Corporate speak makes smart people sound stupid

Sit through any meeting or scroll through a PowerPoint deck, and you will be drowned in jargon that manages to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It fills the room and fills the pages. It also manages to say very little.

Somewhere along the climb up the corporate ladder, meaning seems to fall off. The higher the title, the thicker the fog.

Annual reports, boardroom presentations and strategy sessions have become exercises in avoiding plain speech.

South African executives are no exception. They have perfected the art of sounding important while explaining almost nothing. If you do not get it, that is your problem.

In the eighties and nineties, we already had our fair share of nonsense.

We applied blue-sky thinking, came up with ballpark figures, remained proactive rather than reactive, and tapped into our knowledge base and core competencies, all to satisfy the budget.

Then, we created win-win situations. We focused on deliverables and promised next-level results. We politely asked that nobody move the goalposts.

It was possible then, as it still is now, to say a great deal while committing to very little. Many executives would rather wax lyrical about holism than offer two clear sentences about what the business is actually doing.

Much said about nothing

Economist Dawie Roodt from the Efficient Group called it padding. He said jargon becomes a placeholder while you work out what you really want to say. Because it is vague, you can later point back at it and claim you warned everyone. When in doubt, mumble.

Psychologist Louisa Niehaus agreed. She said colourful language is not new, but the stickiness of jargon has settled well into corporate culture.

These phrases become fashionable. Everyone recognises them. They sound impressive. They are also conveniently vague, which shifts the burden of interpretation onto the reader or listener. It becomes a safety net. If nobody is sure what was said, nobody can be held to it.

The irritation has grown loud enough that the Plain English Campaign has been fighting back since 1979.

They even certify documents with their Crystal Mark, guaranteeing communication that is free of gobbledygook.

Roodt said part of the problem is that managers are expected to sound clever, but few are genuinely creative. Jargon becomes a shortcut. You sound informed without having to think too hard about what you are actually saying.

Certified gobbledygook free

Niehaus added that it also creates an inner circle of people who appear to be in the know. Industry speak becomes a costume for expertise. It creates heavy, unclear conversations where nobody really understands what is being said, but nobody wants to admit it either.

Younger staff are especially vulnerable. They copy what they hear. They learn quickly that sounding complicated is rewarded more than being clear. Confusion quietly becomes company culture.

It does make people feel included. You learn the code. You speak the language. The impression is created that you are an expert.

“When taking a drone view of the complementarity between agenda and implementation and the mid-term review of the triple bottom line, it may become necessary to dovetail across all strategic aspects of the business. This will require an integrated approach to create synergy and enable a paradigm shift.” Gobbledygook.

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Unlike medicine or science, which need technical language to be precise, modern boardrooms tend to require the continuous invention of nonsense.

Niehaus compared it to sermons delivered in Latin in the Middle Ages, when churchgoers understood nothing but were expected to nod anyway.

Today, political and corporate leaders can hide behind complicated language, manipulate information and sometimes easily spread misinformation. Gobbledygook offers plausible deniability. If nobody can clearly repeat what you said, nobody can clearly prove that you were wrong.

And so the meeting ends. The slides are saved. The minutes are filed. Everyone leaves feeling busy, yet very little has actually been said.

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