[friendlybus]

Well this is a mean spirited attempt at destroying words that have meaning. Some people use them incorrectly and the nature of business moves on making them ineffective. Attacking them on multiple levels without describing when they are used in a positive sense seems unnecessary.

[MatekCopatek]

Can you give an example of some words you feel are being unfairly criticized? I.e. words that actually carry more meaning then their "plain" alternatives.

[usrusr]

The author sure lost me at "the delightfully redundant root cause" (the last two words in italics). Root cause might be redundant, perhaps even delightfully so, but only if causation chains didn't exist. Almost seems as if "delightfully redundant" might be a buzzword phrase that The Atlantic writers use to pretend to be adults. This may be a bit harsh, but a text about bad language is just asking for scrutiny. (and "glasshousian" would make a fine addition to the arsenal important-sounding words, as I'm sure this comment will end up an incomprehensible mess when I hit reply)

What disappointed me more, though, is that the examples are just not very strong. I was hoping for examples far more juicy and over the top than the tired "disrupt" and "pivot".

[antiterra]

‘Root cause’ is neither redundant nor simply a ‘corporate buzzword.’ It represents a clear concept of a causal chain with an underlying factor that gates all other contributing causes. The term has been around for a century and ‘root cause analysis’ is a formal construct in a number of professional contexts, including analysis of aviation incidents.

[phkahler]

Except when people use it as a verb as in "we need to root cause this".

[Macha]

It's got a clear brevity win over "we need to look into this to find the root cause" or "we need to perform a root cause analysis on this". This isn't the case for "resources" instead of "people", or deliberate obfuscation like the article's example of "we're happy to provide you with the paperwork to provide to your insurance company" instead of "we only take direct payments" or "your feedback is greatly appreciated" for "no" or "we have a new billing model to suit the next few years of sustainable development" for "we're raising prices"

[pas]

That sounds forced, but might still be better than "we need to do an RCA", because if someone doesn't know what RCA means in that context, then they have to ask.

[friendlybus]

You don't need 'more' meaning. These words are windows into a world of thinking about problems in a different light. I spoke to a developer who brought up the idea of disrupting Steam. I don't think that's going to happen this decade, the discussion around the idea was a good place to integrate some thoughts about gaming networks and game sales platforms. That is a productive outcome.

The author of this article is nearly vindictive in her complete portrayal that these words are vapid buzzwords that children use to appear adult and bewilder and fake their way through a paltry corporate existence.

You take away these words and people stop thinking out loud and with each other about productive ideas, analyses, directions and workflows that come from using all of the English language and not just what The Atlantic deems is above fakery.

Articles and corporate minded speech crimes like this make being your own boss mandatory, given you want to own your own mind and speech.

[pas]

The op-ed (or the author) is right, that when this kind of language is used for big corporate broadcasts it always comes off as slimy, fake, long, inefficient fluff filled around sinister double-speak.

And it also got right that when workers hide behind this language others (and the work too) usually suffer.

Of course there never is "all general business speak". Every big company has a local lingo full of bullshit, acronyms, abbreviations, phrases and so on. HR, legal, CSR, marketing and sales - so basically pieces of broadcast style communication has a lot of similarity in them, but .. that's it.

[friendlybus]

This language is supposed to represent a clear and discussed idea for people to implement and unify around. As soon as the clarity on the meaning is lost, yes it becomes a slimy conformist tool for passing the buck, hiding in the shade of the CEO's bird wing.

Whether or not people are awake to what these words are meant to mean, they still have an impact. Mission statements and company wide training getting you to repeat the words they wish you to say, has an impact on you.

Disrupting and breaking things gives lower rungs of the organization license (when misused) to interrupt progress and deflect technical debt. The further you get from what it is supposed to mean, it can be applied more broadly and in a less targeted fashion, undermining it's original purpose but still having an effect.

Those broad and diluted changes in behaviour that stems from these annoyingly 'untouchable' and 'business speak' words can be beneficial. Were you to need to skip the investment in making proper technically complete products and instead needed to move quickly and could tolerate accruing technical debt, then "installing" the words disruption and breaking things and other buzzwords changes how people talk to each other, how they think in English whilst at work and how they behave when they are unable to guide their own actions past or around certain words.

Railing against buzzwords isn't going to disappear them, taking them out of your conscious perception is only going to make them stronger in directing the flow of business by amplifying the effect of the new wave of words you can't say whilst everyone around you focuses on 'stupidity' instead of 'alignment' (for example). In that case building large systems with less technical debt and more single-purpose easy-to-maintain pieces is much easier when you don't care how 'disruptive' people are and instead care when they are stupid enough to introduce technical debt.

Another day, another past set of cultural tools erased and new ones installed. Say hi to the new boss, same as the old one. It's amazing watching the internet and culture at large walk in conformist lockstep.