|
| |
Confessions of a Corporate Ex-communicator
by Pete Moore
"Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding."
-- Hobbes the Tiger, in Bill Watterson’s "Calvin and Hobbes" (1993)
Over the past two years, I became bilingual without meaning to. Mastering a
foreign language is generally considered a plus for those who toil in the global
economy, so I guess it's just as well that I'm now fluent in English and
corporate-speak.
I'm hardly unique, though. Any modern cube dweller can parse the dialect of
Dilbertland. All it takes is an ear for trendy jargon, clumsy euphemisms,
multiple syllables where one would suffice, and the gratuitous use of nouns as
verbs (we can dialogue about that later).
Although most office workers take this linguistic lunacy in stride, I'm feeling
a tad guilty about it. Why? Because I not only understand it, I also perpetrated
it during my recent stint as a corporate communicator for a Fortune 100 company.
In memos, scripts, and website articles geared to my fellow employees, I
practiced this screwy sleight of word.
That's a tough admission for a professional wordsmith who has long preached
higher standards in business writing. Indeed, I've spent much of my 20-year
career trying to convince middle managers that "utilize" is a perfectly
unacceptable substitute for "use."
When I landed this particular gig, however, I had been out of the corporate
lingo loop for nearly a decade.
Classic buzzwords such as "paradigm shift" and "synergy" had given way to "scope
creep" and "performance enablement." "Brainstorming" was out; "ideation" was in.
Heck, I was still "thinking outside the box" when I should have been "visioning
process excellence."
Clearly, it was time for me to reskill-- nay, upskill-- in the art of
gobbledygook. Doing so would put me on the same page as my business partners.
What could be more mission-critical?
Yet I resisted at first. I couldn't see myself waxing corporate on Friday, then
sporting my "Eschew obfuscation" T-shirt on Saturday. Let others leverage best
practices, share key learnings, and define non-negotiables. As a writer, I would
ban such entries from my personal dictionary, inspiring others to do the same.
This proved easier verbalized than executed. So pervasive and entrenched was the
corporate vernacular that it began to sneak into my writing, despite my best
intentions. A tortured turn of phrase here, a verbed noun there-- before I knew
it, I was adopting some of the very pretensions I had always deplored.
Oh, I never used "architect" or "decision" as a verb, or "leadership" when I
meant "leaders"-- as in, "Now that staffing actions have been decisioned,
leadership will architect a solution to align capacity to demand, in keeping
with our core values." (Translation: "Now that we've laid off half our
workforce, we're scrambling to get things done, but at least our stock price
went up.")
Still, if I keyboarded "strategic partnering to enhance our customer-facing
value stream" once, it was once too often. Ditto for allowing ersatz verbs such
as "repurpose" to escape my lips. (Repurposing is when you version an old
deliverable for a new audience.)
I'm not suggesting that the work itself lacked substance or integrity. In fact,
I'm proud of my former teammates and our tireless efforts to deliver vital
information under impossibly tight deadlines. I just wish the language we used--
the default vocabulary of corporate communication-- had been a little more,
well, communicative.
The more I wrote, the more I realized that easing my professional discomfort
would call for some serious ideation. A detailed strategy statement, supported
by robust metrics, was not out of scope. Why not drill down for a more granular
analysis to optimize my solution set?
Then it occurred to me: It wasn't enough to strategize; I would have to
operationalize. Effect a transition. Put a stake in the ground with regard to my
career pathing.
In short, call it quits.
Thus, after 18 months, I moved on to a new role and a cleaner, simpler writing
style. Although I miss my old colleagues, I'm no longer committing as many
brazen acts of attempted English.
But please keep me honest. Bilingual habits are hard to break. If you spot any
turgid phrases, verbed nouns, or other corporate claptrap in my prose, kindly
reach out and engage me in a coaching moment. I’ll gladly make it my stretch
goal to exceed expectations on a going-forward basis.
Freelance columnist and night owl Pete Moore lives in Charlotte, NC, where he
frequently pens commentaries into the wee hours, skewering favorite targets such
as people who use “pen” as a verb. For obvious reasons, Pete also holds a day
job (as a boring financial writer). A frequent contributor to The Charlotte
Observer, he has also written opinion pieces for the Los Angeles Times, the
Wichita Eagle, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and several North Carolina weekly
and daily papers. His radio commentaries have been featured on WFAE 90.7 FM, the
Charlotte affiliate of National Public Radio, and in the anthology On Air:
Essays from Charlotte’s NPR Station, WFAE 90.7 (Main Street Rag, 2004). Pete is
a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. E-mail him at
number9writer@yahoo.com.
| |
Sponsored links
Ring binders
Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer!
How to find a
book publisher
|
