Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

One word: Retroencabulator.

So I guess this is a double-edged test.

"Hmm, I want to hire people who fail CBSR test, I'll look like god to them. F*ck critical thinkers, I only need slightly above average people anyway."

This is very relevant to the LLM era.

So, it wasn’t my imagination.

> To test this, he created a “corporate bullshit generator” that churns out meaningless but impressive-sounding sentences like, "We will actualize a renewed level of cradle-to-grave credentialing” and “By getting our friends in the tent with our best practices, we will pressure-test a renewed level of adaptive coherence.”

So you’re saying people who thought randomly-generated, meaningless sentences sound smart aren’t themselves smart? Who would’ve thought.

>Overall, the findings suggest that while “synergizing cross-collateralization” might sound impressive in a boardroom, this functionally misleading language can create an informational blindfold in corporate cultures

I believe this is the whole point. To confuse listeners and subtly manipulate them into thinking that they don't understand so they will stay quiet. Politicians do absolutely the same, in today's world it's called "smoke screen".

This article sparks joy

Won't forget from one of the Pratchett's book, where the word "synergy" was called a whore. Don't have the english edition of Going Postal handy to find the exact quote, but it was a glorious rant against a CEO's interview in the newspaper.

I find it interesting how different companies have a different BS, that marks people as insiders. The insiders like to make the implication that it is the newcomer who is at fault, because they only know the real words for things. Slimey salesey newcomers pick up on it instantly.

Often it is misuse of terms that actually have real meanings that annoy me most

           SOCIOPATHS
                │
        SOCIOPATHS WITH MBAs
                │
      SOCIOPATHS WHO LIKE POWERPOINT
                │
          OVERWORKED DOERS
                │
            CONFUSED PEOPLE
                │
             LOSERS

“Might be bad at their jobs” was a very corporate speak way of saying they might be dumb.

In case you missed that and were impressed by the bullshit language used. ;-)

I hate these studies. They make such bold claims and then when you dig deeper they basically gave a few students some questionuerre with leading questions and then claim they figured out how people work.

Cf. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374721237/whattechcallsth...

> Employees who are impressed by vague corporate-speak like “synergistic leadership,” or “growth-hacking paradigms” may struggle with practical decision-making, a new Cornell study reveals.

Hey, I find that type of lingo nauseating, and I still struggle with practical decision-making.

There was a good corporate bullshit generator posted here in HN but probably before chatGPT became a thing. Can't seem to find it.

Love ? That's for plebs. The right thing is to leverage wholistic synergizing paradigms.

Corporate speak, as satirized in the Weird Al hit "Mission Statement", actually serves an important social function. It signals "I'm one of you, the business class, I will align my goals with those of the organization."

It's like that phenomenon of, you have these British people, Hyacinth Bucket types. They want to be seen as upper class when they're not. So they speak in an overly polite register that they think makes them sound upper class. Actual aristocrats, by contrast, speak rather plainly amongst each other. They know where they are in society, and they know that everyone else who matters also knows.

Similarly, the people who speak of operationalizing new strategies and leveraging core competencies are trying to sound impressive to those below, and like good little do bees to those above. The people who lead an organization to success speak in terms of the actual problems they encounter and the real things that need to be done to solve them.

The trick in corporate environments is to watch for the people who respond well to this kind of speech and avoid/eject.

The people who roll their eyes at corporate nonsense are your skunkworkers.

In other news, the grass is green and the sky is blue.

You think?

In related news, water is wet and cats usually don't seem to feel confortable when sprayed with it.

deloitte

this is a roadmap for the conniving lickspittles. Paired with the 48 laws of Power (and weak leadership), it's a winner.

Now the turbo encabulator on the other hand...

'The results revealed a troubling paradox. 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. Those more receptive to corporate BS also scored significantly worse on a test of effective workplace decision-making.

The study found that being more receptive to corporate bullshit was also positively linked to job satisfaction and feeling inspired by company mission statements. Moreover, those who were more likely to fall for corporate BS were also more likely to spread it.'

How is this a paradox?

This is known to everyone who worked with these corpo drones, that language is just to look smart and give the optics of being knowledgeable and professional, and it doesn’t end there, I also personally add to that anyone who jumps into XYZ bandwagon trend that are being used by popular silicon valley companies, like open office environment, scrum useless meetings, the forced harmony, daycare level team activities, among many more.

And you can get the gist of that company or people during the interview actually.

I'd view it as cargo cult competence. If we can just repeat the buzzwords and phrases enough times, with enough zeal, then everything will work out great.

I have always been skeptical / disdainful of people who speak in corporate bullshit all the time. It's very tryhard and rather unnecessary in my view.

I am shocked. Shocked! This is shocking /s

[flagged]

The intention of these phrases is to "hack" into the inner-workings of the human brain, into how people create power structures. Legalese exists for a reason. Language is not just a tool for communication but a system that defines roles for people in a power structure.

The phrases "Come here, boy!" and "Could you come here for a second?" have the same function, but the structure is inverted. Same for the phrases "I simplified the function so it's read easily" and "I made an strategic decision that enables robust scalability and growth". It all boils down to authority signaling.