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Dan's avatar

Great write-up on the way that corporate goals affect the language through the culture! Really enjoyed it, while also squirming in my chair. Here’s a couple additional thoughts that came up while reading it.

First, there’s the way that wider American culture affects these corporate goals. The great social psychologist Geert Hofstede identified several “cultural dimensions”, which reflect how different cultures handle the unavoidable facts of living together in large groups. He defined the dimension of “power distance” as “the extent to which the members of a society accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally”. (Note the word “accept”!) [https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1888-1]

While not lowest on the list, America rates towards the lower end of the scale on the social acceptability of power differences. In other words, we all know that power differences exist (especially in corporate environments!), but it’s super-rude to acknowledge them. Hence, “neutralisms”! [http://hopeinterculturalcomm.weebly.com/power-distance.html]

The second thought is closely related. At face value, your story about Company X’s “discount employees” illustrates how Americans handle power differences that become visible: social shaming by those with less power, followed by deliberate obfuscation by those with more power. But if that example really is typical (and I think that it is), it means that, in some way, everybody really got what they wanted! Workers called out the violation of a cultural norm, thereby establishing the validity of the cultural expectation. And the company got to “paper it over” with no real consequences. Mission accomplished!

If you’re like me in this regard, that observation feels really gross. Shouldn’t we want *actual* equality, instead of re-enforcing a culture where we all collude to ignore real de-valuation of human worth? Sure! But, as you correctly call out above, it’s easier this way.

Thanks for the post. Very thought-provoking!

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Aron Roberts's avatar

There's a delightful Twitter thread about translation to corporate-ese:

https://twitter.com/MeanestTA/status/1509937547522318342

The person tweeting this noted, "Everyone on my team (5 men ages 48-75) texts me to make sure the slang they’re using is correct in context. ... In return they translate my frustrations into professional corporate."

An example they shared of one of those translations to 'corpspeak':

Me: “How do I say this meeting is a waste of my time I am not paid enough to deal with your bullshit?”

Boss: “Can you provide me with a meeting agenda so I can ensure my presence adds value? I want to prioritize my schedule to support our most urgent needs.”

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