-add" with a healthy dose of equivocators like "sort of" and "kind of" to ensure that there is no commitment to anything being said: "I'm in the sort of sustainability space around kind of bringing synergistic value-add to other people's work around this kind of space." Oh, OK, that explains it.
Meaningless Expressions
I wrote about the phrase "thinking outside the box" recently and how overused and utterly misunderstood the expression is. There are many more. Another term that has lost its meaning is "Let's exceed the customer's expectations." Employees who hear it just leave the pep rally, inhabit some kind of temporary dazed intensity, and then go back to doing things exactly the way they did before the speech. Customers almost universally never experience their expectations being met, much less exceeded. How can you exceed the customer's expectations if you have no idea what those expectations are? I was at a Hilton a few weeks ago. They had taken this absurdity to its logical end. There was a huge sign in the lobby that said, "Our goal is to exceed the customer's expectation." The best way to start would be to take down that bullshit sign that just reminds me, as a customer, how cosmic the gap is between what businesses say and what they do. My expectation is not to have signs around that tell me you want to exceed my expectations.
Abstract Valley Girl 2.0 Acronymitis Using Meaningless Expressions
This is when you combine the four diseases above. So you get phrases like, "You should meet this guy with the SIO. He's sort of this kind of social entrepreneur thinking outside of the box in the sustainability space and working on these ideas around sort of web-based social media, and he's in a round two capital raise in the VP space with the people at SVNP." How many times have you heard what you now recall to be precisely this sentence?
This would all be funny if it weren't true. People just don't make sense anymore. You'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you internalize this. Observe it, deconstruct it, and appreciate just how ridiculous most business conversation has become.
You will gain tremendous credibility, become much more productive, make those around you much more productive, and experience a great deal more joy in your working life if you look someone in the eye after hearing one of these verbal brain jammers and tell the person, "I don't have any idea what you just said to me."
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10 comments:
I completely agree with the author of this article. People especially in the business world do tend to talk in ways which they believe make them sound very knowledgeable. However, the fact is that most of the conversation is lost as the receiver does not interpret what is being said. It would be far more convenient if people would just get to the point in conversations by putting forward what they have in mind in simple layman terms. For example: one of my friends was talking to me about her connection with the "CIO" of this firm I was interested in for internships. She kept talking to me for about twenty minutes about the CIO and how she knows him and how easy it would be for her to introduce me to him. However, I was so confused the whole time as to whether the CIO stood for Chief Investment officer or Chief Information Officer since I had heard the acronym being used for both earlier. Finally, when I asked her about it, she said it was the Chief Information Officer which would not be much of a help for me as I was interested in the Finance department. These forms of confusion are fairly common nowadays due to the way people talk in the business world. When people use a lot of fluff, it only means that they have nothing substantial to say and are only wasting the other person's time.
I found this post amusing, and sadly, all too true. Corporate speak is a running a joke, and at times it seems like the more meaningless words you can cram into a sentence, the more people will respect you. If you listen to any mid- to senior-level manager, you'll hear constant talk like this. I always appreciate those renegades that stop and say: "did what you just say make any sense to anyone?", and they will often find that others agree with them (the personality types bold enough to pose that question are often the ones who go off to run their own company). As a young, rising employee, I've concluded that it's a balancing act. I don't recommend adopting the terminology, but at the same time, you might need to tailor your message to whatever your manager responds to the best. I just know that whenever I'm the senior level person, I will work my hardest to avoid meaningless, corporate jargon and ask that people speak in a real, meaningful language.
The author is complete right on with this article; I have heard all of these "diseases" and never really heard anyone question these statements. The two I hear the most of is Acronymitis and Meaningless Expressions. I've also frequently heard people use meaningless expression after meaningless expression in an attempt to lead and motivate others in a group. I think this actually detracts from leading a group as the lack of clarity can lead to misunderstandings.
I really enjoyed reading this article and got a good laugh out of it because I agree with the author. The one strain that I hear or see the most is Acronymitis. I have worked for two different defense companies and they use the same acronym letters but the acronyms mean different things. This can get thoroughly confusing at times. Also, when I began employment at both these companies I could barely understand what people were saying because they would only use acronyms.
I couldn't agree more. I got a good laugh out of the Valley Girl reference. I'm still young, but I'm already finding myself frustrated with "kids these days". Some girls are taking it a step further actually using abbreviations in real life conversation. You can't say "totes" (totally?) or "obvs" (obviously?) in everyday life and expect anyone outside of sorority row to take you seriously. What completely baffles me is that people who speak like this may actually be extremely intelligent individuals with serious career aspirations. I was on the executive board of an organization in undergrad as the scholarship director, which provided me access to members' grades. One of the ditziest (most obnoxious) girls in the organization, who spoke in "abbrevs on the regs", actually had a 4.0 GPA in a respectable major. We can say that we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but let's face it, we do... and so does business world.
I think FRIENDLY's comment sums up my exact sentiments regarding this article. I feel like the more complex terminology someone uses, the more they are revered and acknowledged as one's superior. Instead, such complexities often lead to confusion. I frankly find this similar to many MBA-related topics, and agree in that it is balancing act between understanding what exactly terms like "synergy" mean without overusing them or acknowledging their importance in business debates or in-class discussions. At the end of the day, I still believe there are far too many acronyms and 2.0 words being used in our daily lives.
This is a great article, and I think that all business students should read this. I agree completely with what @friendly, in that this was an "amusing and sadly true" post. I have experienced many of the strains that the author describes, and many times I find myself asking exactly what the author writes about: "what the hell did they just say?"
I think that in a business environment, a lot of people (including myself) get caught up on the buzzwords, and making sure that those buzzwords are in the report or presentation being delivered to the class/professor. My experiences within the professional, or "real" world, are limited; however, in the relatively short amount of time in this environment, I hear a lot of these buzzwords multiple times a day. For me, the most effective phrases are simple, direct, and substantive.
This post was incredibly funny, but also, however unfortunately, incredibly true. Abstractionitis is often used to be politically correct in many situations. Government-speak is riddled with acronyms, so much so that conversation is difficult to understand at all until you learn the “new language.” I agree with Sara about “kids these days.” I don’t know if it’s simply because I’m a little older now, but when I hear high school students speak, my mouth just drops. They also conduct themselves the same way on Facebook and never exercise any kind of restraint with what they post. In my Leadership class, we watched a video of George Carlin about euphemisms that directly relates to this post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNk_kzQCclo.
This post was incredibly funny, but also, however unfortunately, incredibly true. Abstractionitis is often used to be politically correct in many situations. Government-speak is riddled with acronyms, so much so that conversation is difficult to understand at all until you learn the “new language.” I agree with Sara about “kids these days.” I don’t know if it’s simply because I’m a little older now, but when I hear high school students speak, my mouth just drops. They also conduct themselves the same way on Facebook and never exercise any kind of restraint with what they post. In my Leadership class, we watched a video of George Carlin about euphemisms that directly relates to this post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNk_kzQCclo.
I would love to totally remove this kind of nonsensical jargon from my vocabulary. However, in my office, there needs to be a certain amount of flowery language to win the hearts of our decision-makers. My boss loves over-inflated sentences and excessively complicated acronyms. If I could speak straightforward English and still be perceived as competent, I would. Unfortunately, my key stakeholders drank the kool-aid.
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