Makes sense to me... bullshitters LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE lingo... the people that really know their stuff are able to ELI6 most complex issues

Golden.

Essentially, the employees most excited and inspired by “visionary” corporate jargon may be the least equipped to make effective, practical business decisions for their companies.

“This creates a concerning cycle,” Littrell said. “Employees who are more likely to fall for corporate bullshit may help elevate the types of dysfunctional leaders who are more likely to use it, creating a sort of negative feedback loop. Rather than a ‘rising tide lifting all boats,’ a higher level of corporate BS in an organization acts more like a clogged toilet of inefficiency.”

The results of this study will undoubtedly produce a sea change in corporate culture while simultaneously creating opportunities for cross functional collaboration resulting from this paradigm shift. /s

The purpose of a system is what it does.

If an organization rewards empty bluster and ChatGPT-driven corporate drivel, then that it is because those things are the organization's purpose.

Corporate lingo is a social filter for humanoid shitweasels to identify their peers and control eventual threats.
Nothing is more menacing to an incompetent manager than an underling speaking the truth. Thankfully corporate lingo allows underlings to be dismissed out of hand because either:

• they didn't use the correct lingo ("Steve fired the only guy who knew how that machine worked and ain't nobody got time to figure it out because every other machine is falling apart as we speak" -> you get muted on teams and a meeting is booked with HR)
• they did use the the correct lingo which is - entirely by design! - devoid of negative turns of phrase ("our rightsizing efforts mean that other team members will have to step up and synergize" -> sounds fine, deal with it, next topic).

I’m sorry, but “synergizing” and “paradigm”, aren’t these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I’m accusing them of anything like that—

I’m fired, aren’t I?

To analyse the impact of this study I recommend that we set up an interdepartmental committee with fairly broad terms of reference so that at the end of the day we'll be in the position to think through the various implications and arrive at a decision based on long-term considerations rather than rush prematurely into precipitate and possibly ill-conceived action which might well have unforeseen repercussions.

Corporate bullshit is done by talkers, not by makers.

Corpospeak serves an important purpose though. It's how they identify the correct people to fail upwards.

Jordan Peterson enters the chat

I only know what synergy means from Balatro

This is hilarious.

It's almost like the ability to confidently blather insane buzz words has no connection to the ability to do any work whatsoever.

Okay just for fun, I wanted to take a stab at trying to understand some of the examples mentioned in the article.

We will actualize a renewed level of cradle-to-grave credentialing.

We're gonna do a really good job of making passwords (or degrees?) that last a lifecycle.

By getting our friends in the tent with our best practices, we will pressure-test a renewed level of adaptive coherence.

By convincing people we can do our jobs well, we're gonna prove we're really good at listening.

For instance, a leaked 2009 Pepsi marketing presentation with language such as “The Pepsi DNA finds its origin in the dynamic of perimeter oscillations…our proposition is the establishment of a gravitational pull to shift from a transactional experience to an invitational expression …”

uhhh okay this is tough. how about:

Pepsi is known for waves (maybe lmao? i genuinely don't know what perimeter oscillations is trying to say). We want to make people feel like buying Pepsi isn't just buying something but is an invitation.

Our device strategy must reflect Microsoft’s strategy and must be accomplished within an appropriate financial envelope

oh this actually isn't that hard: "Corporate cut our budget."

Workers who were more susceptible to corporate BS rated their supervisors as more charismatic and “visionary,” but also displayed lower scores on a portion of the study that tested analytic thinking, cognitive reflection and fluid intelligence.

Guess which workers the supervisors like and want to see more and promote and which ones they really want to get rid of?

BTW, AI text also is interesting to evaluate in this context.

This is very good news actually.

Time ago, I interacted with a vendor contact who was an expert at using such corpo-jargon—it was a masterclass in listening to English sentences devoid of meaning every time she spoke in meetings. If it was 40 years in the future she’d probably have a bunch of cyberwear and a whole team of corpo-ninjas at her disposal.

She is no longer employed by said vendor (or moved to a different project/disposed of by corpo-ninjas on their end—who knows).

Hope she’s still making the big money saying literally nothing.

Also glad I don’t gotta get talked at by her anymore.

Open kimono?

You learn it, you climb the ladder, you bring your kids a higher paycheck. Literally we're conditioned to learn it like dogs

Weird Al, Mission Statement

I think it's a complex problem. A lot of these "buzzwords" are actually quite semantically rich, if used correctly. "Synergy" refers to the principle of mutually advantageous reinforcement between factors, like the "three sisters" technique in agriculture. "Paradigm" is a concise word to denote an established, standard framework or perspective.

They are technical jargon, when used correctly. Used responsibly, they can convey a great deal of information with high semantic density. The problem arises when they're transformed into buzzwords, layered in confusing or abstract ways.

Love what?

Is there a scientific term for the branch of inquiry dedicated towards proving the obvious? Besides "science".

If you need an example give a listen to Weird Al's 'Mission Statement'

Yeah no shit the guy who wants my team to do his job by making it sound like effective teamwork is shit. But when I call it out HR says I'm not being a team player (which is funny cause me and my team pick up a lot of slack without ever getting help in return even when it costs them effectively nothing.)

In all my years, I've never see the goat of any particular job or specialty give a damn how someone else is helping them. But if they aren't completely selfish they might choose the harder method to accomplish their tasks if it means less work for their teammates, rather than insisting others do more work to make it easier for themselves.

Kinda knew that. Number one reason I would never take an office job.