[erganemic]

I used Corpspeak pretty much exclusively for the year I spent as an entry-level analyst at a consulting firm, because--as a consequence of all the points mentioned in this article--it was cognitively easier. If writing is like creating a painting from scratch, Corpspeak is like a coloring book. Instead of mixing your own paint, you pick from a finite number of predefined crayons. Instead of needing to decide on a subject and composition, you just need to pick what image you want to fill in.

Corpspeak abounds in places that value "being in motion" over "getting results", since when you use Corpspeak, you don't actually have to think about what the best course of action is--the best course of action is always "organizing a connect with the relevant subject matter experts to draft action items for a discovery yada-yada-yada". This requires zero thought--it just requires knowing a list of buzzwords and being able to string them together. This is really easy to do! When promotion season came around, I was asked to write a report of why I deserved one, and I wrote 1200 words in a half hour--that's 40 wpm, about the average typing speed of someone just copying text! And I was complimented on the thoroughness and perspicacity of what I wrote. I got the promotion--just in time for me to find a better opportunity and bounce.

Nevertheless, I do believe there's value in Corpspeak. The reality at most companies (even ones you care about) is that a lot of the communicating you do is more-or-less inconsequential, and doesn't actually need to have a lot of care and thought put into it--and being able to let your eyes glaze over and engage in the conversational equivalent of cruise control saves cognitive resources for stuff that actually matters.